2013年伯克希尔股东会问答：
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. Marc Marzotto, Toronto, Canada.
股东：谢谢。马克·马尔佐托，来自加拿大多伦多。
Bill Gross made recent comments that his generation of investors, yourselves included, owed a deal of their success to timing.比尔•格罗斯最近评论说，包括你们在内的这一代投资者，他们的成功在很大程度上要归功于时机。
Do you agree with Bill’s comment, and do you think a similar opportunity will provide itself to today’s investors? Thank you.你同意比尔的评论吗？你认为今天的投资者会有类似的机会吗？谢谢你！
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, there’s no question that being born in the United States was a huge, huge, huge advantage to me, and as I’ve pointed out in a recent article, being born male was a big advantage.沃伦•巴菲特: 是的，毫无疑问，出生在美国对我来说是一个巨大的、巨大的、巨大的优势，正如我在最近一篇文章中指出的，作为男性出生也是一个很大的优势。
I would not have had the same opportunities in the investment, or in the business world, remotely, that I’ve had if I’d been a female born in 1930.如果我是一个出生于1930年的女性，我在投资或商业领域就不会有这么多机会。
And the timing could have been a little better. Actually, my dad was a security salesman and, you know, I was conceived in November, 1929. And if you remember, the stocks had gone down dramatically at that time.而且时机本可以更好一些。实际上，我的父亲是一名证券推销员，你知道，我是在1929年11月受孕的。如果你记得的话，那时股票市场经历了剧烈的下跌。
There really wasn’t anybody to call on, for my dad, and there wasn’t any television at home or anything. So here I am, you know. (Laughter)真的没有人可以打电话给我爸爸，家里也没有电视或任何东西。所以我在这里，你知道。(笑声)
So I feel myself very lucky that the crash of 1929 came along.所以我觉得自己很幸运，1929年的大崩盘发生了。
And that also provided a decade, more than a decade, of people who were very turned off. Well, it was a decade of terrible business for quite a while, and then a decade of — more of people that were turned off on stocks, just as we sort of had a decade like that in the past decade going up to 2010 or so, people that — a lot of people — that had gotten turned off by stocks.这也提供了一个十年，甚至超过十年的时间，让很多人非常反感。嗯，那是一段相当长的糟糕商业时期，接下来的十年里，越来越多的人对股票失去兴趣，就像我们在过去的十年里经历的那样直到2010年左右，很多人对股票失去了兴趣。
So that was a favorable environment. But the United States itself was an incredibly favorable environment. If I’d been born five years earlier, I probably would have made more money. But if I’d been born 10 or 15 years later, I would’ve made, probably, less money.所以那是一个有利的环境。但美国本身是一个非常有利的环境。如果我早出生五年，我可能会赚更多的钱。但如果我晚出生10年或15年，我可能会赚得更少。
But, it— I envy the baby that’s being born today in the United States. I mean, I think, on a probability basis, that’s the luckiest individual that’s ever been born.但是，我很羡慕今天在美国出生的孩子。我的意思是，我认为，在概率的基础上，这是有史以来最幸运的人。
And I think that they will do very well in life in all kinds of ways, on a probability basis, better than existed when I was born.我认为他们会在生活中以各种方式做得很好，在概率的基础上，比我出生时更好。
And I think they’ll have opportunities to do very well in the investment field.我认为他们将有机会在投资领域做得很好。
It may not be as good a field as it was for me starting in 19-, say, ’50, ’51 or thereabouts, but it will be a very good field to operate in.这个领域可能不像我在1950、51年左右开始的时候那么好，但它将是一个非常好的领域。
The person that has a passion for investing, born today, coming of age 20 years from now, is likely, in my view, to do very well, and to live far better than we live today, just as we live far better than John D. Rockefeller lived many years ago.在我看来，一个对投资充满热情的人，如果今天出生，20年后成年，很可能会做得很好，并且生活得比我们今天要好得多，就像我们现在的生活比多年前的约翰·D·洛克菲勒要好得多一样。
查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, the competition was very weak in your early days, and I don’t think the competition is as weak now.查理·芒格:嗯，在你早期的时候，竞争非常弱，但我认为现在的竞争已经不那么弱了。
So I think, sure, we got advantages from timing. And I don’t think that means there’s nothing to be done ahead.所以我认为，当然，我们从时机上获得了优势。我不认为这意味着没有什么可以做的。
WARREN BUFFETT: But Charlie, in 2008 and ’9, there were all kinds of high IQ —沃伦·巴菲特:但是查理，在2008年和2009年，有各种各样的高智商——
查理·芒格:是的。
WARREN BUFFETT: — highly experienced, investment professionals, I mean, thousands and thousands and thousands of them.沃伦·巴菲特: ——经验丰富的，投资专家，我的意思是，成千上万的人。
And you invested at the Daily Journal Company in some equities at X that are worth, what, three X or four X now, or something like that?你在每日期刊公司投资了一些股票，当时价值是X，现在价值是多少，三倍X还是四倍X，或者差不多这样的数字？
CHARLIE MUNGER: That’s right.查理·芒格:没错。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I call that opportunity, but it may be routine to him. (Laughs)沃伦•巴菲特:是的。我把这叫做机会，但对他来说可能只是例行公事。(笑)
CHARLIE MUNGER: But I sat for a lot of years before I did it.查理·芒格: 但我坐了很多年才做这件事。
WARREN BUFFETT: But it still became available.沃伦•巴菲特:但它仍然是可用的。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Oh, yes. But you were drowning in opportunities when I first knew you. (Laughter)查理·芒格：哦，是的。但我第一次认识你的时候，你被机会淹没了。(笑声)
你在等——
WARREN BUFFETT: I wasn’t drowning in money, unfortunately. (Laughs)沃伦•巴菲特:不幸的是，我没有被金钱淹没。(笑)
CHARLIE MUNGER: No, what you lacked was money.查理·芒格:是的，你缺的是钱。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, now we’ve got money and no ideas.沃伦•巴菲特:是的。好吧，现在我们有钱却没有主意。
投资在很大程度上与环境、时机、运气等因素相关，对于巴菲特来说，作为一个男性出生在美国是一个优势，其父亲在证券行业工作提供了另一个优势，其参与市场的时机也很重要，早5年或晚5年，结局可能有很大不同。
芒格利用2008~2009年的金融危机做出了成功的投资，前提是他埋伏或等待了很多年。持有足够的现金流，保持耐心也很重要。
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