RWH012：恐惧美联储，与Jim Grant对话

那么，我们将回到一些来自过去的教训，这些教训有助于理解当前的时期。

So you then you we'll come back to some of these these lessons from the the the past that inform this current period.

但你后来离开了《巴伦周刊》。

But you then quit Barron's.

据我了解，你创办了我称之为《格兰特利率观察》的东西，但我知道它实际上应该是

And as I understand it, you went and founded what I would call Grant's interest rate observer, but I'm aware that it has to

是法国的法国。

be France's France.

法国。

France.

非常抱歉，我也把你的名字念错了。

I'm so sorry, I mispronounced your name as well.

所以，格兰特，你离开了道琼斯公司大约75,000美元的利润分享计划。

So Grants, so you quit, I think, something like $75,000 from your profit sharing plan at Dow Jones.

当时你即将迎来两个孩子，于1983年创办了这项业务，第一期有大约35人订阅。

And you had two kids on the way and started this business in 1983 with something like 35 people subscribing to your first issue.

你在想什么？

What were you thinking?

我在想破产的事。

I was thinking bankruptcy.

我和妻子帕特里夏是自动化电子表格软件Lotus 1-2-3的早期使用者。

Patricia, my wife and I were first movers in the automated spreadsheet called Lotus one, two, three.

我的技术狂热在1983年就开始了，也在那一年结束了。

My technophilia ended about 1983, the year it began.

我们能够通过输入那些后来证明根本不可能的假设，生成出最不可思议的乐观预测。

We were capable of generating the most implausibly bullish projections by putting in what turned out to be the most impossible assumptions that we assume.

《巴伦周刊》的读者群有15万人。

Readership at Barron's was 150,000.

所以我心想，如果其中一半的人订阅，那也是一半了。

So I figured if only half of them subscribed, half subscribed.

一半。

Half.

你在那之前就会遇到严重的税务问题。

That you would have major tax problems before the year.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我们没有税务问题，但确实遇到了收入问题。

So we had no tax problems, but we did have a revenue problem.

收入问题一直持续着。

The revenue problem persists.

我想我直到1987年左右才领薪水。

I don't think I took a salary until 1987 or something.

结果发现，当时世界上的阅读内容已经足够多了，而帕特里夏在我领薪水时已经有了四个孩子。

So was since the world had enough to read, as it turned out, even then had enough to And Patricia, in addition to she had four kids by the time I took a salary.

她当时在雷曼兄弟工作，那已经是很久以前的事了，那时的雷曼兄弟还很稳固。

She was working at the Lehman Brothers, which so long ago was that the Lehman Brothers was still solid.

是的。

Yeah.

作为投资银行家，她的薪水相当不错。

And it paid her a good salary as an investment banker.

因此，当资助金开始到位时，她支撑了我们所有人。

So she supported all of us as grants came into its own or began to come into its own.

后来当它真正发展起来时，她成为了一名神经科医生，这真是一个非凡的转变。

And then once it came into its own, she became a neurologist, right, which is an extraordinary transformation.

是的，她做到了。

She did.

她去上了医学院。

She went to medical school.

我们当时只有四个孩子。

We had to it was the only four.

看起来像有四十个孩子，但她并没有。

It seemed like 40 kids, but she didn't.

她从爱因斯坦医学院毕业时已经49岁了。

And she she got her she graduated from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine at the age of 49.

哇。

Wow.

她会告诉我们，她是班上第二年长的，不是最年长的。

The second oldest in her class she would have us know, not the oldest.

几个月前，我很高兴能和你以及你的妻子帕特里夏共进晚餐。

I was very excited to have dinner with you and Patricia, your wife, a couple of months ago.

很高兴见到你。

I was happy to meet you.

然后我离开时想，天啊，她真了不起。

And then I left thinking, God, she's formidable.

我应该做一个不同的播客。

I should have a different podcast.

播客。

Podcast.

对，就是采访帕特里夏的播客。

Yeah, where I interview Patricia.

她是一个非凡的人。

She's a remarkable person.

但让我印象深刻的一点是你们出版物的名字。

But one of the things that struck me is the name of your publication.

你曾经写道：我选择‘观察者’这个词作为我十二页期刊的标题，并非出于虚假的谦虚，而是因为‘先知’或‘预言家’这样的词并不合适。

You once wrote, It wasn't false modesty that led me to choose the word observer for the banner of my 12 page journal rather than say soothsayer or prophet.

事实上，我无法预测利率，很多人也做不到，但预测的诱惑却始终存在。

The truth is that I can't forecast interest rates and neither can many other people, yet the temptation to forecast is ever present.

那么，你能谈谈设立一份名为‘利率观察者’的出版物、资助项目，其宗旨是观察而非预测的想法吗？

And so can you talk a bit about that idea of setting up a publication, grants, interest rate observer, that would observe rather than predict?

因为这让我觉得，这正是我们所有投资者都面临的核心困境：我们必须为未来做准备，但未来却如你常说的那样，难以捉摸。

Because this strikes me as kind of one of the essential quandaries that we're all facing as investors, that we have to position ourselves for the future, and yet the future is somehow, as you often put it, unfathomable.

这就像一本合上的书，不是吗？

Well, it's a closed book, isn't it?

人们可以假装自己知道。

And one can pretend.

在近三十九年的过程中，我时不时地做这件事，而且得到了极大的帮助。

And at intervals over the course of the almost thirty nine years now, I've been doing this with considerable help, by the way.

但在近三十九年的历程中，我有时会陷入一种幻觉——一个人对某只股票、债券或市场的信念会如此强烈，以至于屈从于一种不恰当、且大多无利可图的教条主义。

But over the course of these nearly thirty nine years, have sometimes given into bouts of delusion that, you know, so strong can one's conviction become about a certain stock or bond or market that one yields to an unbecoming and certainly mostly unprofitable dogmatism.

但正如你所说，威廉，市场关乎未来。

But just as you say, William, markets are about the future.

如果你无法预知未来，你就必须为这项艰难但必要的工作贡献力量——即想象未来。

And if you can't know the future, you must contribute something to the difficult but necessary job of imagining it.

对吧？

Right?

你可能会因此变得教条。

You can get dogmatized about it.

你可以根据当前力量的格局，以及人们对未来如何发展的预期，来形成一种观点。

You can conceive a view of it based upon the alignment of forces of the present, about the way people themselves are expecting the future to unfold.

如果每个人都持相同的想法，你就有了优势，因为你无法去探究其他可能性。

If everyone thinks one thought, you have an edge because you can't investigate the alternative.

往往最流行的观点就是这三种分子主义。

As often as not, the idea that's most popular is these three numeratorship.

并非全部，但经常如此。

Not all of them, but often.

所以，就像你走进医生的办公室，医生会说：不，这个检查结果不太理想。

So it's like you can walk into a doctor's office and the doctor will say, Well, no, the test does not look very good.

哦，这让人不安。

And, Oh, that's disturbing.

那我们该怎么办？

What do we do about that?

他说：我们其实也说不太清楚。

He said, Well, we really can't tell very much.

只能稍微推测一下可能性。

Can kind of handicap the odds a little bit.

不行。

No.

谢谢。

Thanks.

但那在某种程度上是错误的。

But that's kind of falsely too.

对吧？

Right?

我们无法预知未来，也不能基于对过去的了解来推测概率。

We can't know the future, we can't handicap the odds based upon some knowledge of the past.

再次强调，这不是对过去的教条式解读或强加。

Again, not a dogmatic rendering or overlay of the past.

