国际经贸高级英语精读1--3课课文翻译

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

Starting as low-income economies in the 1960s, a few economies in East Asia managed,in a few decades, to bridge all or nearly all of the income gap that separated them from the high-income economies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Meanwhile many other developing economies stagnated .

What made the difference?One way to grow is by developing hitherto unexploited land.Another is to accumulate physical capital:roads, factories, telephone networks.A third is to expand the labor force and increase its education and training.But Hong Kong (China) and Singapore had almost no land.They did invest heavily in physical capital and in educating their populations,but so did many other economies.During the 1960s through the 1980s the Soviet Union accumulated more capital as a share of its gross domestic product (GDP) than did Hong Kong (China), the Republic of Korea, Singapore, or Taiwan (China).And it increased the education of its population in no trivial measure. Yet the Soviets generated far smaller increases in living standards during that period than did these four East Asian economies.

Perhaps the difference was that the East Asian economies did not build, work, and grow harder so much as they built, worked, and grew smarter.Could knowledge, then, have been behind East Asia s surge ?If so, the implications are enormous,for that would mean that knowledge is the key to development—that knowledge is development.

How important was knowledge for East Asia s growth spurt ?This turned out not to be an easy question to answer.The many varieties of knowledge combine with its limited marketability to present a formidable challenge to anyone seeking to evaluate the effect of knowledge on economic growth.

How, after all, does one put a price tag on and add up the various types of knowledge?What common denominator lets us sum the knowledge that firms use in their production processes; the knowledge that policymaking institutions use to formulate, monitor, and evaluate policies; the knowledge that people use in their economic transactions and social interactions?What is the contribution of books and journals, of R&D spending, of the stock of information and communications equipment, of the learning and know-how of scientists, engineers, and students? Compounding the difficulty is the fact that many types of knowledge are accumulated and exchanged almost exclusively within networks, traditional groups, and professional associations.That makes it virtually impossible to put a value on such knowledge.

Reflecting these difficulties in quantifying knowledge,efforts to evaluate the aggregate impact of knowledge on growth have often proceeded indirectly, by postulating that knowledge explains the part of growth that cannot be explained by the accumulation of tangible and identifiable factors, such as labor or capital.The growth not accounted for by these factors of production—the residual in the calculation—is attributed to growth in their productivity, that is, using the other factors smarter, through knowledge.This residual is sometimes called the Solow residual, after the economist Robert M. Solow,who spearheaded the approach in the 1950s,and what it purports to measure is conventionally called total factor productivity (TFP) growth.Some also call the Solow residual a measure of our ignorance ,because it represents what we cannot account for. Indeed, we must be careful not to attribute all of TFP growth to knowledge,or there may be other factors lurking in the Solow residual.Many other things do contribute to growth—institutions are an example—but are not reflected in the contributions of the more measurable factors.Their effect is (so far) inextricably woven into TFP growth.

In early TFP analyses,physical capital was modeled as the only country-specific factor that could be accumulated to better people s lives.Technical progress and other intangible factors were said to be universal, equally available to all people in all countries,and thus could not explain growth differences

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

between countries.Their contributions to growth were lumped with the TFP growth numbers.Although this assumption was convenient, it quickly became obvious that physical capital was not the only factor whose accumulation drove economic growth. A study that analyzed variations in growth rates across a large number of countries showed that the accumulation of physical capital explained less than 30 percent of those variations.The rest—70 percent or more—was attributed directly or indirectly to the intangible factors that make up TFP growth (Table 1.1).

Later attempts introduced human capital to better explain the causes of economic growth.A higher level of education in the population means that more people can learn to use better technology. Education was surely a key ingredient in the success of four of the fastest-growing East Asian economies: Hong Kong (China), the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China). Before their transformation from developing into industrializing economies, their school enrollment rates had been much higher than those of other developing countries (Table 1.2).They had also emphasized advanced scientific and technical studies—as measured by their higher ratios of students in technical fields than in even some industrial countries—thus enhancing their capacity to import sophisticated technologies.Moreover, the importance of education for economic growth had long been recognized and established empirically .One study had found that growth in years of schooling explained about 25 percent of the increase in GDP per capita in the United States between 1929 and 1982.

