Poor Charlie's Almanack（Talk 7 ）

阅读内容: 《穷查理宝典》 Poor Charlie's Almanack---Talk Seven

Breakfast Meeting of the Philanthropy Roundtable

【1.印象最深刻的部分】内容中你觉得印象最深刻的部分是什么?

And I also think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it, indeed, especially when one doesn't like it. 

人们应该认清现实，即使并不喜欢它；实际上，当不喜欢它的时候，就更应该认识清楚

"Crowd folly," the tendency of humans, under some circumstances, to resemble lemmings, explains much foolish thinking of brilliant men and much foolish behavior. 

人类跟旅鼠一样，在某些情况下都有“集体非理性”的倾向。这种倾向导致聪明人产生了许多不理智的想法，做了许多不理智的行为

【2.与现实的联系】这本书与现实之间有哪些联系?

现在看起来，2000年11月发表的这次演讲在当时非常及时，因为自那以后，股市令人不愉快的现象愈演愈烈，股市泡沫现象也不绝于耳。中国股市兴起10年，其间股票价格的飙升，曾经使一些人一夜暴富；而股价暴跌暴跌，又使得一些人折戟沉沙，由腰缠万贯变成一贫如洗。

【3.行动和改变】你可以做出哪些行动来改变你的现实生活?

面对股市的风风雨雨，升降起伏，多关注价值投资。

Summary

This speech was delivered on November 10,  2000 to the Philanthropy Roundtable in Pasadena.

Charlie's goal, as was the case in the previous speech, was to save foundations from their own mistakes by getting them to invest effectively, with minimum waste. Charlie warns foundations that they often act unwisely because of "a failure to understand their own investment operations, related to the larger system" of which they're a part. Never one to pull punches, he boldly and bluntly challenges his listeners to cure the ignorance that is jeopardizing their foundations and those who depend on them. Charlie coins the term "febezzlement"- the functional equivalent of embezzlement- to explain how wealth is stripped away by layers of unnecessary investment managers and consultants.

这个演讲是在慈善圆桌会议早餐会上的讲话，内容跟上篇演讲一样，同样涉及到很多专业词汇和投资方法，感觉比较艰涩难懂。芒格主要谈的是美国股市上涨带来的所谓“财富效应”---wealth effects，以及经济活动中可能存在的“道德效应”---virtue effects

一、关于股票“财富效应”

1, First, spending proclivity is influenced in an upward direction when stock prices go up and in a downward direction when stock prices go down. 消费意愿受到股价影响

2, Second, the proclivity to spend is terribly important in macroeconomics.消费意愿对宏观经济很重要

二、美国股价上升造成的“财富效应”的原因：

1, First, there has never been an advance so extreme in the price of widespread stock holdings and, with stock prices going up so much faster than GNP, the related "wealth effect" must now be bigger than was common before. 股价泡沫严重

2, And second, what has happened in Japan over roughly the last ten years has shaken up academic economics, as it obviously should, creating strong worries about recession from "wealth effects" in reverse.担心重演日本经济衰退的悲剧

三、美国股价对经济的影响

（一）经济学专家的观点：the "wealth effect" on spending from stock prices is not all that big.

1, After all, even now, real household net worth, excluding pensions, is probably up by less than one hundred percent over the last ten years and remains a pretty modest figure per household, while market value of common stock is probably not yet one-third of aggregate household net worth, excluding pensions. 美国家庭股票市值有限；

2, Moreover, such household wealth in common stocks is almost incrediblv concentrated. and the super-rich don't consume in proportion to their wealth. Leaving out pensions, the top one percent of households probably hold about fifty percent of common stock value, and the bottom eighty percent probablv hold about four percent. 股票财富分配不均且两级分化

（二）查理芒格自己的观点：The related macroeconomic "wealth effects," become much larger than is conventionally supposed.

1, I believe that present-day "wealth effect" from pension plans is far from trivial and much larger than it was in the past. 数据资料收集上不应忽略作为整体财富一部分的退休金

2, the traditional thinking of economists often does not take into account implications from the idea of "bezzle." 