我经常用‘教条化’这个词，因为我听到很多人，尤其是那些不到75岁的人，说话时仿佛他们什么都知道。

I use this word dogmatized a lot because I hear people, especially the ones who are not 75, say things as if they knew them.

我在很多地方都看到了自己的影子。

I see myself in a lot of this.

我听到人们说：事情就会这样发生。

I hear people say, Here's the way it's going to happen.

有时他们是对的，这反而让情况更糟。

And sometimes they're right, which only makes it worse.

但再次强调，你不能找借口说：好吧，我们明年再看。

But again, you can't cop out and say, Well, we'll know more next year.

威廉，让我们短暂休息一下，听听今天赞助商的消息。

William Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Greg When you're running a small business, hiring the right person can make all the difference.

合适的员工能提升你的团队，提高生产力，并将你的业务推向新高度。

The right hire can elevate your team, boost your productivity, and take your business to the next level.

但找到这样的人本身可能就像一份全职工作。

But finding that person can feel like a full time job in itself.

这就是LinkedIn职位的用武之地。

That's where LinkedIn jobs comes in.

他们的新AI助手通过为你匹配真正符合需求的顶尖候选人，消除了招聘中的猜测成分。

Their new AI assistant takes the guesswork out of hiring by matching you with top candidates who actually fit what you're looking for.

它不再让你翻阅大量简历，而是根据你的标准筛选求职者，并突出显示最匹配的人选，帮你节省数小时时间，在合适的人选出现时快速行动。

Instead of sifting through piles of resumes, it filters applicants based on your criteria and highlights the best matches, saving you hours and helping you move fast when the right person comes along.

最棒的是，这些优秀候选人已经都在LinkedIn上。

The best part is that those great candidates are already on LinkedIn.

事实上，通过LinkedIn招聘的员工至少留任一年的可能性比通过主要竞争对手招聘的员工高出30%。

In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30% more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor.

一次就招对人。

Hire right the first time.

免费在linkedin.com/studybill发布你的职位，然后推广它以使用LinkedIn Jobs的新AI助手，更轻松快捷地找到顶尖候选人。

Post your job for free at linkedin.com/studybill, then promote it to use LinkedIn jobs new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates.

免费发布职位请访问linkedin.com/studybill。

That's linkedin.com/studybill to post your job for free.

条款和条件适用。

Terms and conditions apply.

想象一下，借助真正理解你客户的科技来扩展你的业务。

Imagine scaling your business with technology that understands your customers, literally.

这就是Alexa和AWS AI背后的故事。

That's the story behind Alexa and AWS AI.

每天，Alexa在17种语言中处理超过10亿次交互，同时将客户摩擦降低40%。

Every day, Alexa processes over 1,000,000,000 interactions across 17 languages, all while reducing customer friction by 40%.

这不仅仅是让生活更便捷，更是改变客户互动方式并创造新的收入来源。

It's not just about making life easier, it's also about transforming customer engagement and generating new revenue streams.

在幕后，AWS AI驱动着70多个专用模型协同工作，实现自然对话，证明了企业如何以自信和安全的方式大规模部署AI。

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Alexa的AI能力在亚马逊庞大的运营中经过实战检验，实现了可衡量的大规模实际影响。

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这些相同的创新现在为其他企业提供了经过验证的框架，以提升效率、解锁新的收入来源并获得持久的市场优势。

These same innovations now give other businesses a proven framework to boost efficiency, unlock new revenue streams and gain a lasting market edge.

在aws.com/ai/rstory了解Alexa的故事。

Discover the Alexa story at aws.comai/rstory.

访问aws.com/ai/rstory。

That's aws.com/ai/rstory.

你的比特币持有量越多，面临的挑战就越复杂。

The more your Bitcoin holdings grow, the more complex your challenges become.

最初简单的自托管，如今已演变为涉及家庭遗产规划、复杂的安保决策，以及一个错误就可能损失数代财富的境况。

What started as a simple self custody now involves family legacy planning, sophisticated security decisions, and navigating situations where a single mistake could cost generations of wealth.

标准服务并未为这些高风险的现实情况而设计。

Standard services weren't built for these high stakes realities.

因此，长期投资者选择Unchained Signature——这是一项专为认真持有比特币的人士提供的高端私人客户服务，提供专业指导、稳健托管和持久的合作关系。

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比特币不仅关乎一生，更关乎世代。

Bitcoin isn't just for life, it's for generations.

好的。

All right.

回到节目。

Back to the show.

嗯。

Yeah.

我以为

I thought

这很引人注目。

it was striking.

我翻看了你这些年来的一些经典观点，显然你做出了一些极具前瞻性的判断，帮助你和格兰特成为了这个世界的重要力量。

I I was looking at some of your greatest hits over the years, and and obviously you made some really big prescient calls that helped to make you and and and grants an important force in the world.

所以我认为我说得没错，你当时极具远见地预测到了由迈克尔·米尔肯和德雷塞尔公司推动的整个垃圾债券泡沫的崩溃。

So think I'm right in saying you were incredibly prescient in predicting the implosion of the whole junk bond bonanza fueled by Michael Milken and Drexel.

在全球金融危机之前，你就极具远见地看出了房地产市场的根本问题，甚至在电影《大空头》中被称赞为那个角色——这不是很暖心吗？

You were incredibly prescient before the global financial crisis in sort of seeing what was wrong with the housing market, and actually got praised in the movie The Big Short as the guy- Isn't that sweet?

是的。

Yeah.

这确实挺让人欣慰的。

That was kind of lovely.

同样地，你也是最早批评像瓦连特和WeWork这类公司的先驱，这些公司后来在许多聪明人认为它们非常出色之后彻底崩盘了。

And likewise, incredibly prescient in being an early critic of companies like Valiant and WeWork that blew up after lots of very smart people thought that they were wonderful.

但另一方面，我也注意到，你曾因在90年代牛市期间、科技泡沫破裂前很久就建议人们抛售股票而受到批评，或者你在2016年就警告债券牛市即将结束，远在它真正结束之前。

And yet on the other hand, I can also see there are these things where you've been criticized for telling people to sell stocks in the '90s during the bull market way before the tech bubble burst, or you were warning about the bond bull market ending in 2016 way before it ended.

我想知道你能否谈谈这其中的启示。

I wonder if you could just talk about the moral of that.

这个启示是不是说明市场择时本质上是徒劳的？

Is the moral the general futility of market timing?

这重要吗？

Is it important?

因为看起来你在这些事情上方向上都是正确的，但要准确把握时机以便采取行动，实在是极其困难。

Because it seems like you were directionally correct with all of these things, but actually timing them in a way that makes it actionable is excruciatingly difficult.

这些都是事实。

All of that is true.

我不想说我不想替别人断言没有人能做到这一点。

And I I I don't wanna say that I don't wanna speak for others by asserting that no one can do that.

有些人确实在华尔街赚到了巨额财富。

There are people who have made a fabulous living on Wall Street.

他们并非事事都对，而是对市场周期的涨落以及市场心理的内在变化有着敏锐的直觉，能够读懂市场的心理。

Not getting everything correct, by having such a tactile sense about the ebbs and flows of cycles and about the interior of the market's mind to kind of reading the psychology of the marketplace.

伟大的交易员，比如保罗·都铎·琼斯、斯坦·德鲁肯米勒，只有这两个人具备这种能力。

Great traders, Paul Tudor Jones, Stan Druckenmillich's name, only two have this capacity.

确实有人能做到这一点。

There are those who do that.

我认为我对自己有了新的认识，这并不是最近才发现的，但我逐渐理解了自己运作方式的深度。

I think what I have discovered about myself, and it's not a recent discovery, but I've come to understand the depths of how I operate.