Adding education reduced the part of growth that could not be explained,thus shrinking the haystack in which TFP growth (and knowledge) remained hidden.Some analysts even concluded, perhaps too quickly,that physical and human capital, properly accounted for, explained all or virtually all of the East Asian economies rapid growth,leaving knowledge as a separate factor out of the picture.One reason these analysts came up with low values for TFP growth is that they incorporated improvements in labor and equipment into their measurement of factor accumulation.So even their evidence of low TFP growth in East Asia does not refute the importance of closing knowledge gaps.Indeed, it shows that the fast-growing East Asian economies had a successful strategy to close knowledge gaps:by investing in the knowledge embodied in physical capital, and by investing in people and institutions to enhance the capability to absorb and use knowledge.

Looking beyond East Asia,other growth accounting studies have examined larger samples of countries.Even when human capital is accounted for,the unexplained part of growth remains high.One such study, of 98 countries with an unweighted average growth rate of output per worker of 2.24 percent,found that 34 percent (0.76 percentage point) of that growth came from physical capital accumulation,20 percent (0.45 percentage point) from human capital accumulation,and as much as 46 percent (just over 1 percentage point) from TFP growth.Even more remains to be explained in variations in growth rates across countries. The same study found the combined role of human and physical capital to be as low as 9 percent, leaving the TFP residual at a staggering 91 percent.To take another example:Korea and Ghana had similarly low incomes per capita in the 1950s,but by 1991 Korea s income per capita was more than seven times Ghana s.Much of that gap remains unexplained even when human capital is taken into account .

All these results are subject to measurement problems.For example, the measured stock of human capital may overstate the actual quantity used in producing goods and services.High rates of school enrollment or attainment (years completed) may not translate into higher rates of economic growthif the quality of education is poor, or if educated people are not employed at their potential because of distortions in the labor market.

Moreover, it is now evident that education without openness to innovation and knowledge will not

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

lead to economic development.The people of the former Soviet Union, like the people of the OECD countries and East Asia, were highly educated, with nearly 100 percent literacy .And for an educated population it is possible,through foreign direct investment and other means,to acquire and use information about the latest production and management innovations in other countries.But the Soviet Union placed severe restrictions on foreign investment, foreign collaboration, and innovation.Its work force did not adapt and change as new information became available elsewhere in the world, and consequently its economy suffered a decline.

(excerpted from World Development Report 1998/1999)

一些东亚国家在20世纪60年代还是低收入国家，但是在短短的几十年之间，他们成功地弥补了其与经济合作与发展组织（OECD）中高收入国家之间的差距；与此同时，也有许多发展中国家的经济停滞不前。 造成这种差距的原因是什么呢？发展的途径之一便是开发未开垦过的土地；之二是积累实物资本，例如公路，工厂，电话网络；之三则是增加劳动力数量并提高教育培训程度。但香港（中国）和新加坡土地资源稀少，他们确实在实物资本和国民教育上投资不少，但其他许多国家也是这样做的。在20世纪60年代到80年代，前苏联每年资本积累所占GDP的比重要高于香港（中国）、韩国、新加坡和台湾（中国），而且它在提高本国民众的教育水平上也是不遗余力，但这一时期前苏联国民生活水平的提高却远远落后于这四个东亚经济体。

也许差别在于：东亚国家在建设、管理和发展其经济方面，与其说他们是苦干了，不如说他们是巧干了。那么难道是知识支撑了东亚的崛起？如果真是这样，那么其蕴含的意义将是深远的，因为这就意味着知识是发展的关键因素——知识就是发展。

知识对东亚经济的快速增长有何重要意义？事实证明这是一个复杂的问题。各种知识与其有限的可销售性相结合给人们带来了巨大的挑战，这就使得评估知识对于经济增长的作用变得极其困难。

