巴菲特致合伙人的信（1962年）③复利的喜悦

The Joys of Compounding

I have it from unreliable sources that the cost of the voyage Isabella originally underwrote for Columbus was approximately $30,000. This has been considered at least a moderately successful utilization of venture capital. Without attempting to evaluate the psychic income derived from finding a new hemisphere, it must be pointed out that even had squatter's rights prevailed, the whole deal was not exactly another IBM. Figured very roughly, the $30,000 invested at 4% compounded annually would have amounted to something like $2,000,000,000,000
(that's $2 trillion for those of you who are not government statisticians) by 1962. Historical apologists for the Indians of Manhattan may find refuge in similar calculations. Such fanciful geometric progressions illustrate the value of either living a long time, or compounding your money at a decent rate. I have nothing particularly helpful to say on the former point.

复利的喜悦

据说西班牙的伊莎贝拉女王(Isabella)最初投资了 30,000 美元给哥伦布。人们认为女王的这笔风险投资做得相当成功。不考虑发现新大陆的成就感，必须指出的是，即使“逆权侵占”(squatters rights)最后成立了，这笔投资也没那么了不起。粗略计算，30,000 美元，按照每年 4%的收益率投资，年复一年复利积累，到 1962 年就会增加到 2,000,000,000,000 美元左右（不是政府的统计员，不认识这么大的数，这是 2 万亿美元）。按照同样的计算方法，可以说明曼哈顿的印第安人没吃亏。这种神奇的几何级递增效应说明要想非常有钱有两个办法：要么活得很长，要么以相当高的收益率让资金复利增长。对于前者，我没什么有用的建议。

The following table indicates the compounded value of $100,000 at 5%, 10% and 15% for 10, 20 and 30 years. It is always startling to see how relatively small differences in rates add up to very significant sums over a period of years. That is why, even though we are shooting for more, we feel that a few percentage points advantage over the Dow is a very worthwhile achievement. It can mean a lot of dollars over a decade or two.

下面列出了 100,000 美元以 5%、10%和 15%的复合收益率增长 10 年、20 年和 30 年的情况。差别很小的收益率，日积月累，最后得出的数字相差如此悬殊，我总是觉得这太神奇了。就是因为这个道理，尽管我们追求更高的收益率，我觉得能领先道指几个百分点，我们的努力就很值了。经过十年、二十年，这就是巨大的财富了。