????即使是在美國，政府強烈希望維持本幣穩定，但是，我1965年接管伯克希爾哈撒韋以來，美元也已貶值高達86%。當年花1美元能買到的東西，今天至少要花7美元。因此，這些年來，一個免稅機構須取得4.3%的債券投資年收益，才能保持購買力不變。假如管理層還將一切利息收入視為“收益”，他們一定是在開玩笑。

????對于像你我這樣的應稅投資者，情況就更糟了。過去的四十七里，美國國債不斷地滾動，年回報率5.7%。聽起來好像還不錯。但對于個人所得稅率平均為25%的的個人投資者而言，這5.7%的回報率所能帶來的實際收益是零。投資者繳納的、可見的所得稅將拿走上述回報率中的1.4個百分點，通脹因素這個隱形的“稅種”將吞噬其余4.3個百分點。值得指出的是，盡管投資者可能認為顯性的所得稅是主要的負擔，但其實，隱形的通脹“稅”是 所得稅的三倍還多。沒錯，每張美元上都印著“我們信仰上帝”這句話，但啟動美國政府印鈔機的是凡夫俗子的手。

????當然，高利率能彌補依托于貨幣的投資工具所帶來的通脹風險。而且，20世紀80年代初時的利率確實很好地做到了這一點。不過，要抵消消費者購買力面臨的風險，當前的利率水平還差得遠。因此，眼下應謹慎投資債券。

??? 在目前的環境下，我不看好依托于貨幣的投資。不過，伯克希爾持有的這類投資仍然達到了相當的數額，其中主要是短期品種。不管實際利率水平是多么低，在伯克希爾，對充足流動性的需求總是被置于極其重要的地位，將來其重要性也不會降低。為滿足這一需求，我們主要持有美國國債——即便是在最混亂的經濟環境下，美國國債也是唯一靠得住的投資品種。我們正常的流動性水平是200億美元；100億美元是我們的絕對下限。

??? 拋開流動性和監管要求，我們一般不愿購買基于貨幣的證券，除非它們有可能提供超乎尋常的收益——原因可能是在間歇的垃圾債券暴跌期，某只公司債定價過低；也可能是因為利率已升至高位，如果利率下跌，高評級債券有可能實現大幅資本升值。過去，這兩類機會我們都抓到過——未來也可能再次抓住這樣的機會——但當前我們與這樣的前景顯然背道而馳。今日的情形正如華爾街人士謝爾比?庫洛姆?戴維斯多年前的一句俏皮話所言：“以如今的價格，宣稱提供無風險回報的債券實際提供的是無回報的風險。

????Even in the U.S., where the wish for a stable currency is strong, the dollar has fallen a staggering 86% in value since 1965, when I took over management of Berkshire. It takes no less than $7 today to buy what $1 did at that time. Consequently, a tax-free institution would have needed 4.3% interest annually from bond investments over that period to simply maintain its purchasing power. Its managers would have been kidding themselves if they thought of any portion of that interest as "income."

????For taxpaying investors like you and me, the picture has been far worse. During the same 47-year period, continuous rolling of U.S. Treasury bills produced 5.7% annually. That sounds satisfactory. But if an individual investor paid personal income taxes at a rate averaging 25%, this 5.7% return would have yielded nothing in the way of real income. This investor's visible income tax would have stripped him of 1.4 points of the stated yield, and the invisible inflation tax would have devoured the remaining 4.3 points. It's noteworthy that the implicit inflation "tax" was more than triple the explicit income tax that our investor probably thought of as his main burden. "In God We Trust" may be imprinted on our currency, but the hand that activates our government's printing press has been all too human.

????High interest rates, of course, can compensate purchasers for the inflation risk they face with currency-based investments -- and indeed, rates in the early 1980s did that job nicely. Current rates, however, do not come close to offsetting the purchasing-power risk that investors assume. Right now bonds should come with a warning label.

????Under today's conditions, therefore, I do not like currency-based investments. Even so, Berkshire holds significant amounts of them, primarily of the short-term variety. At Berkshire the need for ample liquidity occupies center stage and will never be slighted, however inadequate rates may be. Accommodating this need, we primarily hold U.S. Treasury bills, the only investment that can be counted on for liquidity under the most chaotic of economic conditions. Our working level for liquidity is $20 billion; $10 billion is our absolute minimum.

????Beyond the requirements that liquidity and regulators impose on us, we will purchase currency-related securities only if they offer the possibility of unusual gain -- either because a particular credit is mispriced, as can occur in periodic junk-bond debacles, or because rates rise to a level that offers the possibility of realizing substantial capital gains on high-grade bonds when rates fall. Though we've exploited both opportunities in the past -- and may do so again -- we are now 180 degrees removed from such prospects. Today, a wry comment that Wall Streeter Shelby Cullom Davis made long ago seems apt: "Bonds promoted as offering risk-free returns are now priced to deliver return-free risk."