我认为我在灾难中表现得最好。

I think I do my best with disaster.

我是个批评者，但我不是1929年那一代人。

I'm critic, and I'm not a child of 1929.

我父亲是。

My father was.

我父亲亲眼看着他的父亲破产。

My father watched his father go broke.

他父亲根本不该涉足股市。

His father had no business doing anything in the stock market.

他父亲是位只有高中学历的自学成才者，后来成为了宾州州立学院（当时的名字）的音乐系主任。

His father was a a high school educated autodidact who became the dean of music at Penn State College, as it was then known.

但他1929年时用了杠杆，我敢肯定他在1929年市场顶部时加了杠杆，结果输得一无所有。

But he went on margin in '19 I'm sure he got exactly the top on margin in 1929 and lost everything.

我父亲与股票毫无关系。

And my father had nothing to do with stocks.

1929年时，他心中只有这件事。

Everything in mind in 1929.

我并没有直接接受这种观念，但我认为，我继承了一种对下行风险的深刻认知。

Now I didn't imbibe that directly, but I have, I think, inherited a sense of a deep appreciation of the downside.

与其说是害怕它，不如说我反而享受发现它、看清它，然后提醒他人的过程。

Not so much fear of it, but I kind of relish the idea of catching onto it, of seeing it, and then warning others.

如果你能做对，这是一份非常美妙的工作。

It's a sweet line of work if you can do it right.

1989年2月，我得到了验证，这当然要归功于丹·格鲁夫纳这样的人，他们破解了那些极其复杂的抵押贷款衍生品，使我们能够向人们解释清楚。

It was sweet to have been validated in 02/1989 with the help certainly of people like Dan Gruffner who kind of decoded the horrifically complex mortgage derivatives that we were able to explain to people.

但没错，我们在1996年左右做过一项调查，发现股票被高估了。

But, yeah, we also we got, I think, a survey in 1996 or something that stocks were overvalued.

天啊。

My god.

他们还没有开始解读今天的美联储。

They had not begun to paraphrase the Federal Reserve today.

他们还没有开始考虑1996年市场会变得高估。

They had not begun to think about becoming overvalued in 1996.

从1996年宣布股市高估到2000年见顶之间，经历了大约五十年的心理适应期，才逐渐接受这一切。

The elapsed time between having declared stocks overvalued in 1996 and the top in 2000, that was about fifty years of psychological time coming to terms with all that.

所以我有一个来自帕特里夏告诉我的老医学校玩笑：你在这里学到的一切，其中一半终将证明是错的。

So I've one that's confronted with the old medical school gag that Patricia related to me that everything you learn here, of all the things you learn here, half is going be wrong.

我们不知道的是，哪一半是错的。

What we don't know is which half.

对吧？

Right?

你对市场的所有认知中，有一半也终将证明是错的。

Everything you think about markets, half of what you think of this is going to be wrong.

我们不知道是哪一半，诸如此类。

We don't know which half, etcetera, etcetera.

所以，我想坦白这种倾向、这种特质、这种弱点，但我也并不想让人觉得我们已经放弃努力，帮助人们理解那不可捉摸的未来。

So I want to confess to this tendency, this trait, this weakness, but I also don't want to convey that we have given up trying to do something about helping people understand the unfathomable future.

这正是我们赖以为生的事，有时做得更成功，有时则不然。

That's what we do for a living, sometimes more successfully than others.

在过去几天里，我花了一些时间阅读了过去一年左右《格兰特利率观察家》的往期刊物，但即便如此，要我说出这句话依然令我痛苦。

I spent part of the last few days reading back issues from the last year or so of of Grant's interest rate observer, and it's still so painful for me to say this.

而且而且

And and

你又回到了母语。

You you lapse into the native tongue.

《格兰特利率观察家》。

Grant's interest rate observer.

这听起来好多了。

That sounds much better.

而且我在想，天啊，要是我早点读到这些就好了，那样我就会像你一样，成为一个总是预设一切都会走向崩溃的悲观记者，因而不会去冒疯狂的风险。

And and I was thinking, God, I wish I had read this earlier, that it would have made me Like you, I'm sort of a pessimistic journalist who always assumes that everything's gonna go to hell, so I didn't take crazy risk.

我认为，阅读你的分析会让我更清晰地意识到，自金融危机以来的过去十二年里，发生了一些历史性的事情。

I think it would have sharpened, reading your analyses would've really sharpened my sense that something historic has been going on in the last twelve years since the financial crisis.

这是一场没人知道、也无法预知会走向何方的疯狂实验，而且当时的条件正变得越来越脆弱。

That's this kind of wild experiment that nobody knew or could know what it would lead to, and that the conditions were increasingly fragile.

我想知道你能否谈谈这一点，因为现在你多年来一直警告的事情终于发生了——我们突然看到了通货膨胀的激增，你曾警告过的所有脆弱性都暴露无遗。

And I wonder if you could talk about that, because now the thing that you were warning about for years has come to pass, we're suddenly seeing this surge in inflation and all the fragility you were warning about has become exposed and revealed.

你能为我这样的无知外行解释一下吗？在金融危机之后的那十几年里，到底发生了什么？是什么样的鲁莽货币实验，最终不可避免地导致了我们现在所看到的这场危机？

Can you put in context for ignorant laymen like myself, what was actually going on during those dozen or so years since the global financial crisis in terms of this reckless monetary experiment that you were warning would lead inevitably to this crisis that we're now seeing?

是的。

Yes.

不可避免地，这种思路在投资类刊物中引入并不太有帮助。

Inevitably, it's it's not so very helpful a train of thought introduced into an investment periodical.

我认为凯恩斯曾说过，如果你说某事会在我们有生之年发生，嗯。

I think Keynes says something to the effect that if you say something is gonna happen in our lifetime, yeah.

谢谢。

Thanks.

但我们不喜欢凯恩斯。

But we don't like Keynes.

好吧。

Alright.

所以发生了两件事。

So two things have happened.

第一，你可以量化；另一件事则比较模糊，但同样重要。

One, you can quantify, and the other is rather inchoate, but still all for that, still important.

可量化的事实是，在大衰退之后，世界各国央行，尤其是美国联邦储备系统，决定通过压低利率来刺激商业活动，从而推高股票、债券和房地产的价格。

The quantifiable thing is that in the wake of the great recession, central banks of the world led by the American Federal Reserve decided to stimulate business activity through suppressing interest rates, thereby tending to raise up the prices of stocks, bonds, and real estate.

本·伯南克本人在2010年左右的一篇《华盛顿邮报》社论中指出，这是美联储低利率政策的意图。

And Ben Bernanke himself in a Washington Post op ed, I think, 2010, announced this was the intention of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy.

他打算购买债券，期望其他人也会效仿。

He was going to buy bonds with the expectation others would follow suit.

人们会为每美元的公司收益支付更多钱。

People would pay more for a dollar of those corporate earnings.

股价会上涨，利润的资本化率也会上升。

Stock prices would rise, and the rate that profits were capitalized would rise.

人们会获得资本收益。

And people would come into capital gains.

他们会感觉更富有，也确实更富有，因此会花更多的钱。

They'd feel richer and be richer and thereby spend more.

所以我们过去称这种现象为涓滴效应，但现在它有了一个更花哨的名字。

So we used to call this trickle down, but now it took a rather fancier name.

这就是投资的组合平衡渠道效应。

This was the portfolio balanced channel fear of investment.

天哪，你到底在说什么？

Christ's sake, what are you saying?

我说的是，我们会引导其他资金进入股市，这确实以可量化的方式发生了。

I'm saying we're going lead some other nose into the stock market, So which they that happened in a quantifiable way.