The word "bezzle" is a contraction of the word "embezzle,"

Galbraith coined the "bezzle" word because he saw that undisclosed embezzlement, per dollar, has a very powerful stimulating effect on spending. After all, the embezzler spends more because he has more income, and his employer spends as before because he doesn't know any of his assets are gone. 黑金对消费有非常强烈的刺激作用

Similarly, an undisclosed embezzlement has stronger stimulative effects per dollar on spending than a same-sized honest exchange of goods. 尚未败露的贪污得来的钱对消费的刺激效应更大

3, I will join Galbraith in coining new words: first, "febezzle," to stand for the functional equivalent of "bezzle"; second, "febezzlement," to describe the process of creating "febezzle"; and third, "febezzlers," to describe persons engaged in "febezzlement." “捞灰金”的行为也给经济造成了很大的影响

四、查理对未来的担忧

1, It is an unfortunate fact that great and foolish excess can come into prices of common stocks in the aggregate. 过度投机会造成股市的愚蠢上涨

2, what was greater on the upside in the recent boom could also be greater on the downside at some time of future stock price decline. Incidentally, the economists may well conclude, eventually, that, when stock market advances and declines are regarded as long-lasting, there is more downside force on optional consumption per dollar of stock market decline than there is upside force per dollar of stock market rise. 当股票市场的上升、下跌被人们当做趋势时，股票市场的下跌给选择性消费带来的压力就大于股票市场上升时带来的拉力。

3, widespread corrupt accounting will eventually create bad long-term consequences 做假账泛滥成灾最终将会造成严重恶果

五、查理对未来的建议

查理芒格认为他今天的演讲，并不是为了让慈善基金会掌握一些投资技巧。他们不但需要改善基金的投资实践，而且也要提高基金捐赠的智慧。（所以兜兜转转，查理芒格又把话题转到了普世智慧上面来了-----也就是做人、做事的法则）

A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another. So the wisdom of foundation donations may need as much improvement as investment practices of foundations. And here we have two more old rules to guide us. One rule is ethical, and the other is prudential. 生活中有个粗略的道理是这样的：如果一个机构在复杂的大环境中有一方面做得不够好，那么它在其他方面也非常有可能做得不够好。所以不但需要改善基金的投资实践，也要提高基金捐赠的智慧。有两个古老的法则能引导我们：一个是道德的法则，一个是谨慎的法则。

1, The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson, who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible officeholder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. 智慧能更好地履行道德

2, The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool and hasn't bought it is already paying for it." 'I'he Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.强调要有正确的思维工具（应该就是前面提过的科学的多维度思考方式）

Vocabulary

treacherous  ['tretʃərəs]  adj.

1. 不可信任的；背叛的；奸诈的 that cannot be trusted; intending to harm you

2. 有潜在危险的 dangerous, especially when seeming safe

embezzle  [ɪm'bez(ə)l]  v.

1. 盗用，挪用，贪污，侵吞（款项）to steal money that you are responsible for or that belongs to your employer

proclivity  [proʊ'klɪvəti]  n.

1. （常指对坏事的）倾向，癖好 a natural tendency to do sth or to feel sth, often sth bad

aggregate  ['æɡrɪɡət]  n.

1. 总数；合计 a total number or amount made up of smaller amounts that are collected together

in proportion to 

与…成比例；与…相称；

Ps: 今天4月23日是世界读书日。从这一天热闹程度可以看得出来，这几年的知识付费浪潮确实让读书更加成为了一个热点，而且这一天的图书馆也明显地比平常的周末多了好些人~

潇洒姐说“读书不是凑热闹，不在于哪一天的及时或错过。读书这件事本来安静绵长，只有真正进入日常，那种不确定性带来的焦虑感才会慢慢消失”。

和菜头说“读书这种事情玩不得虚的，和一年一度的一个日子相比，更重要的是看每年剩下的364天里干了点什么？”

共勉！