毕竟，我们如何才能对种类繁多的知识产品进行标价和合计？有什么共同标准使我们可以计算企业在其生产过程中使用的知识量；我们如何计算决策机构用了多少知识来制定、监管和评估其政策？我们如何计算人们用了多少知识来从事经济活动和社会活动？书刊，研究与开发的支出，信息与通信设备存量，科学家、工程师和学生们的学习与技术能力等要素各自的贡献有多大？更为复杂的是，许多知识实际上是在网络上、传统群体内和学术组织之间积累和交流的。那就使评估这种知识的可能性更加渺茫。

考虑到量化知识的困难，人们通常都用了间接的方式来衡量知识在经济增长中的总效果。我们假设：凡是经济增长中那些不能被有形的要素（如劳动力和资本）所解释的部分，都用知识来解释。因为增长中不能由有形生产要素所解释的部分——计算中的残差——都归功于要素生产率的提高；也就是说，我们通过知识更有效地利用了其它的要素。这种残差有时被称为“索洛残差”，得名于经济学家罗伯特·M·索洛，他在20世纪50年代率先提出这一方法；这一方法所要度量的就是通常所称的全要素生产力（TFP）增长。也有人说 “索洛残差” 是测量我们无知程度的工具，因为该残差所反映的是我们无法解释的内容。事实上，我们确实需要明确一点：不要把全要素生产里的增长全归功于知识。这是因为“索洛残差”中也许还隐藏其它要素。许多其它要素也确实为经济增长作了不少贡献，制度就是一个例子，它并不反映于其他更易度量的要素之中，它们的影响（至今）难解难分地交织于TFP增长之中。

在早期的TFP分析中，实物资本被模型为唯一的国别要素，只有它的积聚能带来人们生活水平的提高。而技术进步和其它的无形要素被认为是世界性的、所有国家的所有人都可以利用的要素，这样就导致我们无法解释不同国家之间的增长差异，它们对经济增长的贡献和TFP的增长数值被混在了一起。尽管这样的假设是非常方便的，但是人们很快就发现：实物资本绝不是唯一能通过积累来带动经济增长的要素。有一项研究，对一大批国家的经济增长率差异进行了分析，结果表明实物资本的积累只能解释其中不到30%差异。而剩下的——70%甚至更多——直接或间接的应归功于由无形要素带来的TFP的增长（表1.1）。 后来的分析引入了人力资本以更好地解释经济增长的原因。国民受教育程度越高就会有越多的人可利用先进的技术。教育肯定是东亚四个快速增长的经济体成功的一大关键因素：它们是香港（中国）、韩国、新加坡、以及台湾（中国）。在它们从发展中经济体变成工业化经济体之前，其入学率远远高于其他发展中

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

国家 (表1.2) 。同时它们还很重视先进科技的研究，技术专业的学生比率甚至高于一些发达国家，由此这些国家输入国外成熟技术的能力也就增强了。更重要的是，教育对于经济增长的重要性早已被事实和经验所证实。有一项研究发现，从1929年到1982年，美国人受教育年数的增长可以解释大概25%的人均GDP的增长。

在引入教育这个因素后，经济增长中不可解释的部分减少了，于是TFP增长（及知识）的藏身之处也变小了。一些分析家甚至已经总结说——也许太快了点：经适当运算，实物资本和人力资本解释了所有的或者说几乎所有的东亚经济体的快速增长，而在整个框架中只留下知识这一独立的因素。这些分析人员之所以得出TFP增长数值很低的原因之一，是他们把劳动力和设备的改进都融入了要素积累的计量之中。所以即便他们得出东亚经济体TFP增长率低的证据，也并不否认缩小知识差距的重要性。它其实表明了这些飞速发展的东亚经济体运用了一个成功的战略来缩小知识差距：一方面对体现为实物资本的知识进行投资，一方面对人员和机构进行投资，以提高他们吸收和利用知识的能力。

跳出东亚的圈子，其他一些关于解释发展的研究选取了更多的国家来做样本。这些研究发现，即使考虑了人力资本，经济增长中不能被解释部分的比重仍然很高。比如有一项以98个国家为样本的研究显示，未加权的平均工人产出增长率为2.24%，其中只有34%（约0.76个百分点）来自实物资本的积累，20%（0.45个百分点）来自人力资本的积累，余下有多达46%（超过1个百分点）的比重全来自TFP的增长。而在各国经济增长率之间的差异上，不能被解释的部分的比重甚至会更高。同项研究表明，人力资本和实物资本合一起最低的只能解释9%的经济增长,TFP的残差此时达到了惊人的91%。另外一个实例是，在20世纪50年代，韩国和加纳的人均收入差不多一样低，但是到了1991年，韩国的人均收入是加纳的7倍还多。即便考虑了人力资本的因素，这样大的差距仍然有很大一部分不能被解释。

