저자: CharlieMunger/WarrenBuffett · 외국인
요약 보기
장기 실질 수익률은 미국 주식 특히 최근 경험보다 낮아질 것. 미국 GDP 4~5% 성장, 기업이익 성장률 4~5% 수준이 한계이며 주식 연 15% 성장은 수학적으로 불가능. 주식 수익은 기업이익에서만 나오고 Fortune 500의 연간 이익 3,340억달러 대비 시가총액 9.9조달러는 좋은 수익률이 아님. 20~30년 장기 투자자에게는 저비용 인덱스펀드 정기 투자가 합리적. 신규 자금 투자 아이디어는 찾기 어렵다는 입장.
다듬은 글
the real long-term rate of return from uh saving money and investing it has to go down from recent experience uh in America particularly equity related recent experience the wealth of the world can't increase at the kind of rates that people are used to in the American equity markets and the American equity markets can't hugely ually outperform the growth of the wealth of the world forever.
Uh we ought we ought to have reduced expectations regarding the future generally because you know we mentioned earlier 53% of the the world's stock market value is in the US. Well, if US GDP if US GDP grows at 4% 5% a year with 1 or 2% inflation, which would be a pretty would be a very good result. I think it's very unlikely that corporate profits are going to grow at a greater rate than that.
Corporate profits as a percent of GDP are on the high side already. And you can't constantly have corporate profits grow at a faster rate than GDP. And uh uh obviously in the end they'd be greater than GDP. And that's like somebody said that New York has more lawyers than people. I mean there there there's certain you run into certain conflicts and terminology as you go along if you say profits can get bigger than GDP.
So if you really have a situation where the best you can hope for in corporate profit growth over the years is four or 5%. How can it be reasonable to think that equities which are a capitalization of that corporate of corporate profits can grow at 15% a year? I mean it is nonsense frankly and people are not going to average 15% or anything like it uh in equities and uh uh I would almost defy them to show me mathematically how it can be done in aggregate.
Uh I looked the other day at the Fortune 500. They earned 334 billion on and had a market cap of 9.9 trillion at the end of the year, which would probably be at least 10.5 trillion now. Well, the only money investors are going to make in the long run are what the businesses make. I mean, there is nothing added.
The government doesn't throw in anything. You know, nobody's adding to the pot. People are taking out from the pot in terms of frictional costs, investment management fees, brokerage commissions, and all of that. But the 334 million is all that it's all the investment earns. I mean, if you own a farm, the what the farm produces is all you're going to get from the farm.
If it produces, you know, $50 an acre of net profit, you get $50 an acre of net profit. And and there's nothing about it that transforms that in some miraculous form. If you own all of American, if you own all of the Fortune 500 now, if you own 100% of us, you would be making 334 billion. And uh if you pay 10 10 12 trillion for that, that is not a great return on an investment.
And then you say yourself, can that double in 5 years? It can't. The 334 billion, it can't double in 5 years with GDP growing at 4% a year or some number like that. It would it would it would just produce things that are so out of whack uh in terms of experience in the American economy, it won't happen.
So, anytime you get involved in these things where if you trace out the mathematics of it, you bump into absurdities, uh, then you better change expectations somewhat. Charlie, well, there are two great sayings. Uh, one is if a thing can't go on forever, it will eventually stop. and and the other I borrow from my friend Fred Stanbeck who I think is here.
People who expect uh perpetual growth in real wealth in a finite earth uh are either madmen or economists. You know, I run into friends of mine all the time where they they come into a lump sum at a given time or and uh you know, Charlie and I do not have great answers about about uh uh investing sums of money.
I for people who are not really active in the process. I mean, if as we said earlier, if we if we were working with small sums now, we would start looking at a whole bunch of very small situations and some things that we might know know how to do on a small scale. But for the for the average investor uh who wants to own equities over a 20 or 30-year period, we think regular investment in some kind of very lowcost uh pool of money, which might well be an index fund, probably makes as much sense as anything, but it's important to keep the cost down.
Um, you know, I have close to 100% of my net worth in Bergkshire. I'm comfortable with it. because I like the businesses we own and uh but you know I didn't buy it at this price either. So I don't I don't like to go I I never recommend anybody buy or sell it. And Charlie, do you recommend anything? I I think it's if there's anybody in the room who thinks it would be very easy to come up with a oneliner for a great no-brainer investment tomorrow with a great slug of new money.
I wish they'd come up and tell me what it is. We don't have any solution to that one. It It's harder for us now than it has been at other times. Yeah, there's been a couple of times in 1974 there was something in Forbes in ' 69, the reverse of that situation. And then I think I wrote a article for Forbes, I can't remember exactly when it was about how equities almost had to be more attractive than bonds at that time.
And bonds weren't that unattractive. I mean every now and then you can you can say you are getting an a great deal for your money in equities or sometimes you can say you're getting a great deal for your money in fixed income investments. Uh you can't say that now. So what do you do? You know it um in terms of new money we we find ourselves sitting and waiting for something and and we continue to look but we are forced to look at bigger ideas.
So if we were working with smaller funds, we we we'd be much more likely to find something than we we are in our present situation. Uh as Charlie says, we we we we really don't have any great oneline advice on it. I wish we did. Oh, inherited wealth and children. Kids inheriting money. Yeah. Well, we have a minority viewpoint down here in the front row.
I think my views on that subject changed when I was about 18. Until that point, I thought it would have been a great idea. The uh No, I I am quite a believer in a uh a meritocracy and I think a part of part of that is uh not having people start way ahead of other people in life based on whether they were lucky enough to come from the right womb or not.
So I've never been uh big on the idea that either society benefited or in many cases the kids although I think that's much more problematic but uh by the fact that great transfers of wealth uh will go from one generation to another. I, you know, I I would rather I would rather see the degree of talent possessed by individuals determine the resources they command in this world and their ability to influence other people's lives and command the labor of other people and all of that than than any divine right of the womb.
So that's and Charlie has a somewhat different view on that. Yeah, I am a little more willing to let the world take the succeeding generations down. It's he believes in passing. I don't think they need much help. Charlie believes in passing it along as long as you're sure they're going to blow it. Okay.
So, go ahead. If you stop to think, Warren, of the great fortunes of Yore, if you go back to 1900, 1870, and you know, name me the people that have vast power because they are in the fourth generation in that family. Some of them are living awfully well, but they are not running the world. I would say the Rockefeller family had considerably more influence than if their their name had been uh, you know, just plain rock.
I think that's true, but but you're picking probably the strongest single family of the piece. And now that it's dispersed among 60 or 70 or 80 Rockerfeller, it uh I think it's true there were four or five brothers there that had an unusual share of worldly influence. I must say in that case, I think they handled it very well.
Comments 0