作為以PPP計全球第三大經濟體系,筆者不會懷疑日本人的能力和優越性。不過若果日本希望重覆當年軍國主義道路以重振國威,筆者恐怕其如意算盤未必能打享。在1923年當富蘭克林·德拉諾·羅斯福(Franklin D. Roosevelt)任職美國海海軍助理部長(Assistant Secretary of the Navy)時,曾撰寫了「Shall we trust Japan」的報告,指出美日遲早因在西太平洋的利益上陷入不可分解的死結,而最終決定雙方勝負的會是經濟因素「⋯Economic causes would become the determining factor⋯」。所謂經濟因素,其實是指日本缺乏以石油為主的天然資源,因為在二戰前夕日本原油八成由美國供應,另外一成由印尼透過Royal Dutch Shell進口。
倭人先敗滿清,再敗沙俄固然跟其勇武宏略有關,但另一方面亦跟滿清積弱和倭人僥倖在歷次國際政治博奕豪賭中取勝。及至佔有東三省時其實倭人已經去到極限以消化短期內奪得的大量土地。可惜日本已經被軍國主義騎刦,妄想蛇呑象而發動七七事變侵華和所謂北進和南進計劃。北進計劃是遠征沙俄,可惜日本皇軍在1938年7月和1939年5月倭人先後兩次入侵蒙古的「張鼓峰事件」和「諾門檻事件」(「諾門檻事件」(Battles of Khalkhyn Gol)是二十世紀在亞洲唯一一場真正的坦克大戰)失利後,惟有專心向西太平洋發展。
The above chart plots the SMA 20 of the market turnover overlaying on HSI. The index movement has a strong relationship with the market turnover but it is not linear.
If plot in log scale, the relationship is much better shown.
Before 2007, the market turnover was quite low, which is not shown in the above chart. But since beginning of 2007, the market turnover was increased significantly, till the peak of the direct train speculation.
In May 2008, there was an index rebound but overall turnover did not follow. The index collapsed after that. In Nov 2010, there was a turnover peak to support the index, after that, turnover went down, market collapsed. In May 2013, it happens again.
In recent years the turnover was unexpectedly low and seems on a downtrend now. It seems not about to support a higher index at this stage. With the current turnover, the index support level shall be around 20000.
In fact it is quite strange that over the last 6 years, the market average turnover is getting smaller, while we have had many new companies got listed already. The extended trading hour does not help much; the lowering of commission fee does not help much neither.
If those stupid MPF funds do not buy buy sell sell in the market, how come their performance is so low ? If they do buy buy sell sell in the market, how come the overall market turnover is getting smaller ? It is a real mystery.
The Basic Choices for Investors and the One We Strongly Prefer 我们最爱的投资之道
Investing is often described as the process of laying out money now in the expectation of receiving more money in the future. At Berkshire we take a more demanding approach, defining investing as the transfer to others of purchasing power now with the reasoned expectation of receiving more purchasing power – after taxes have been paid on nominal gains – in the future. More succinctly, investing is forgoing consumption now in order to have the ability to consume more at a later date.
From our definition there flows an important corollary: The riskiness of an investment is not measured by beta (a Wall Street term encompassing volatility and often used in measuring risk) but rather by the probability – the reasoned probability – of that investment causing its owner a loss of purchasing-power over his contemplated holding period. Assets can fluctuate greatly in price and not be risky as long as they are reasonably certain to deliver increased purchasing power over their holding period. And as we will see, a non-fluctuating asset can be laden with risk.
(1)固息投資 Investments that are denominated in a given currency include money-market funds, bonds, mortgages, bank deposits, and other instruments. Most of these currency-based investments are thought of as “safe.” In truth they are among the most dangerous of assets. Their beta may be zero, but their risk is huge.
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.
(2)黃金 The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything, but that are purchased in the buyer’s hope that someone else – who also knows that the assets will be forever unproductive – will pay more for them in the future.
The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful).
Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold’s price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.
Let’s now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?
Admittedly, when people a century from now are fearful, it’s likely many will still rush to gold. I’m confident, however, that the $9.6 trillion current valuation of pile A will compound over the century at a rate far inferior to that achieved by pile B.
(3)Productive asset My own preference – and you knew this was coming – is our third category: investment in productive assets, whether businesses, farms, or real estate. Ideally, these assets should have the ability in inflationary times to deliver output that will retain its purchasing-power value while requiring a minimum of new capital investment. Farms, real estate, and many businesses such as Coca-Cola, IBM and our own See’s Candy meet that double-barreled test. Certain other companies – think of our regulated utilities, for example – fail it because inflation places heavy capital requirements on them. To earn more, their owners must invest more. Even so, these investments will remain superior to nonproductive or currency-based assets.
Whether the currency a century from now is based on gold, seashells, shark teeth, or a piece of paper (as today), people will be willing to exchange a couple of minutes of their daily labor for a Coca-Cola or some See’s peanut brittle. In the future the U.S. population will move more goods, consume more food, and require more living space than it does now. People will forever exchange what they produce for what others produce.
前輩的智慧: Our country’s businesses will continue to efficiently deliver goods and services wanted by our citizens. Metaphorically, these commercial “cows” will live for centuries and give ever greater quantities of “milk” to boot. Their value will be determined not by the medium of exchange but rather by their capacity to deliver milk. Proceeds from the sale of the milk will compound for the owners of the cows, just as they did during the 20th century when the Dow increased from 66 to 11,497 (and paid loads of dividends as well). Berkshire’s goal will be to increase its ownership of first-class businesses. Our first choice will be to own them in their entirety – but we will also be owners by way of holding sizable amounts of marketable stocks. I believe that over any extended period of time this category of investing will prove to be the runaway winner among the three we’ve examined. More important, it will be by far the safest.
但今天他要說,消息提前泄露是他沒想到的,他本來想先和學術界分享。( This leaked unexpectedly, taking away from the community before presenting in a scientific venue, and without the peer review process engaged before this conference.)
雖然上來前,大會就表示:此前完全不知道他要講的是基因編輯嬰兒!(We didn't know the story that was going to break over the last couple of days when he accepted the invitation to come and speak to us. We didn't know this story beforehand. In fact, he had sent me the slides he was going to show in this session and it did not include any of the work that he is now going to talk about. There was some clinical data, but nothing involving implanted human embryos.)
賀說南方科技大學不知道自己做了啥。反正不管知不知道,他在學校的實驗室已經被封了。
賀建奎口口聲聲說,艾滋病令很多出生嬰兒輸在起跑線,但是請註意非洲感染艾滋病的嬰兒,多數情況都是母親本人是艾滋病陽性。(For unaffected children, born to HIV+ mothers, make up a large percentage of births in South Africa. The risk of being infected by HIV in the first few months of life is many many times higher than other babies. )
而此次基因編輯嬰兒的父母,母親為艾滋病陰性,父親為艾滋病陽性。(The mother was HIV negative. The father was HIV positive with undetectable viral load. Sperm washing was used to prevent transmission.)
回答依然是答非所問:我開始跟一些科學家聊過。我把一些數據,在2017年Cold Spring Harbor還有伯克利的基因剪輯會議上展示過,我收到一些正面負面的評論。當然我還跟美國斯坦福、哈佛最頂級的倫理學專家討論過。我開始臨床測試的時候,還有給美國的教授看過我的知情同意書。有四個人看過知情同意書還覺得沒有問題。