因此，无形的部分涉及市场心理和市场预期。

So the inquiry part had to do with the mind of the market and the expectations of the market.

人们逐渐相信，美联储会为他们提供支持。

What came be absorbed, what people came to believe, is the fed would be there for them.

美联储希望资产价格上涨，美联储会让我们变得富有。

The fed wanted things to go up, that the fed would make us rich.

如果偶然、意外，或因经济周期的短暂波动，市场出现回调，美联储也会让它重新上涨。

And that if per chance, if by accident, if through some cyclical hiccup, the market pulled back, the fed would make it go back up again.

好的。

Okay.

让我们回到2020年。

So let's take it's 2020.

我们快进到2020年。

We'll fast forward 2020.

疫情在三月如悬崖般突然袭来。

And the pandemic comes falling off of the cliff in March.

那么美联储做了什么？

And what does the Fed do?

美联储，连锅端了。

The Fed, never mind the kitchen sink.

炉子、管道、家具，房子里的一切都被扔到了这个问题上。

The furnace, the plumbing, the furniture, everything in that house got tossed at the problem.

所以，从主动语态和被动语态的角度来看，美联储主动承担起责任，确保这场疫情不会引发经济大萧条。

So to go into the path, the active voice and passive voice, the fed took charge of making sure that this pandemic did not lead to a depression.

随之而来的是中央银行历史上最令人震惊的灯光秀。

And what followed was one of the most astonishing light shows in the history of central banking.

到2021年底，广义货币供应量的年增长率超过了20%。

By the time 2021 came to a close, broadly defined money supply showing growth year over year in excess of 20%.

如此短的时间内从未见过。

Never before seen in such a short period.

利率暴跌。

Interest rates collapsed.

所有这些所引发的投机狂热正在升温。

The speculative fervor that all of this created was lifting.

股票、债券、房地产、一切，加密货币、NFT，所有没被钉住的东西。

Stocks, bonds, real, everything, cryptos, NFTs, everything that wasn't nailed down.

没什么东西是被钉住的。

Nothing was nailed down.

我们中的一些人称之为一场由所有泡沫推动的庞大漂浮现象。

It's a massive levitation from everything bubble, some of us called it.

与此同时，主街本身也出现了意想不到的通货膨胀，在收银台、结账时就能感受到。

And what also occurred was an undesired inflation on Main Street itself, at the cash register, at the checkout time.

因此，美联储从不介意在华尔街与百老汇交界处、纽约证券交易所的通胀。

So the fed never minded inflation at the corner of Broad And Wall Streets, New York Stock Exchange.

这种通胀是理想的，因为它促使人们消费，并鼓励投资和支出。

Desirable because that made people spend and encouraged investment to outlays and play.

但美联储的职责不正是预防通胀，或在通胀发生时加以缓解吗？

But the Fed is in business to prevent and to ameliorate, if it does occur, inflation at mainstreams, right?

这会摧毁工资，破坏预算，扭曲价值，导致民选官员在选举中落败。

That wrecks wages, that wrecks budgets, that distorts the values, that that gets elected officials defeated at the polls.

他们不喜欢这种反思。

That's that kind of reflection they don't like.

但我们也有这种情况。

But we got that too.

所以现在，我们面临着肆虐的通货膨胀。

So now here we are with inflation rampant.

这并不是夸张。

It's not an exaggeration.

股票价格仍处于历史高位。

Stock prices still elevated by historical rates.

债券利率、债券收益率按历史标准来看仍然很低。

Bond interest rates, bond yields that's still very low by historical record.

那么美联储该怎么办？

So what does the fed do?

嗯，它陷入了困境，这就是我们今天所处的境地。

Well, it's rather in a quandary, and that's where we stand today.

我记得你在你的《格兰特当前收益率》播客中提醒过，这个播客非常棒，我真心推荐大家去听。

So I remember you warning on your Grant's Current Yield podcast, which is terrific, which I really encourage people to listen to.

这可是很高的赞誉。

Well, that's high praise.

不。

No.

真的很好。

It's really good.

我会在节目笔记中附上它的链接。

Include I'll include a link to it in the show notes here.

你曾经说过，美联储是地球上最危险的金融机构。

You you said at one point, the Federal Reserve is the most dangerous financial institution on the face of the earth.

然后你还称他们为金融界最爱插手的人，我很喜欢这个说法。

And then you you described them as the handsiest people in finance, which I liked.

所以你说他们总是 meddling，总想改进、干预和插手。

So you were saying how they're always meddling and having to improve and intervene and interject.

在我们讨论当前问题之前，是否存在一种错觉，认为干预和介入是有帮助的？

Before we get to the current problem, is there just this illusion that it's helpful to intervene and interject?

你和美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔在是否认为干预值得、还是干预实际上危险这个问题上，哲学立场的根本差异在哪里？

Where's the philosophical difference that you have and that someone like Jerome Powell, the Fed chief, has in terms of believing that it's worth meddling or actually dangerous to meddle?

我认为美联储相信——我知道美联储确实这么认为，因为他们一直在这么做。

Well, I think that the Fed believes I know the Fed believes because they do this stuff.

美联储相信，他们能够选定一个政策利率，同时促进充分就业、抑制通胀，并保持金融市场的活跃。

The Fed believes that they can select a rate of interest, a policy rate of interest, that will at once encourage maximum employment, minimize the rate of inflation, and keep the financial markets percolating.

而我说，我们许多人认为，这个利率并非由上帝知晓，而是由自由市场中个体通过价格发现过程所发现的。

And I say, many of us say, that that rate is known not to God, but to individuals operating in a free and untrammeled market and discovering that word is price discovery, the phrase is price discovery, discovering a rate of interest.

而发现的利率之所以优于人为设定或强加的利率，是因为它源于无数个体的决策，这些个体根本不知道对方在做什么，但他们都在努力最大化自身的福祉。

And what makes the discovered rate of interest better than the artificial or the imposed one is that the discovered rate of interest is the product of decisions taken by people who have no idea what their their counterparties are doing, but they're all trying to maximize their own welfare in the world.

他们每天早上上班，都希望过得更好。

They all go to work in the morning, wanting to do better.

他们做出决策。

They make decisions.

因此，这些无数决策的融合将带来比那些由前大学经济学教授——他们充斥在二月圈的走廊里——所做出的某种武断且必然缺乏信息的声明更好的结果。

So the the conflation of these myriad decisions is going to give us a better outcome than the somewhat arbitrary and necessarily ill informed pronounce ments of the former college economics professors who populate the halls of the February circle.

我们称之为‘草’。

We call it we call this a grass.

我们把当前的标准称为博士标准，它取代了过去的金本位或其他标准。

We call the current standard, we call it PhD standard, existing from the gold standard or other standards of yesteryear.

早在20世纪30年代——不算太久以前——有一位名叫亨利·西蒙斯的经济学家（我认为他是芝加哥大学的）说过，企业不应成为对货币政策未来走向的投机。

Ages ago, in 1930s, I guess, not so ages ago, but a while ago, there was an economist named, I think, Henry Simons, University of Chicago, who said that business enterprise ought not to be a speculation on the future of monetary policy.

而这正是它如今演变成的样子。

That's kind of what it's become.

每个人都必须知道美联储在做什么。

Everyone has to know what the Fed is doing.

美联储已经无处不在。

The Fed has become ubiquitous.

当然，它像我们所熟知的某些政客一样爱插手，已经变得像足球比赛（或称橄榄球、板球或棒球）中的裁判一样。

Of course, it's handsy as some politicians we know, it has become like the referee in a football game or a soccer game, it's called, or cricket or baseball.

