巴菲特致股东的信（2008年）⑦金融及金融产品

Finance and Financial Products

金融及金融产品

I will write here at some length about the mortgage operation of Clayton Homes and skip any financial commentary, which is summarized in the table at the end of this section. I do this because Clayton’s recent experience may be useful in the public-policy debate about housing and mortgages. But first a little background.

我会在这里稍显冗长地论述下 ClaytonHomes 的抵押贷款业务，并跳过所有财务方面的内容，这些内容列在后文的表格中。这样做是因为，Clayton 最近的经历可能会对关于房地产和抵押贷款的公共政策争论有些帮助。首先我们先看一下背景。

Clayton is the largest company in the manufactured home industry, delivering 27,499 units last year. This came to about 34% of the industry’s 81,889 total. Our share will likely grow in 2009, partly because much of the rest of the industry is in acute distress. Industrywide, units sold have steadily declined since they hit a peak of 372,843 in 1998.

Clayton 是住宅建筑行业最大的公司，去年交付了 27499 套住房，这占了整个行业81889 套住房的 34％。2009 年我们的市场份额会进一步增加，部分原因是该行业的其他公司正身陷绝境。站在行业角度，自 1998 年达到售出 372843 套的高峰之后，整个行业的住房销售数量都在稳步下降。

At that time, much of the industry employed sales practices that were atrocious. Writing about the period somewhat later, I described it as involving “borrowers who shouldn’t have borrowed being financed by lenders who shouldn’t have lent.”

在过去一段时期中，该行业中多数销售行为都很糟糕。我曾描述这段时期为，"不该当债主的人把钱借给了不该欠债的人"。

To begin with, the need for meaningful down payments was frequently ignored. Sometimes fakery was involved. (“That certainly looks like a $2,000 cat to me” says the salesman who will receive a $3,000 commission if the loan goes through.) Moreover, impossible-to-meet monthly payments were being agreed to by borrowers who signed up because they had nothing to lose. The resulting mortgages were usually packaged (“securitized”) and sold by Wall Street firms to unsuspecting investors. This chain of folly had to end badly, and it did.

首先，人们常常忽略首付款在分期付款的中的重要意义。有时候甚至弄虚作假("在我看来，他们家的猫价值2000 美元"，销售人员说。如果贷款被批准，他将得到 3000 美元的佣金)。而贷款人也同意签署那些根本无法偿还按月支付的分期付款协议，因为他们没什么可失去的。由此产生的抵押贷款通常被打包(证券化)，然后由华尔街出售给毫无戒心的投资者。这一连串的愚蠢行为必将自食其果，事实上也正如此。

Clayton, it should be emphasized, followed far more sensible practices in its own lending throughout that time. Indeed, no purchaser of the mortgages it originated and then securitized has ever lost a dime of principal or interest. But Clayton was the exception; industry losses were staggering. And the hangover continues to this day.

必须强调的是，Clayton 在那一时期贷出款项时要理性得多。事实上，没有一个购买了 Clayton 抵押贷款证券化产品的投资者损失过一毛钱的本金和利息。但是 Clayton 只是个例外，整个行业都损失惨重，这种状况一直持续到了今天。

This 1997-2000 fiasco should have served as a canary-in-the-coal-mine warning for the far-larger conventional housing market. But investors, government and rating agencies learned exactly nothing from the manufactured-home debacle. Instead, in an eerie rerun of that disaster, the same mistakes were repeated with conventional homes in the 2004-07 period: Lenders happily made loans that borrowers couldn’t repay out of their incomes, and borrowers just as happily signed up to meet those payments. Both parties counted on “house-price appreciation” to make this otherwise impossible arrangement work. It was Scarlett O’Hara all over again: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” The consequences of this behavior are now reverberating through every corner of our economy.

1997-2000 年的这段预制房屋市场的惨痛教训应该被视为更大范围内的常规住房市场的危险征兆。但事实上，投资者、政府和评级机构完全没有从预制房屋市场的崩溃中吸取任何教训。相反，令人大惑不解的是，在2004－2007 年在常规住房中这场可拍的灾难重演中：借款人愉悦地把钱借给根本还不起的人；贷款人也毫不犹豫签署了分期付款协议。双方都希望"房价上涨"让这根本不可能实现的安排发挥作用。《飘》中女主人公郝思嘉说得好："车到山前自有路，明天再考虑也不迟。"如今我们经济的各方面都品尝到了这种行为的苦果。

Clayton’s 198,888 borrowers, however, have continued to pay normally throughout the housing crash, handing us no unexpected losses. This is not because these borrowers are unusually creditworthy, a point proved by FICO scores (a standard measure of credit risk). Their median FICO score is 644, compared to a national median of 723, and about 35% are below 620, the segment usually designated “sub-prime.” Many disastrous pools of mortgages on conventional homes are populated by borrowers with far better credit, as measured by FICO scores.

