时间是好生意的朋友，却是坏生意的敌人。

　　If you are in a lousy business for a long time, you are going to get a lousy result even if you buy it cheap.

　　如果你陷在糟糕的生意里太久的话，你的结果也一定会糟糕，即使你的买入价很便宜。

　　If you are in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little bit too much going in, you will get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.

　　如果你在一桩好生意里，即使你开始多付了一点额外的成本，如果你做的足够久的话，你的回报一定是可观的。

　　I find very few wonderful businesses in Japan at present now.

　　我现在从日本没发现什么好生意。

　　They may change the culture in some way, so that management gets more stockholder responsive over there and stock returns are higher.

　　也可能日本的文化会作某些改变，比如他们的管理层可能会对公司股票的责任多一些，这样回报率会高些。

　　But at the present time you will find a lot of low return businesses and that was true even when the Japanese economy was booming.

　　但目前来看，我看到的都是一些低回报率的公司，即使是在日本经济高速发展的时候。

　　It is amazing. They had an incredible market without incredible companies.

　　说来也令人惊奇，因为日本这样一个完善巨大的市场却不能产生一些优秀的高回报的公司。

　　They were incredible in terms of doing a lot of businesses, but they weren’t incredible in terms of the return on equity that they achieved and that has finally caught up with them.

　　日本的优秀只体现在经济总量上，但是这些生意从资产回报率来看都不乐观。这个问题已经给日本带来麻烦了。

　　So we have so far done nothing there.

　　我们到现在为止对日本还是没什么兴趣。

　　But as long as money is 1% there, we will keep looking.

　　但只要还能挣到1％的钱，我们会继续持观望态度。

　　Q： You were rumored to be one of the rescue buyers of Long Term Capital. What was the play there? What did you see?

　　问题：有传闻说，你成为长期资金管理基金的救场买家？你在那里做了什么？你看到了什么机会？

　　W: Well, there is a story in the current Fortune Magazine which has Rupert Murdoch on the cover.

　　巴菲特：在最近以鲁本·默多克为封面的财富杂志上有一篇文章。

　　It tells the whole story of our involvement. It is a kind of an interesting story because it’s a long story, so I won’t go to all of the background.

　　文章讲了这个事情的始末，有点意思。这是一个冗长的故事，我这里就不介绍来龙去脉了。

　　But I got the really serious call about Long Term Capital (LTCM).

　　我接了一个非常慎重的关于长期资金管理基金的电话。

　　So we’d go with a Friday,whatever it was. My granddaughter, I got a mid afternoon, my granddaughter was having her birthday party that evening

　　那是一个星期五的下午吧，我孙女的生日Party在那个傍晚。

　　and I was flying at night to Seattle to go on a 12-day trip with Gates on a Alaska private plane, all kind of things.

　　在那晚之后，我将乘飞机到西雅图，参加比尔·盖茨的一个12天的阿拉斯加的私人旅程。

　　I was really out of communication.

　　所以我那时是一点准备都没有的。

　　But I get this call on a Friday afternoon since things were getting serious.

　　于是星期五我接了这个电话，整个事情变得严重起来。

　　That I have some other calls before that the article get in a few certain where.

　　在财富的文章发表之前，我还通了其他一些相关电话。

　　I know those people, most of them pretty well, a lot of them at Salomon when I was there.

　　我认识他们，他们中的一些人我还很熟。很多人和我都在所罗门兄弟公司工作过。

　　And the place was imploding and the Federal was sending people up that weekend.

　　事情突然变得很重要，美联储周末派了人过去。

　　And so between that Friday and the following Wednesday when the New York Federal, in effect, orchestrated a rescue effort but without any Federal money involved.

　　在星期五到接下来的周三这段时间里，纽约储备局导演了没有联邦政府资金卷入的长期资金管理基金的救赎行动。

　　I was quite active but I was having a terrible time because we were sailing up through these canyons which I have no interests when I was in Alaska.

　　我很活跃但是我那时的身体状况很不好，因为我们那时正在阿拉斯加的一些峡谷里航行，而我对那些峡谷毫无兴趣。

　　And the captain was saying: You know, we just sail over there we might see some bears.

　　船长说我们朝着可以看到北极熊的方向航行。

　　While often I said: Straight away, you get good satellite.

　　我告诉船长朝着可以稳定接收到卫星信号的方向航行。

　　So it was exactly the picture.

　　事情就是这个样子。

　　Both of us got by all faces were going behind me, and I got my back, I am on the phone which was the people talking the way working on the phone.

　　其他人投支持我的提议。因此，我得以和电话那头正在工作中的人进行了沟通。