關于錢的鐵律

摩根·豪澤爾

No matter who you are， how much you earn， or how you invest， a few truths apply to you and your money.

Spending money to show people how much money you have is the surest way to have less money. Singer Rihanna earns tens of millions of dollars， but found herself “effectively bankrupt” in 2009. She sued her financial adviser for not doing his job. He offered a legendary response： “Was it really necessary to tell her that if you spend money on things you will end up with the things and not the money？”

The first iron rule of money is that wealth is the stuff you dont see. Its the cars not purchased， the clothes not bought， the jewelry forgone. Money buys things， but wealth—assets such as cash， stocks， bonds， in the bank， unspent—buys freedom and security. Pick which one you want wisely.

Wealth is completely relative. According to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic， “the poorest [5%] of Americans are better off than more than two-thirds of the world population.” Furthermore， “only about 3% of the Indian population have incomes higher than the bottom （the very poorest） U.S. percentile.” And those figures are adjusted for differences in cost of living.

The easiest way to judge how well youre doing is to compare yourself to people around you. The curse of living in the United States is that most people are doing well， so your own success looks ordinary. If you want to feel rich， look at the 90% of the world that isnt American or European. Youll realize that feeling rich is just a mental game.

The goal of investing isnt to minimize boredom， its to maximize returns. Successful investing is pretty boring. Its main requirement is patience and inaction. Most people demand more excitement， so they tweak， fiddle， and adjust their investments as much as necessary to destroy as much of their wealth as possible. If you want to do better than average at anything， you must do something that most people cant. In investing， that means putting up with perpetual boredom. Its a serious skill.

The only way to build wealth is to have a gap between your ego and your income. Getting rich has little to do with your income and everything to do with your savings rate. And your savings rate is just the difference between your ego and your income. Keep the former in check and you should be fine over time.

The most valuable asset you can have is a strong propensity to not care what others think. Most people are bad with money， so being good means doing things differently than they do. You wont spend as much. Youll invest differently. Youll grow wealth slower. This can make you look like a fool in the short run. But who cares what others think？ Theyre probably idiots. As Charlie Munger put it， “Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.” Not only is it not a tragedy， but its a necessity. The ability to not care what other people think about what youre doing is mandatory in achieving abnormal results.

Spend more time studying failures than successes. You can learn more about money from the person who went bankrupt with a subprime mortgage than you can from Warren Buffett. Thats because its easier and more common to be stupid than it is to be brilliant， so you should spend more effort trying to avoid bad decisions than making good ones. Economist Eric Falkenstein summed this up well： “In expert tennis， 80% of the points are won， while in amateur tennis， 80% are lost. The same is true for wrestling， chess， and investing： Beginners should focus on avoiding mistakes， experts on making great moves.”

People are flawed， so a lot of stuff makes no sense. As James Grant put it， “To suppose that the value of a stock is determined purely by a corporations earnings is to forget that people have burned witches， gone to war on a whim， and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians had landed.”

Anything can happen at any time for any reason. You might be laid off next week. You can be sued tomorrow. Or win the lottery. Maybe youll get cancer. Or a huge promotion. Stocks can rally for twice as long as you think and crash twice as fast as you assumed. History is one damned thing after another， most of it involves money， and theres nothing you can do about it.

Good luck.

不管您是誰、賺多少錢或如何投資，有幾條真理適用于您和您的錢。

花錢向世人顯示您多有錢，是減少財富最有效的方法。歌手蕾哈娜賺了數千萬美元，卻在2009年發現自己“實際上破產了”。她起訴財務顧問未盡職盡責，而顧問給出了個神回應：“如果用錢買了東西，最后將得到東西而失去錢，這個道理真的還需要告訴她嗎？”

關于錢的第一條金科玉律是：財富是你沒看見的那些東西。是你沒買的車、沒下單的衣服、忍痛放棄的珠寶。金錢可以買到物品，但是財富——諸如現金、股票、債券、存在銀行未花掉的資產——可以買到自由和保障。您想要什么，請明智選擇。

財富完全是相對而言的。世界銀行的經濟學家布蘭科·米拉諾維奇說，“美國最貧困的人群（5%）比世界上超過三分之二的人都富有”。而且，“印度只有大約3%的人口收入高于美國的底層人群（最貧困人群）”。這些數據根據各國不同的生活成本做了調整。

判斷您是否富有的最簡單的方法就是和身邊的人比較。殘酷的是，在美國，大部分人都比較富足，所以您本人的成功就顯得普普通通了。如果想體驗富有的感受，那就和美國或歐洲之外的世界90%的人群比比。您會明白，富有的感受不過是種心理游戲。

投資目標不是使枯燥最小化，而是讓回報最大化。成功的投資過程往往枯燥乏味，需要的主要是耐心與等待。多數人卻期待更多的刺激，因此會盡可能頻繁地微調、亂調和大調投資，結果卻是毀了自己大半財富。如果想在任何事情上都比一般人做得好，您就必須做到大部分人做不到的事。于投資而言，意味著要忍耐長久的無聊乏味。這項能力非常重要。

累積財富的唯一辦法就是劃清自我價值和實際收入的界限。致富與您的收入基本無關，與您的儲蓄率則息息相關。而儲蓄率恰恰顯示出自我價值與實際收入之間的差異。約束自我價值感，日子總會好起來。

您能擁有的最寶貴的資產是可以全然屏蔽他人的評頭論足。大部分人都不擅長理財，所以，想做好，跟別人不一樣就行。投資金額不用那么多，投資方式要與眾不同。您的致富過程會漫長些，而這會使您短期內看起來像個傻瓜。但誰管他人怎么想？或許他們才是笨蛋。就如查理·芒格所言：“總會有人比您致富快。這不是悲劇。”這不僅不是悲劇，還是必經之路。能做到不在意別人的想法，是取得非凡成就的必要條件。

多花點兒時間研究失敗原因而非成功方法。比起向沃倫·巴菲特學習財富知識，一個在次貸危機中破產的人能讓您學到更多。因為做蠢事往往比做聰明事更容易也更常見。所以，您應該更努力地避免做出錯誤決定，而不是花精力確保決策正確。經濟學家埃里克·法爾肯施泰因總結得很好：“專業網球賽中，80%的得分都靠自己贏來，而在業余賽中，80%的得分都源于對方失誤。同樣的規律也適用于摔跤、國際象棋和投資，就是說：新手應將注意力集中在避免犯錯上，而專業人士則應聚焦于采取更好的行動。”

人無完人，故而很多事情毫無意義。正如詹姆斯·格蘭特所述：“若認為一只股票的價值單純取決于一個企業的收益，那就是忘了人們曾經燒死女巫、曾一時沖動發動戰爭，還曾相信奧森·威爾斯在廣播里說的火星人已登陸地球。”

任何事情都可能在任何時間以任何理由發生。下周您可能就下崗，明天您可能就被起訴，或者一下中了大獎，也許哪天就得了癌癥，還可能被大力提拔。股價反彈的時間可能是您預測的兩倍，而股價暴跌的速度也可能是您想象的兩倍。歷史就是倒霉事一件接著一件來，大部分都與錢有關，而您卻對此無能為力。

祝您好運！