然而在整个房地产市场崩塌期间，Clayton 的 198888 名贷款者仍然照常偿还债务，没有给我们带来意外损失。这并不是因为这些贷款者信用良好，一个衡量信用风险的标准 FICO 分数显示，我们的贷款者信用分中位数为644 分，而全国的中位数为 723 分。我们约有 35％的贷款人信用分数低于 620 分，这部分人群通常被称为次级贷款人。而灾难性的常规住房抵押贷款中很多贷款者，根据 FICO 的信用评分，则要好得多。

Yet at yearend, our delinquency rate on loans we have originated was 3.6%, up only modestly from 2.9% in 2006 and 2.9% in 2004. (In addition to our originated loans, we’ve also bought bulk portfolios of various types from other financial institutions.) Clayton’s foreclosures during 2008 were 3.0% of originated loans compared to 3.8% in 2006 and 5.3% in 2004.

直到年底，我们的坏账率仅仅从 2006 年和 2004 年的 2.9%轻微上升到 3.6%。除了我们原始贷款外，我们还从其他金融机构购买了各种不同类别的贷款组合。2008 年，Clayton 丧失抵押品赎回权仅占原始贷款的 3%，2006 年为 3.8%，2004 年为 5.3%。

Why are our borrowers – characteristically people with modest incomes and far-from-great credit scores – performing so well? The answer is elementary, going right back to Lending 101. Our borrowers simply looked at how full-bore mortgage payments would compare with their actual – not hoped-for – income and then decided whether they could live with that commitment. Simply put, they took out a mortgage with the intention of paying it off, whatever the course of home prices.

为什么我们的贷款人表现得这么好？他们收入平平，信用评分也不高。答案非常简单，回到贷款 101 条款，我们的贷款者仅仅是量力贷款，他们会看看其他们的实际收入(而不是期望收入)，是否能够偿还贷款。简单来说，他们贷款时就想好了如何偿还，不管房价怎样变化。

Just as important is what our borrowers did not do. They did not count on making their loan payments by means of refinancing. They did not sign up for “teaser” rates that upon reset were outsized relative to their income. And they did not assume that they could always sell their home at a profit if their mortgage payments became onerous. Jimmy Stewart would have loved these folks.

同样重要的还有我们的贷款人没有做什么。他们没有指望依靠再次借钱来偿还贷款。他们没有收到诱惑性的利率吸引，去签订一旦利率重置，就同自己的收入脱节的苛刻的贷款合同。他们也没有假定，当他们无法偿还贷款时，可以通过出售而获利。Jimmy Stewart(道德楷模詹姆斯·史都华)简直爱死他们了。

Of course, a number of our borrowers will run into trouble. They generally have no more than minor savings to tide them over if adversity hits. The major cause of delinquency or foreclosure is the loss of a job, but death, divorce and medical expenses all cause problems. If unemployment rates rise – as they surely will in 2009 – more of Clayton’s borrowers will have troubles, and we will have larger, though still manageable, losses. But our problems will not be driven to any extent by the trend of home prices.

当然，我们的贷款人中也有不少人未来会陷入困境。如果不幸降临，他们并没有太多储蓄以让自己度过难关。让他们违约或丧失抵押赎回权的主要原因是失业，但是死亡、离婚和重病也都会引发问题。如果失业率上升——在 2009 年这是肯定的，更多的贷款人会陷入麻烦。我们将蒙受更大的损失，尽管仍是可控的。但我们的问题同房价走势关系不大。

Commentary about the current housing crisis often ignores the crucial fact that most foreclosures do not occur because a house is worth less than its mortgage (so-called “upside-down” loans). Rather, foreclosures take place because borrowers can’t pay the monthly payment that they agreed to pay. Homeowners who have made a meaningful down-payment – derived from savings and not from other borrowing – seldom walk away from a primary residence simply because its value today is less than the mortgage. Instead, they walk when they can’t make the monthly payments.