我正试图帮助一场真正的好比赛，板球。

I'm trying to help A proper game, cricket.

当你知道裁判或 umpire 的名字时，你就知道这位裁判没有尽职尽责。

When you get to know the name of the umpire or the referee, you know that umpire or referee is not doing a job, not doing his or her job.

裁判本应是隐形的。

Person is supposed to be invisible.

比赛本身才是重点，对吧？

The game is a thing, right?

而不是规则。

And not the rules.

当规则和裁判的任意决定成为至高无上的时候，那就不是比赛了。

When the rules are paramount and the arbitrary decisions of the referees are paramount, that is not a game.

它更像是一种歌舞伎戏剧，不管是什么，都不是我们原本要参与的那场游戏。

It is a, I don't know, it was a kabuki theater, whatever it is, it's not the game we came to play.

我认为，由于美联储无处不在，我们并没有像应有的那样进行企业运作这场游戏。

And I think that we are not playing the game of enterprise as we ought because the Fed is too much with us.

所以，我们已经一定程度上解释了导致这场混乱的原因和背景。

So now we've explained to some degree the causes, the backdrop that led to this mess.

让我们详细谈谈可以或应该采取什么措施来解决它。

Let's talk in some detail about what can or should be done to fix it.

所以昨天，这个播客将在几周后发布，昨天劳工部宣布通胀率已上升至9.1%。

So yesterday, this podcast will be coming out in a couple of weeks, yesterday the Labor Department announced that inflation has been rising at a rate of 9.1%.

食品成本上涨了，我想大概是过去十二个月上涨了12%。

Cost of food was up, I think, 12% in the last twelve months.

电价上涨了近14%。

Electricity up nearly 14%.

汽油价格上涨了约60%。

Gasoline up about 60%.

所以首先，我的意思是，最明显的问题听起来很平凡，但我其实挺喜欢问这个问题。

So first of all, I mean, the most obvious question, it sounds so mundane, but I actually kind of like to ask it.

为什么通货膨胀如此可怕？

Why is inflation so fearsome?

为什么我们几乎已经遗忘的这个金融水面下潜伏的‘尼斯湖水怪’如此可怕？

Why is this thing that we've kind of forgotten, this looming Loch Ness monster beneath the surface of the financial waters so terrifying?

为什么突然间每个人都坐直了身子，惊呼：天啊，这里真的出了大问题？

Why suddenly is everyone sitting up and saying, Oh God, there's a real problem here?

嗯，NESI，也许根本不存在。

Well, NESI, I think might not exist.

我不确定。

I don't know for sure.

但通胀被一代经济学家归为NESI一类，就像20世纪60年代的前几代经济学家一样，他们相信自己找到了点石成金之术。

But inflation was consigned to the status of NESI by a generation of economists who like preceding generations of economists in 1960s, believed that they had found the philosopher's stone.

他们通过巧妙地操控各种政策杠杆，就能预防并缓解通胀，正如我之前所说，如果情况允许的话。

They, through their dexterous manipulation of this and that lever of policy, could forestall and ameliorate, as I said in case it Okay.

这就是他们的自负。

That was the conceit.

但我想回到一个体育比喻，我认为肌肉记忆在塑造所有人对通胀的完全忽视方面起到了巨大作用。

But I think to go back to a sporting metaphor, I think that muscle memory played a great part in conditioning everyone to expect everything except inflation.

现在，如果你只是问下面这个问题，答案将是：是的，通货膨胀。

Now, if you simply ask the following question, the answer is going to be, yeah, inflation.

问题是：当政府支付人们不工作，并且通过各种规则和法规补贴生产不足时，会发生什么？

And the question is this, what will happen when the government pays people not to work when indeed it subsidizes the lack of production to various rules and regulations.

它以前所未有的方式印钞，又在短短十八个月内以前所未有的规模借贷和支出，结果会怎样？

It materializes money as it has never materialized, those dollar bills before, and as it borrows and spends in the space eighteen months as it has never been before, what is likely to be the outcome?

你的小学生会说：通货膨胀。

The schoolboy of yours was like, Inflation.

注意，没有人说：当然，是通货膨胀。

Notice that no one said, Of course, inflation.

有一个棒球故事，有人说：‘1968年，鲍勃·吉布森是棒球界 reigning 的投手。',

There's a baseball story having a guy say, '68, Bob Gibson was the reigning pitcher in baseball.

鲍勃·吉布森在圣路易斯红雀队，是一位庄严而统治力十足的传奇人物。

Period, majestic and dominating and domineering figure was Bob Gibson at St.

圣路易斯红雀队。

Louis Gardens.

他和一个名叫达基·斯科菲尔德的内野手一起打球。

And he played with an infield named Ducky Schofield.

达基防守非常出色，但击球能力一般。

Ducky was very good in the field, not much of a batsman.

击球手，那才是猎手。

Batsman, that's a predator.

没错。

Yeah.

有一天，达基三振出局，怒气冲冲地回到替补席，破口大骂，一拳砸碎了饮水机。

And one day, Ducky strikes out, storms back to the bench, curls up a blue streak, smashes the water cooler.

吉布森受不了他。

And Gibson can't stand him.

他把达基叫到替补席尽头，指着他的打击率——二成二六。

He summons Ducky to the end of the bench and points to his batting average, which was two twenty six.

然后他说：达基，你指望什么呢？

And he says, Ducky, what did you expect?

所以，同样地，今天面对通胀，他们期望什么呢？

So similarly today with inflation, what did they expect?

好吧，他们没有预料到的是显而易见的事实。

Well, what they did not expect was the obvious.

现在，我们所有人都能拼凑出这个真相。

You now could piece it together by all of us.

它之所以不明显，反映的是肌肉记忆。

The fact that it was not obvious speaks to muscle memory.

它反映的是经济预测中那种慈善式的自负。

It speaks to the conceit of the economic forecasting for charity.

它也仅仅反映了人类认知的缺陷。

And it speaks simply to, I guess, to the foibles of human perception.

这非常重要，我想在我们继续之前强调一下，因为它真正触及了我们必须对自己的能力保持一点谦逊的问题。

This is I mean, this is a really important point just to just to underline before we move on because it it really gets at this question of just having to be a little bit humble about our own ability

至于自我反思，我想岔开一下。

to self do the wanna digress.

多年前，一群医学科学家聚集在一起，研究在意大利阿尔卑斯山融化的冰层中发现的一具尸体，这一发现被称为冰人。

Years ago, there was a bunch of medical scientists got together to examine a cadaver discovered in the melting ice in the Italian Alps, this thing is called the ice melt.

因此，最顶尖的心脏专家、生理学家和解剖学家——对人类形态有科学兴趣的人们——来到意大利的相关医院，对这具冰人进行检查。

So the greatest heart specialists and physio I mean, anatomists, people with a scientific interest in the human form came to the relevant hospital in Italy to examine this ice maker.

对吧？

Right?

他们花了数周时间，使用先进的工具（如X光等，我无法一一列举）仔细研究。

And they spent weeks going over it with the advanced tools that are available to them, x rays and things that I can't go.

但直到最后，才有人指出：‘看，那里有一支箭头。’

And it wasn't until the very end that someone said, yeah, there's the arrowhead right there.

这一事件的相关性在于，那些错过箭头的人感到非常羞愧和谦卑。

And the relevance of this is that the ones who missed it were so embarrassed and so humbled.

我们为此写了一篇文章，标题是《知觉的危险》。

And we wrote a piece about this, and headline was Perils of Perception.

我们的文章最后指出，这些错过箭头的科学家并非因为经济地位而疏忽。

And our story wound up that if the scientists who missed this were not They didn't have financial position.