所有的这些研究结果都受制于测量方法上的局限性。比如说，被计量的人力资本的存量可能夸大了实际用于制造产品和提供服务的人力资本数量。较高的就学率或受教育程度（学习年数）不一定能转化为更高的经济增长率,如果教育质量很差，或者受教育的人在一个被扭曲的劳动力市场里不能人尽其用的话。 而且现在人们都已经意识到，如果缺乏对创新和知识的开放态度，这样的教育也不会带来经济的发展。前苏联的民众同经合组织以及东亚的那些经济体的民众一样，具有很高的教育水平，有几乎100%的识字率。对于这样一个教育水平较高的民众，通过外国直接投资或者其他的途径，就有可能获得和利用别的国家在生产和管理创新方面的最新信息。但是前苏联却对外国投资、本国与外国的合作以及创新进行了严格的限制。当新的信息在世界上其他地方被利用的时候，前苏联的劳动力却不能及时地适应和改变，这便导致了它经济的衰败。

（节选自《世界发展报告》1998/1999）

In the archives of China s modern management lore ,the events at a Qingdao appliance factory in the summer of 1985 have begun to acquire the dimensions of legend.Something like, say, the day Henry Ford separated the manufacture of a valve into 21 steps or when Akio Morita made Sony s first length of recording tape in a frying pan.

By the early 1980s,the Qingdao General Refrigerator Factory had become a typical example of a business in the last stages of socialist decay:heavy debt, grumpy workers, shoddy products, service from hell.One day in August an unhappy customer came to the work site to complain of having bought a dud refrigerator—no small complaint in those days, when only two or three of every 1000 urban Chinese households owned such a luxury.

Watched by CEO Zhang Ruimin,then 36, the customer rejected dozens of imperfect refrigerators.Finally he settled on one and left, declaring himself satisfied. Zhang wasn t.He went through his warehouse, rechecking the refrigerators.“Of the 400 or so there, I found 76 that I didn t want released

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

to the market,” he recalls.

He had the rejects placed in an open space.Then he called his staff of some 600 together,showed them the refrigerators, and passed around a sledgehammer.“Destroy them!” he ordered.The workers hesitated, but Zhang insisted.“If we pass these 76 for sale,” he told them,“we ll be continuing a mistake that has all but bankrupted our company.” Soon piles of shattered metal littered the warehouse floor. That burst of cathartic violence did more than turn a few refrigerators to rubbish.It set the stage for the regeneration of the Qingdao factory and the creation of one of China s most interesting companies, now known as the Haier Group Co.Haier s makeover has proved that it is possible to transform even a rotten socialist enterprise into a vibrant and prosperous company.And the sledgehammer? Refrigerator assembly-line workers have placed it in a wall display.

Zhang s next goal is to crack the FORTUNE Global 500.He has a long way to go.In 1998 the group s sales totaled $2.3 billion;that s more than 5000 times as much as in 1985, but less than a third of the revenue of No. 500 on FORTUNE s global list.Still, Haier is a very big fish in the smaller pond that is the China market.It is tops in air conditioners (36.8% market share), freezers (47.2%), refrigerators (40%), and washing machines (35.9%). It is fourth in color TVs and also makes a host of other small appliances, such as water heaters and microwave ovens.And it is growing fast: Since 1984 it has averaged an increase of 83% a year in revenues.Haier now has 50 units (18 are wholly owned, 23 are holding companies,and there are nine joint ventures ).It has more than 20000 employees and some $1.1 billion in assets.Its products are sold in 87 countries,and it is building factories in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Iran. Nor is Haier just a Third World wonder.In the U.S. it says it has nearly 20% of the market for small refrigerators. Haier air conditioners have made inroads in Europe.