关于目前房地产危机的评论往往忽略掉一个关键事实，那就是大多数丧失抵押品赎回权的情况，并不是因为房屋价值低于抵押贷款价值(所谓的贷款倒挂)，而是因为贷款者无力偿还月供。那些通过节衣缩食储蓄来支付首付而不是借款的房主，很少是因为房子价值低于抵押贷款而放弃他们的房子。相反，当他们付不起月供时，他们就会被迫离开。

Home ownership is a wonderful thing. My family and I have enjoyed my present home for 50 years, with more to come. But enjoyment and utility should be the primary motives for purchase, not profit or refi possibilities. And the home purchased ought to fit the income of the purchaser.

拥有自己的房子是件好事。我和我的家庭在现在的房子里住 50 年了，而且还会一直住下去。但是购买房屋的首要动机应该是家的喜悦和居住本身，而不是指望它盈利和融资。购买房屋也应该同购房者的收入水平相吻合。

The present housing debacle should teach home buyers, lenders, brokers and government some simple lessons that will ensure stability in the future. Home purchases should involve an honest-to-God down payment of at least 10% and monthly payments that can be comfortably handled by the borrower’s income. That income should be carefully verified.

目前的房地产危机应当给购房者、贷款商、经纪商和政府一些简单的教训，而这将确保房市将来的稳定。购房人应当实打实地支付至少 10%的首付款和与收入相匹配的月供款。而且贷款人的收入证明也要仔细核实。

Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective. Keeping them in their homes should be the ambition.

居者有其屋是个美好的目标，但不应该是我们国家的首要目标。让他们住在自己的房子而不毁约才是应该追求的目标。

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Clayton’s lending operation, though not damaged by the performance of its borrowers, is nevertheless threatened by an element of the credit crisis. Funders that have access to any sort of government guarantee – banks with FDIC-insured deposits, large entities with commercial paper now backed by the Federal Reserve, and others who are using imaginative methods (or lobbying skills) to come under the government’s umbrella – have money costs that are minimal. Conversely, highly-rated companies, such as Berkshire, are experiencing borrowing costs that, in relation to Treasury rates, are at record levels. Moreover, funds are abundant for the government-guaranteed borrower but often scarce for others, no matter how creditworthy they may be.

Clayton 的贷款业务尽管没有因贷款人的表现而受损，却受到整个信贷危机的因素威胁。能够获得任何形式的政府担保的出资人，即拥有 FDIC 保险存款的银行、拥有由美联储支持的商业票据的大型实体，以及其他利用富有想象力的方法(或公关能力)而进入政府保护伞的人，他们的资金成本是极低的。相反的，像伯克希尔这样高评级的公司，其资金成本与美国国债利率相比，达到创纪录的高水平。此外，对于政府信用担保的借款人来说，资金是充裕的，而对于别人而言往往是稀缺的，无论他们的信用等级是多么的高。

This unprecedented “spread” in the cost of money makes it unprofitable for any lender who doesn’t enjoy government-guaranteed funds to go up against those with a favored status. Government is determining the “haves” and “have-nots.” That is why companies are rushing to convert to bank holding companies, not a course feasible for Berkshire.

对于那些无法享受到政府信用担保的资金而言，这样前所未有的利差使得他们根本无法参与竞争。政府最终决定给钱或者不给。这也就是为什么那些公司急于转型成银行控股公司，而这对伯克希尔来说并不可行。

Though Berkshire’s credit is pristine – we are one of only seven AAA corporations in the country – our cost of borrowing is now far higher than competitors with shaky balance sheets but government backing. At the moment, it is much better to be a financial cripple with a government guarantee than a Gibraltar without one.

尽管伯克希尔的信用是极好的，我们是这个国家中仅有的七家 3A 评级公司之一。但我们现在的借款成本远高于那些负债表较差但有政府支持的竞争者。在这时候，与财务实力强大但没有政府担保的公司相比，一家有政府担保但财务实力严重残废的公司，要好过的多。

Today’s extreme conditions may soon end. At worst, we believe we will find at least a partial solution that will allow us to continue much of Clayton’s lending. Clayton’s earnings, however, will surely suffer if we are forced to compete for long against government-favored lenders.

目前极端的状况将很快结束。在最坏的情况下，我们相信仍然可以找到一些办法继续开展 Clayton 的贷款业务。但是，如果我们不得不与政府支持的竞争者进行长期竞争的话，Clayton 的收益肯定会受到影响。