他们并没有在市场中押注于某种结果。

They weren't leveraged in the market betting on some outcome.

对吧？

Right?

他们也没有持有任何期权头寸。

They didn't have an options position open.

他们对结果没有任何经济利益。

They had no financial interest in the outcome.

他们研究此事时，学术上对是否错过它并不关心。

Were studying this and disinterested academically if they missed it.

我们最终得出结论：那么，当人们受财务利益或客户利益驱动时，考虑到金融领域中所有阻碍清晰认知的障碍，我们该如何解决这个问题呢？

We wound up saying, So how is it that with people through force of financial interest, client interest, How will any of us solve it given all of the impediments to clear perception in finance?

这就是为什么事情看起来如此混乱的原因。

That's why things appear, I think, so messed up.

每个人都有不同的认知视角，而那些被雇佣来保持客观认知的人，其群体规模非常小。

Everyone has a different set of perceptions, the population of people who are paid to have a disinterested perception, it's a very small population.

当然，他们也是人。

And of course, they are human.

对吧？

Right?

是的。

Yeah.

所以，即使你试图意识到自己的偏见，自己倾向于悲观、看到问题、保护他人免受可能问题影响的倾向，这些都可能是特质。

So even the fact that you're trying to be aware of your own bias, your own proclivity to be gloomy and to see problems, to protect people from problems that possibly traits.

没错。

Yes.

当然。

Absolutely.

这在我看来对任何投资者都是一个极其重要的教训：要意识到，即使像美联储那些拥有博士学位的聪明人，对不可预测的未来也会犯错，并对自己的才华过于自信，这应该让我们停下脚步，尤其是像我这样没有任何相关训练的人，开始思考：我凭什么能以30:50的概率预测未来呢？

That seems to me a really profoundly important lesson for any investor, just to be aware of the fact that if people as smart as all of these PhDs working at the Fed can be as wrong about the unfathomable future and as overconfident about their own brilliance, it should give us pause, especially for someone like me who doesn't have any of that training to start to think, well, on what possible thirty:fifty basis do I think I can predict the future of the No,

这方面也有一个极端。

there's an extreme in this direction as well.

而另一个极端是所谓的有效市场假说，这是一种理论。

And the extreme is something called the efficient markets hypothesis, which is a thing.

它在学术界被广泛接受。

It is held widely in academia.

它的观点是，任何时刻股票、债券或其他资产的价格都恰好处于应有的水平，因为信息会立即被人类大脑以及算法和机器人吸收和处理。

What it holds is that prices at any given moment in stocks, bonds, or whatever, are just where they should be because information is instantly absorbed and processed through the human brain and through algorithms and bots and the like.

不要试图战胜市场。

Don't try to outguess the market.

接受价格。

Take price.

不，因为这种观点忽视了人类群体行为的能力，以及在美联储影响下群体性催眠的可能性。

So no, because that fails to recognize the capacity of humans for crowd behavior and for a mass hypnosis under the spell of the Federal Reserve.

因此，这比有效市场假说有趣得多。

So it's a lot more interesting than the efficient markets hypothesis.

正因如此，这项工作才充满了力量与诗意。

So that's what lends the steel and the poetry into this line of work.

嗯。

Yeah.

你你，就像

You you, like

我知道，但你不可能知道。

me You know, but you can't know.

嗯。

Yeah.

我认为两者都遵循。

And I I think both follow.

而且我认为，我们俩都更多地源自本·格雷厄姆的学派，他说：是的，远非有效，市场先生。

And and both of us, I think, come much more from the school of Ben Graham of saying, yeah, far from this being efficient, Mr.

市场是疯狂的。

Market is crazy.

偶尔会狂热到极点，而这正是为真正聪明、冷静的投资者创造巨大机会的原因。

And once in a while gets so carried away that that's what creates tremendous opportunities for really smart dispassionate investors.

但是

But

我刚刚为《证券分析》下一版修订了前言。

I've just revised the preface for the next edition of Security Analysis.

塞思·卡曼和我参与了这项工作，拉贾，还有其他人。

Seth Karman and I are involved in this, Raja, and others.

在做这件事时，我 reminded 自己，过去十几年来，本·格雷厄姆那些真正逻辑一致的原则对投资者的指导作用是多么微弱。

And I was was reminded while doing this of how little the precepts, the the the the true logically consistent precepts of Ben Grant, how little they yield to an investor over the past dozen years.

因为本·格雷厄姆的核心理念是安全边际。

Because Benjamin Cranow is all about a margin of safety.

但当市场处于飙升状态时，比如上世纪九十年代末，或者八十年代至九十年代初的日本，

But when markets are levitating, as they did in the late nineties, for example, or in Japan from the eighties into the into 1990.

安全边际是你最不需要的东西。

A wife and a safety is the last thing you need.

如果你想跟上邻居的步伐，你就得把这一切都抛在脑后。

If you wanna keep up with the Joneses, you have to throw all that aside.

所以这感觉并不太舒服，是吧，各位。

So it's not a very comfortable feeling for, yes, but guys.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为这取决于你有多认真地对待生存问题。

I think it I think it's it depends how seriously you take the question of survival.

对。

Right.

是的。

Yes.

没错。

Exactly.

所以是的。

So right.

对。

Right.

而且，你的投资期限是多长？

And and also how long is your investment horizon?

你知道吗，如果你22岁以后才开始工作，你实际上可以完全忽略周期性波动，因为你有足够的时间让市场恢复，让复利发挥作用，这简直太神奇了。

You know, if if you're starting after 22 years old, got your first job, you can actually afford to pay no attention to the cyclical fluctuations because all the time in the world for things to recover and for compound interest to work, it's magic.

这没问题。

That's fine.

但如果你年纪再大一点，就值得去关注了，哦，好吧。

But if you are even a little bit older, it pays to Oh, okay.

所以，至少在这档可爱的播客里，我可以帮你们推荐一本书。

So I can help with one thing at least on this lovely podcast, and that is a book suggestion.

作者是弗雷德·施韦德，S E H W E G。

The author is Fred Schwed, S E H W E G.

施韦德。

Schwed.

这本书叫《顾客的游艇在哪里？》

And the book is Where Are the Customers Yachts?

这本书出版于1940年。

It came out in 1940.

施韦德在书中提到，他有一章的标题是《一些美妙的建议》。

And Schwed says at one point, the heading in his chapter is, A Little Wonderful Advice.

他说：‘这就是你如何能享受富足而终的快乐。’

And he says, Here's how you can have the pleasure of dying rich.

他说：‘当所有人都在抛售股票时，你就买入。’

He says, What you want to do is when everyone is selling stocks, you buy.

当然，你不会正好买到最低点，股价还会继续下跌。

Now, you won't get the bottom and they'll go lower.

别管这些。

Pay no attention.

然后等待，股价会大幅上涨。

And then wait, and they'll go up a lot.

当股价涨到足够高时，就卖出。

And when they go up enough, just sell.

它们还会继续上涨，但同样，别在意，重复这个过程，你就能享受富足而终的快乐。

They'll go up more, but again, pay no attention and repeat, and you have the pleasure of dying rich.

这是一个迷人的故事。

It's a charming story.

这本书中蕴含着许多非常有益的人性真理，但这些道理却是普通人最不可能去做的，因为我们总是在市场低谷时被悲观情绪裹挟，在高峰时被狂热情绪支配。

There's a lot of very helpful human truths in this book, but that is about the least possible thing to do for the average human beings, because we're all carried away by gloom at the bottom and by euphoria at the top.

我们的天性就是如此反常。

We're just perversely wired.

