Last year in this report, I described my family's delight with the one-quarter (200 flight hours annually) of a Hawker 1000 that we had owned since 1995. I got so pumped up by my own prose that shortly thereafter I signed up for one-sixteenth of a Cessna V Ultra as well. Now my annual outlays at EJA and Borsheim's, combined, total ten times my salary. Think of this as a rough guideline for your own expenditures with us. During the past year, two of Berkshire's outside directors have also signed on with EJA. Maybe we're paying them too much.
去年在年报当中，我曾经形容我的家族自从 1995 年来买下四分之一的(也就是每年 200 小时)的霍克 1000 型飞机所有权的愉快经验，不久之后，我又再接再厉签约买下一架 Cessna V Ultra 型六分之一的所有权，现在每年我在 EJA 以及波仙珠宝的花费大概是我年薪的十倍，如此大家可以据此推算你可以负担的底限在哪里。
Very large limits. But we will not knowingly expose Berkshire to losses
的风险上限，但我们绝不愿意让Berkshire在不知情的情况下，曝露于我们无法
Those that had a market value of more than $600 million at the end of 2004 are itemized.
下表列示 Berkshire 2004 年市价超过 6 亿美元以上的股票投资。
Equally important, GEICO has operated at an underwriting profit in 13 of the 14 years Berkshire has owned it.
同样重要的是，GEICO 在伯克希尔管理的 14 年里，其中的 13 年均实现了承保盈利。
Counties or Shires: Avon, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgesshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, , Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hereford and Worcester, Hertfordshire, Humberside (N. Humberside), Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshiire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey (Kingston-upon-Thames), East Sussex, West Sussex, Warwickshire, Isle of Wight, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire, Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan, Borders, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland, Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymoney, Belfast, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine Cookstown, Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newtownabbey, Newry and Mourne, North Down, Omagh, Strabane, Northern lreland and Ballymena.
郡：埃文、贝德福、伯克、白金汉、剑桥、柴、克利夫兰、康沃尔、坎布里亚、德比、德文、多塞特、达勒姆、埃塞克斯、格罗斯特、汉普、赫里福德-伍斯特、哈福德、亨伯塞德、肯特、兰开夏、莱斯特、林肯、诺福克、北安普敦、诺森伯兰、诺丁汉、牛津、什罗普什鲁斯伯里）、萨默塞特、斯塔福德、萨福克、萨里、东塞萨克斯、西塞萨克斯、沃里克、怀特岛、威尔特、北约克(诺萨勒顿、克卢伊德、达费德、格温特、圭内斯、中格拉摩根、波伊斯、南格拉摩根、西格拉摩根、博德斯、中部大区、邓弗里斯－盖洛韦、法夫、格兰扁、苏格兰高地、洛锡安、斯特拉斯克莱德、泰赛德、西部群岛、奥克尼群岛、设德兰群岛、安特里姆、阿兹、阿尔马、巴利马尼、贝尔法斯特、卡里克弗格斯、卡斯尔雷、科尔雷恩、库克敦、克雷加文、唐、邓甘嫩、弗马纳、拉恩、利马瓦迪、利斯本、伦敦德里、马拉费尔特、莫勒、纽敦阿比、纽里和莫恩、北部丘陵、奥马区、斯特拉斑、北爱尔兰和巴利米纳。
Whenever Charlie and I buy common stocks for Berkshire's insurance companies (leaving aside arbitrage purchases, discussed later) we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business. We look at the economic prospects of the business, the people in charge of running it, and the price we must pay. We do not have in mind any time or price for sale. Indeed, we are willing to hold a stock indefinitely so long as we expect the business to increase in intrinsic value at a satisfactory rate. When investing, we view ourselves as business analysts - not as market analysts, not as macroeconomic analysts, and not even as security analysts.
每当查理跟我为 Berkshire 旗下的保险公司买进股票(扣除套利交易，后面会再详述)，我们采取的态度就好象是我们买下的是一家私人企业一样，我们着重于这家公司的经济前景、经营阶层以及我们支付的价格，我们从来就没有考虑再把这些股份卖出，相反地只要能够预期这家公司的价值能够稳定地增加，我们愿意无限期地持有这些股份，在投资时我们从不把自己当作是市场的分析师、总体经济分析师或是证券分析师，而是企业的分析师。
Should be right up Berkshire's alley, and Frank promptly gave me acall. I thought right away that we would make a deal and beforelong it was done.
责，可想而知投资银行绝对不会想到我们，但是就在去年春天，Frank跟John
Phone.
