看诺贝尔经济学奖得主如何谈投资

Q: Do you think of yourself as someone smart enough to pick winners in the stock market?
问：您是否认为自己是那种聪明到可以在股市里挑选出赚钱股票的人？

A: Well, I actually think I'm smart enough to pick winners. I've always believed in value investing. Some stocks just get talked about, and people pay all sorts of attention to them, and everyone wants to invest in them, and they bid the price up and they are no longer a good buy. Other stocks, they are boring. There is no news about them-they are making toilet paper or something like that-and their price gets too low. So as a matter of routine, you buy low-priced stocks and sell high-priced stocks.
答：嗯，我的确认为自己有足够的智慧去挑选能赚钱的股票。我一直信奉价值投资。有些股票刚开始谈论，人们就对它们加以各种关注，人人都想对其投资，他们炒高了股价，买那些股票不再合算。其它一些股票让人厌弃，关于它们没有任何消息──它们是生产卫生纸或类似产品的──它们的股价低得离奇。因此，按照常规，你买进低估价股，卖掉高估价股。

Q: When you look at housing, do you think that the world has changed in that people don't regard it as a sure-thing investment because of what we went through?
问：您在看房地产投资的时候，您是否认为世界已经改变了，人们在看到我们所经历的一切之后不再将房地产当成是有把握的投资？

A: You referred to an idea that housing is a great investment. But I think if you go back in history that was not the conventional wisdom. You stop a man on the street in 1875 or 1950 and say, 'I'm going to buy a bunch of houses and invest in them. What do you think?' I think the usual response the guy would give is, 'Are you sure about that? There's a lot of maintenance. They're going to go out of style.' If you can create a business renting them out, maybe it's a great investment. But just betting on their price going up, I don't know. I think that was an idea that took hold particularly during the early years of the 21st century.
答：你指的是认为房地产是优质投资的那种想法。但我想，如果你回顾历史，传统观念并非如此。你在1875年或1950年拦住大街上的一个人说：“我打算买一大堆房子用于投资，你认为怎么样？”我想那人通常会给你这样的回答：“你有把握吗？养房会产生很高的费用，房子也会过时。”如果你能开店将房子都租出去，也许那是一项很好的投资，但只是押注房价会上涨，我无从知道结果。我认为那种想法只是在21世纪初开始生根的。

Ultimately, people are motivated by human-interest stories about somebody who did something amazing because those stories are more resonant, they create a sense of envy and competitiveness. If I've heard stories about someone who bought condos or houses and flipped them and made a huge amount of money, and I think to myself I could have done that, it generates emotional turmoil that drives you to do it. So I'm thinking that's kind of what was happening in the housing market in the early 2000s and in the stock market in the 1990s.
从根本上来说，人们被某某人做了一件了不起的事这种充满人情味的报道所触动，因为那些报道更能产生共鸣，它们能激起人的嫉妒和争强好胜意识。如果我听闻有人买了公寓或房子，转手卖掉后挣了一大笔钱，然后我对自己说我本来也能做到的，那样就会产生情绪上的波动，它会驱使你去做那件事。所以我想那正是21世纪初期在房地产市场和20世纪90年代在股市发生的事情。

Q: We've seen an extraordinary period where the gap has widened between winners and losers in society. What should we do about that?
问：我们面对的是社会上成功者和失败者之间差距拉大的一个非常时期，对此我们应该采取什么措施？

A: We should start preparing for a day, maybe 10 or 20 years in the future, when inequality may be much worse. We don't yet know whether it's going to be worse. We should have a contingency plan now. The simple idea I have is raising the taxes on the rich, which sounds like the most politically inexpedient move right now, but the nice thing is that when you talk to people about risks of the distant future, they are more idealistic and more sharing in their attitudes.
答：我们应该未雨绸缪，也许是10年或者20年以后，那时的不平等现象可能要严重得多。我们尚不知道情况是否会恶化，我们现在应该有一个应急方案。我的简单想法是提高对富人的征税，这在时下听起来是最不明智的政治动议，但好在你同人们谈论遥远的未来要面临的危险时，他们的态度更为理想主义，更愿意分担责任。

Q: Winning the Nobel Prize does guarantee the first line of your obit, but it also gives you a kind of exalted status: What you say must be more true than what other people say. Do you worry about that at all?
问：荣获诺贝尔奖确实保证了您终身的荣誉，但它也给了您某种尊贵的地位：您的所言肯定比别人的话更真实可信。对此您感到担心吗？

A: A little bit. I think that economics is not an exact science. It tends to be politicized. It happens when I'm interviewed in occasions like this, I have a sense that you expect me to come up with answers for every one of your questions. But maybe I should say, 'I don't know' more often. At this year's Nobel ceremony, I was impressed that [co-winner] Gene Fama said 'I don't know' a lot. He kind of avoids the media, so maybe I could learn a lesson from him.
答：有一点点担心。我认为经济学不是一门精密的科学，它往往被政治化。我在这样的场合接受采访时那种事就发生了。我的感觉是，你期待我对你的每一个问题都给出答案，但也许我应该更多地说“我不知道”。在今年的诺贝尔奖颁奖典礼上，我印象很深的是，（共同获奖人）吉恩・法马(Gene Fama)说了很多“我不知道”。他有点回避媒体，因此我也许可以向他学习学习。