这简直是魔鬼为我们金融行为设计的。

It's just the devil himself wired us for finance.

是的。

Yeah.

绝对如此。

Absolutely.

前几天我在推特上分享了你的一条评论，我知道我可以直接借用，因为你很少用推特。你提到过，我记不太清原话了，但大概是说，在市场高点时，我们都坚信二加二等于五；而在市场低点时，我们都坚信二加二等于三。

Well, I shared some comment of yours on Twitter the other day, which I know I could rip off from you because I know that you're not on Twitter very much, where you talked about, I'll get this wrong, but it was something about how at the top of the market, we're all convinced that two plus two equals five, and at the bottom, we're all convinced that two plus two equals three.

这似乎是一种反复出现的特征。

And this just seems like a really recurring trait.

最多三个。

Three at most.

最多。

At most.

没错。

That's right.

没错。

That's right.

你对我的引述记得比我清楚。

You're remembering your quote better than I did.

那么回到我们当前面临的问题——这场通胀爆发，美联储有哪些实际应对通胀的选项？

So to get back to the current issue that we're facing, this burst of inflation, What are the Fed's options for actually dealing with inflation?

你曾谈到过它可能面临的意外后果风险。

You've talked about the risks of accidental outcomes that it faces.

那么，你能谈谈美联储可能造成的高风险金融事故吗？正如你所指出的，美联储并非全知全能。

So can you talk about the high risk of a financial accident that could be created by the Fed, which as you pointed out, is not entirely omnipotent and omniscient.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，昨天一位伟大的奥地利思想家，布卢特法克，冯·米塞斯，听起来他应该去指挥维也纳爱乐乐团。

Well, one of the the great Austrian thinkers of yesterday, Blutefake, von Mises, sounds like he ought be conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

但冯·米塞斯是一位伟大的经济学家，而且不止如此。

But von Mises was a great economist and more.

他说，美联储为消除通胀所采取的措施存在问题。

He said, the trouble with what the fed does to rid us of inflation.

首先，它做得过头了，反而引发了通胀。

So first of all, it overdoes it, thereby causes inflation.

这就像一个司机撞上了你的车。

It's like a driver who runs over your car.

然后为了修复问题，司机倒车，又从后方碾压了你。

And then to fix the problem, the driver backs up and runs over you in reverse.

美联储在经济学术语中的做法是追求一种需求破坏，即俗称的通货膨胀。

What the Fed does in the language of economics is to pursue a course of demand destruction, proverbially and trivially inflation.

过多的钱追逐过少的商品，需求相对于供给过多。

It's too much money chasing too few goods, too much demand in relation to supply.

所以，需求破坏才是关键。

So demand destruction is the thing.

因此，你希望人们减少支出，减少欲望，但必须给他们更少的钱来实现这一点。

So you want people to spend less, to want less or want it, but they have to give them less money to do it.

你该如何做到这一点？

How do you do that?

嗯，你摧毁经济。

Well, you wreck the economy.

所以你提高利率。

So you raise the rate of interest.

因此，当前的问题是，美联储能否巧妙地将利率提高到刚好足以在边际上摧毁一点点需求，但又不至于让整个社会陷入萧条。

And so the question before the house is whether the fed archly can raise its rate just enough to destroy just a little bit of demand at the margin, but not so much as to sink us as a society into a slump.

现在，我认为理解这一点的方式是想象一下大学新生兄弟会的传统恶作剧：从摆满瓷器、玻璃器皿的餐桌上猛地抽走桌布。

Now, I think the way to imagine this is to put ourselves in mind of the old college freshman fraternity initiation trick, and that is yanking your tablecloth out from under a set table of China glassware and porcelain.

如果你去维基HOW上查如何操作，维基HOW会建议：一定要先用塑料餐具和塑料杯尝试。

Now, if you go on WikiHow to investigate how to do this, WikiHow will advise, always try it with plastic cutlery and cups.

但请注意，美联储并没有这个选择，因为这张桌子从隐喻意义上已经摆好了。

But notice the Fed has not got that option because the table is set proverbially and metaphorically.

它摆满了最易碎的玻璃器皿和最珍贵的瓷器，还有牛市时期的香槟美食，这是因为长达十二年的低利率环境助长了风险承担行为，催生了无数公司——其中一些被称为独角兽，因为它们上市时估值高达十亿美元，却几乎不产生利润。

It's set with the most brittle glassware and the most precious porcelain and bull market champagne foods because of the twelve years of suppressed interest rates, which have fostered risk taking, which have brought forth into the world all these companies, because some of them are called unicorns because they come to market worth a billion dollars and generate not much earnings.

因此，世界上充满了通过金融刺激培育出来的非经济性经济项目。

So the world is full of uneconomic economic projects fostered through financial stimulus.

这主要是低利率造成的。

It's principally low interest rates.

对吧？

Right?

那么，当提高利率时，那些需要借贷才能生存的公司会怎样呢？

So what happens when you raise the rate of interest on companies that need to borrow to stay alive?

嗯，它们无法存活。

Well, they can't stay alive.

因此，出现了连锁失败，企业供应这些非经济性的项目。

So there's they're cascading failures and companies supply those uneconomic things.

想想那些曾经向WeWork出售啤酒的精酿啤酒制造商。

Think of the craft beer makers that sold beer to WeWork in the day.

对吧？

Right?

因此，有一整条经济链条都在支持这些非经济性的活动。

So there's a whole chain of economic activity that goes to support uneconomic activity.

这就是抽桌布隐喻的含义。

So that's the metaphor for the yanking the tablecloth.

桌上不是塑料杯。

It's not plastic cups on the table.

这是玻璃器皿。

This is glassware.

而美联储之前的刺激措施使这些玻璃器皿变得更加脆弱。

And the glassware is made all the more brittle through the Fed's earlier stimulus.

所以我们现在几乎是盲目飞行。

So we're sort of flying blind here.

是的。

Is Yes.

你是押注美国经济能够避免衰退，还是押注它会变得非常糟糕？

Your is your bet that The US economy can escape a recession, or is your bet that it's gonna get pretty ugly?

我的意思是，我

What I mean, I

要知道，我们在这里直面了个性、品格和既得利益。

know Well, that here we come face to face with personality and character and vested interest.

对吧？

Right?

对格兰特来说，还有什么比称另一次灾难更好的呢？

So what would be better for Grant than calling another disaster?

我能想象出那些电影画面。

I can imagine the motion pictures.

我能想象游行可能确实发生了，但我也能想象我们的发行量会大幅飙升。

I can imagine a parade is probably true, but I could imagine our circulation blowing up a lot.

大空头第二部。

Big short part two.

对。

Right.

所以，不纠结于内心独白和动机，我试图为那些并非不可能、并非无法实现的结果保留一些思维空间，如果事情顺利发展的话。

So so here's what so without obsessing interior dialogue and motivation, What I try to do is to reserve mindshare, mind space for the not impossibility, not impossible outcome if things work out.

美国经济多年来展现出了最大的韧性。

The United States economy is something that has demonstrated the greatest resiliency over the years.

我的意思是，我所以

I mean, I So

我认为人们听到了太多关于美国人不是独特性，而是例外论的说法。

think one hears rather too much about Americans, not singularity, but exceptionalism.

美国在许多方面都是卓越的。

America is exceptional in many ways.

当然，经济历史也是非凡的。

Certainly, economic history is exceptional.

所以这里有一种实干精神。

So so there's a can do spirit here.

有一种创业精神，即使美联储通过其笨拙的政策操作，或拜登总统通过他在讲坛上的选举，也无法将其扑灭。

There's a spirit of enterprise that not even the fed can extinguish through its maladroit policy maneuvers or president Biden extinguished through his elections in the pulpit.