The company that Zhang brought back from the dead is a “collective enterprise,”one of some 25 million quasi -socialist commercial entities owned in principle by the workers but supervised by local bureaucracies and Communist Party officials.Though the problems of such small or middling, often city-based firms are not exactly the same as those of China s vast, gangrenous state-owned heavy enterprises, both have suffered from a lack of accountability and poor management.

Haier has been able to solve those problems, even though it is still officially a city collective and Zhang therefore a city employee.(At the same time, it is listed on the Shanghai exchange and would like to be listed overseas: Chinese capitalism can be curious.) The company s organizational chart lists a category, “Party and Masses System,” not to be found outside China.There are subheads for the Propaganda Department, the Party Office, and the Armed Department.The city government is a constant factor.“We work in a mixed economy,” Zhang says.“You have to have three eyes:one on the market, one on the workers, and one on policy.”The larger point is that Haier s success shows that even within these constraints,it is possible to resuscitate collective and state-owned enterprises.

Zhang, the only son of a worker in a Qingdao shirt factory,says his first love was ancient Chinese literature.As he tells it today,Lao-tzu (a sixth-century B.C. philosopher) and Sun Tzu (a military writer of the fourth century B.C.) provide food for thought for modern businessmen as well as ancient http://o-tzu has advice about running a company:“When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” Sun Tzu is relevant on, among other things, marketing strategy: “Uproar in the East; attack in the West.”

When Zhang was in his 20s,schools were closed for several years because of the Cultural Revolution.He spent much of the period in solitary reading and slowly rising through the Qingdao municipal administration,then a Soviet-style command structure for local industry.With an eye on the future,he also absorbed, discreetly, Western and Japanese management texts.

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

His chance to put his gleanings into practice came unexpectedly in 1984.As China opened to the West,foreign companies sought out Chinese factories to do business with.The Qingdao refrigerator factory, Haier s own Website concedes,was then merely a “row of shabby buildings containing several lathes” with a production capacity of 84 units a month.And it was losing money: $179000 in 1984. Liebherr-Haushaltsgerate, a leading German white-goods manufacturer, offered to sell the factory modern refrigerator-making technology. The city accepted.Pessimistic about the factory s ability to absorb the technology, the managing director resigned.Zhang, by then vice manager of the municipality s Household Appliances Division, was given the job.

The early months were a manager s nightmare.That first winter the factory had no money for heating coal:His workers burned wood stripped from the factory s window frames.Nepotism was rife,production spasmodic ,quality laughable. Staff members spent much of their time rubbernecking at funerals in a nearby crematorium.

But by then China s agricultural reforms had made it possible for farming cooperatives to accumulate cash reserves.With loans from farming friends on Qingdao s outskirts, Zhang paid workers some of the back pay.His most popular move was the purchase of a bus.The workers lived some distance from the factory, and getting to and from work was a heavy burden.A bus was a luxury and a promise of better things.Zhang shocked his workers by commuting with them every day.(Lao-tzu: “Let rule be entrusted to him who treats his rank as if it were his soul.”)

As the Liebherr technology was introduced,Zhang placed samples of the German company s products in sight of his assembly-line workers so that they could see what quality looked like.By 1986, Haier had broken even.The refrigerator company took over three other Qingdao white-goods enterprises,and turned the whole lot into the Qingdao Haier Group in 1991.

Other than a technology cooperation agreement, which is scheduled to conclude in 2001,the Liebherr connection ended in 1994.Haier had simply outgrown the relationship.It no longer needed to buy German equipment—in fact,it was selling its own manufacturing technology to foreign http://st year, for example, it sold appliance technology to Spain.But the group s name is a reminder of the link:“Haier” is a Chinese phonetic approximation of “Liebherr.”

The Haier turnaround is a case study of the art—and is used as such at Harvard Business School.There were two major strategies:expansion and management.First, the Haier style.A visitor to the 120-acre Haier Industrial Park in suburban Qingdao finds an assembly-line culture that appears to be a mix of foreign management practices and Chinese nationalism—with a whiff or two of Maoist-era self-criticism.Zhang has clearly absorbed the works of Masaaki Imai, a leading guru of Japanese quality control.Imai s “5-S movement” takes its name from the initials of five Japanese words whose romanizations start with “s.”Their rough translations:seiri (discard the unnecessary); seiton (arrange tools in the order of use); seisoh (keep the work site clean);seiketsu (keep yourself clean); shitsuke (follow workshop disciplines).