在Berkshire，我们的购并策略极其简单-那就是静待电话铃响，可喜的是，现在电话好
I feel strongly that the fate of our businesses and their managers should not depend on my health - which, it should be added, is excellent - and I have planned accordingly. Neither my estate plan nor that of my wife is designed to preserve the family fortune; instead, both are aimed at preserving the character of Berkshire and returning the fortune to society.
我强烈地感觉伯克希尔企业与经理人的命运不应该依赖在我个人的健康之上，当然若是因此可以加分会更好，为此我已做好的万全的计划，不管是我个人或是我内人的遗嘱都不打算将这些财产留给家族，相反地重点会放在如何保持伯克希尔的特质，并将所有的财富回归给社会。
This move by Berkshire is making them sweat in Silicon Valley.
是后来我们又增添了Acme，我敢保证Berkshire的这项举动将使矽谷的那帮人汗流浃
If you should decide to do business with Berkshire, we would pay
如果你决定要跟Berkshire一起做生意，我们会以现金的方式给予报酬，你的企
Charlie Munger, my partner at Berkshire, and I will continue to measure our progress
查理·芒格，我在巴郡的搭档和我将继续采用上述的评量标准来衡量我们的进展，并定
Charlie Munger, my partner at Berkshire, and I will continue to measure our progress by the two yardsticks I have just described and will regularly update you on the results.
查理蒙哥是我在伯克希尔的合伙人，他和我将继续用我刚才所描述的评估标准来衡量我们的进程并定期更新结果。
Because our roster is filled with.380 hitters, we have tried to pay cash for acquisitions, and here our record has been far better. Starting with National Indemnity in 1967, and continuing with, among others, See's, Buffalo News, Scott Fetzer and GEICO, we have acquired -- for cash -- a number of large businesses that have performed incredibly well since we bought them. These acquisitions have delivered Berkshire tremendous value -- indeed, far more than I anticipated when we made our purchases.
正因为目前我们的球员名单已布满了打击率三成八的高手，所以我们总是希望尽量用现金来进行购并，而事实证明我们的成绩远高于预期，1967 从年的国家产险开始，接着是喜斯糖果，水牛城新闻报，史考特飞兹以及盖可保险等等，这些企业在我们用现金买下之后的表现再再令人激赏，它们也为伯克希尔增添了无数的价值，这实在是远高于我们当初的预期。
The Bookworm boutique at the Qwest broke all records last year selling Berkshire-related books. An amazing 3500 of these were Poor Charlie`s Almanack, the collected wisdom of my partner. This means that a copy was sold every 9 seconds. And for good reason: You will never find a book with more useful ideas. Word-of-mouth recommendations have caused Charlie`s first printing of 20500 copies to sell out, and we will therefore have a revised and expanded edition on sale at our meeting. Among the other 22 titles and DVDs available last year at the Bookworm, 4597 copies were sold for $84746. Our shareholders are a bookseller`s dream.
去年书虫书店在会场设摊贩售Berkshire相关书籍，其数量再次打破纪录，其中光是我合伙人查理的智慧语录-可怜查理的年鉴就卖出了3500本，这意味着每隔九秒就卖出一本，这当然是有原因的，你再也找不到其他任何一本如此实用的了，光是靠着口耳相传，第一刷的20500本一下子就卖光了，使得我们赶紧在年会中推出修订二版，其它22种书目及影音光碟，总计也卖出了4597份，销售金额达84746美元，我们的股东群实在是书商们的最爱。
If Mr Buffett's proposed deal is completed, Equitas will eventually ask the High Court to transfer the Names'liabilities to Berkshire.
英国贸工部已向美国政府承诺，将始终掌握他们的行踪，以备索赔者日后需要查找他们下落。
From Berkshire's present base of $4.9 billion in net worth, we will find it much more difficult to average 15% annual growth in book value than we did to average 23.8% from the $22 million we began with.
租税 事实上，1989 年伯克希尔 15 亿美元的增加净值还是已扣除 7.12 亿美元估计应付所得税后的净额，此外这还不包含其五个主要被投资公司合计已缴 1.75 亿美元的所得税。
Buffett, the book reveals, isn't al-ways the calm, calculating figure we know as head of the storied invest-ment firm Berkshire Hathaway.
书中指出，巴菲特并非一直是众所周知领导素负盛名的波克夏投资公司一个冷静精明、工於心计的人物。
His investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, benefits from the cheap cash flow provided by its vast insurance operations, which include GEICO.
巴菲特旗下的投资公司伯克希尔哈撒韦从巨大的保险业务中获得了廉价的现金流，保险业务中包括了GEICO。
We cherish cost-consciousness at Berkshire. Our model is the widow who
在Berkshire我们特别强调成本意识，我们的模范是一位准备刊登丈夫讣文的寡