所以，是的，通过运气，也许美联储也学到了一些东西，这是有可能的。

So, yeah, it's possible that through luck and maybe the Fed's learned something.

但我认为，那么问题就变成了：风险在哪里？机会又在哪里？

But I think that so the question then becomes, where do the risks lie and where do the opportunities lie?

既然结果尚不确定，你是否因为认为某种可能性——甚至是很可能的情况——而得到了良好的回报，换句话说，其他机会呢？

Given that the outcome is indeterminate, are you being paid well to think one thing that is possible, indeed probable, is other bargains, in other words.

是否存在一些被人们忽视的机会，因为我们太过单一和专注于某件事？

Are there bargains that people are neglecting because were so single minded and focused on something?

但我目前还没看到很多。

And I don't see many just yet.

我们这里有一位非常出色的股票分析师，他其他方面也很出色，名叫埃文·麦格拉思。

We have a very good equity analyst here who does other things well, his name's Evan McGrath.

他是《格兰特》的副主编，对个股分析做得非常出色。

He's the deputy editor of grants, and he does fabulous work in analyzing individual stocks.

我们之前对Facebook非常看空。

We had been very bearish on Facebook.

在勇气的驱使下，我们发表了观点，埃文完成了这项出色的工作。

In the courage we came out and Evans did this fine work.

他说Facebook现在是买入时机。

He says that Facebook is now a buy.

从其盈利能力来看，它现在价格低廉。

It's cheap on merits, on its earning power.

它因自身的缺陷和管理失误而受到了过度惩罚。

It has been unduly punished for its foibles and its managerial errors.

现在我们应当引起注意，因为它的估值已经变得具有吸引力。

And now we ought to pay attention because it is now a value in labelling stock.

这提供了安全边际。

It's a margin of safety.

因此，这些机会正在不断出现。

So there are these opportunities cropping up.

风险在于，我经常看到那些管理所谓价值型投资组合的人，便宜的股票反而会继续下跌，而那些过于昂贵的股票却未必如此。

The risk is, and I see this a lot in people who manage what's called value portfolios, is that the cheap stocks do go down within ones that are too expensive.

我知道一些价值投资者今年亏损了20%甚至更多，尽管他们认为自己持有的股票已经足够便宜，足以抵御这种波动。

I know of value investors who have suffered losses this year on the order of 20% or more, although they thought the stocks they owned were so cheap that they were inured to such things.

但事实并非如此。

But no.

因此，对许多人来说，今年是艰难的一年。

So it's been a brutal year for many people.

但回答你的问题，我们努力做的是持续寻找机会。

But in answer to your question, what we try to do is keep scouting for opportunities.

我们在债券市场看不到这种机会。

We don't see it in bond market.

尽管如果出现经济衰退，债券价格会上涨，利率可能会下降。

Although if there's a recession, bonds will go up in price and down, and interest rates will fall likely.

我们在黄金股票中看到了机会，这些股票几乎普遍被忽视和鄙视。

We see opportunity in gold stocks, which are almost universally ignored and scorned.

它们相对于黄金本身的价格几乎达到了历史最低水平。

They're about as cheap as they've ever been in relation to the metal.

但如果美联储被认为无法提供很好的解决方案，如果美联储被视为你需要保护自己、而非信任的机构，那么这种情况几乎是我有生以来一直期待的。

But if the fed is seen not to have the great answer, if the fed is seen to be the institution you must protect yourself against rather than to trust in, In that case, this is something I've been expecting for as long as I've been alive almost.

在这种情况下，黄金将会表现得很好。

That case, gold's gonna be very well.

让我们更详细地分析一下这些内容，以便让我们的听众更清楚地了解他们最应该避免什么，以及应该在哪里寻找机会。

Let's unpack some of this in a bit more detail so that we can give our listeners a practical sense of what most likely they should avoid and where they should look for opportunity.

你已经多次谈到债券的历史性熊市周期，以及利率对这些长期周期的影响。

So you've talked a lot about historic bear market cycles for bonds and the impact that interest rates have terms of these really long cycles.

据我理解，你最近所写内容的要点是，我们刚刚经历了一个由超低利率驱动的四十年牛市，而如今这一趋势正在逆转。

And as I understand it, moral of reading what you've been writing about this recently is we just had basically a forty year bull market driven by ultra low interest rates that are now reversing.

我想弄清楚，你所说的是否意味着：我们已经结束了，基本上应该远离债券。

And I'm trying to get a sense of whether what you're saying is, We're done, just stay away from bonds basically.

举例来说，我记得杰克·博格尔曾经告诉我，你可以做一个简单的决定：根据你的年龄，配置一个平衡型基金，其中60%到70%甚至80%是股票，其余20%到30%或40%是债券。

Example, I remember Jack Bogle once telling me, You could just make a single decision of having a balanced fund that had sixty, seventy percent stocks, 80% stocks or whatever, depending on your age, then twenty, thirty, 40% bonds.

而现在有些人说，实际上60/40的投资组合已经过时了。

And there are people now saying, Well, actually the 60%, portfolio is done.

你用这种组合就完蛋了。

You're toast with that.

你能谈谈，了解这些庞大债券市场周期的历史，能告诉我们现在是否应该彻底回避债券吗？

Can you talk about what this knowledge of the history of these huge bond market cycles tells us about whether we should just avoid bonds totally now?

是的。

Yeah.

债券是一种承诺支付金钱的工具。

A bond is a promise to pay money.

债券给你带来的最好结果就是你能拿回本金并获得利息。

And the best thing that happens to you with a bond is you get your money back with interest.

这就是收益的一面。

That's the upside.

本杰明·格雷厄姆在谈论债券时提醒我们，债券不会因为管理层押注某个了不起的发明而涨三倍。

And Ben Graham, writing about bonds, reminded us, reminded his readers that a bond is not going to triple because management's chance on some wonderful invention.

由于收益有限，风险也就相应巨大。

As the upside is limited, so are the risks great.

因此，债券的选择更应侧重于排除，而非挑选。

So bond selection is one of exclusion rather than of selection.

你应以规避风险的心态来对待它。

You approach it with the idea of avoiding risk.

那么国债呢？

So what about treasury securities?

《华尔街日报》将它们描述为极其安全。

They're characterized as super safe in the Wall Street Journal.

在过去四十年里的大部分时间里，一直是大多数退休投资组合的基石。

Have anchored most retirement portfolios for most of the past four decades.

那么，我们该如何分析这一点呢？

Well, how do we analyze this?

一种看待方式是观察到，在金融历史的整个一月期间，债券往往呈现出长达十年的周期性波动。

One way of looking at it is to observe that over the course of January of financial history, bonds have tended tended to move over the course of decade long cycles.

利率曾连续三十年、四十年上涨，接着又持续二十年、三十年、四十年下跌，这种模式从十九世纪末一直延续至今。

Interest rates would rise for thirty, forty years, and fall for twenty, thirty, forty years, so on, starting from the late nineteenth century to the present.

自1981年以来，利率已经持续下降了四十年。

They have fallen for forty years, since 1981.

现在，这个周期可能已经终结了。

Now, it might be that that cycle has broken.

我之前过于急切地宣布这一周期的结束。

I have been a little too eager to declare the end of that cycle.

鉴于我在这一点上 newfound 的谦逊，我现在不会——至少不会大声说出来——尽管我可能心里这么想：债券市场或许仍倾向于进入新一轮的周期性运动。

And in my newly found humility on that point, I will not now say, at least not out loud, I might think it, the bond market still might prefer to go into a motion of time.