Haier has added a sixth item, “safety,”and instills the system through the “6-S self-check station.” At the beginning and end of each shift ,a worker judged responsible for a mistake must stand on a painted spot on the workroom floor in full view of his work mates.Workers who fail to reform may be criticized in the company newsletter or fined or, after several warnings, fired,a final step formerly all but unheard of in China.To those who complain that the system is too difficult,an executive sniffs,“The market has no tears.”

A look at the ubiquitous wall posters in Haier factories spells out the “Haier spirit” (HARDWORKING AND MAKING SACRIFICE TO THE NATION) and the “Haier style” (PROMPT REACTION TO THE

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

MARKET). Helping facilitate the transfer of these management concepts to new acquisitions is the Haier Enterprise Culture Center, headed by Su Fangwen. Su, who joined Haier in 1988, has become something of a legend. Her talent is to teach discipline and quality control to people who have never before worked in an environment in which such things matter.This friendly, purposeful thirtysomething and her aides are first on the scene when Haier takes over a new company.They are familiar with Western management—Zhang cites Michael Porter and Peter Senge as influences—but training methods have a distinctly Chinese flair .One example: The proliferation of five-star hotels has given Su an opportunity to dramatize for assembly-line workers the higher standards the global market-place demands. Hence one of Su s wall slogans: TO EXPAND MARKET SHARE, OFFER SERVICE LIKE A FIVE-STAR HOTEL S.

If all this sounds like just so much camp cheerleading,it s instructive to note that among Su s rah-rah signs are those with a sterner ring.One stark message informs the factory floor: (1) SOME WORKERS LACK A SENSE OF QUALITY.(2) SOME FOREMEN HAVE TOLERATED SLOPPINESS.(3) SOME DIRECTORS ARE SLACKING. COOPERATE TO IMPROVE!

(excerpted from Fortune, February 15, 1999)

在中国现代管理的文档中，1985年夏发生在青岛市一家家电工厂的事情开始具有传奇的色彩，这一刻就像亨利·福特将引擎阀门的制造工艺分解为21步，或者像盛田昭夫在煎锅中制造出索尼公司第一段录音磁带的那些日子一样意义重大。

20世纪80年代初期，青岛冰箱总厂已经成为当时衰败的社会主义企业的一个典型代表:沉重的债务负担、涣散的职工队伍、质量低劣的产品、糟糕透顶的服务。8月的一天，一位生气的顾客来到了车间，投诉说自己买到了一台极其差劲的冰箱——在那个年代这可不是小事情，要知道当时每1000户中国的城市家庭中，仅仅有两三户能够拥有冰箱这样的奢侈品。

那时才36岁的首席执行官张瑞敏总裁一直注视着这位顾客——他拒绝了几十台有缺陷的冰箱之后，才挑中一台令他满意的冰箱离开。张瑞敏可没有满意，他径直来到仓库，重新检查了那些冰箱。“在400台左右的库存冰箱中，我发现有76台冰箱存在质量问题而不能投放到市场。”他回忆道。

张瑞敏把那些不合格的冰箱集中在一个空旷的地方，然后召集了大约600名员工，给他们展示这些冰箱，并且递给他们一把大锤。“砸了它们！” 他命令道。工人们犹豫着，但是张瑞敏坚持己见。“如果让这76台冰箱流入市场，”张瑞敏告诫工人们，“那我们就是在继续一个足以使企业破产倒闭的错误。”不久，被砸毁冰箱的金属残件就铺满了仓库的地板。

这一宣泄性举动的意义不止于砸碎几十台电冰箱。它也使青岛电冰箱厂走向重生，催生了中国最引人瞩目的公司之一，这就是今天的海尔集团。海尔的发展历程已经证明：即便是计划经济体制下百疴缠身的企业也可以转变成为充满活力和繁荣兴旺的现代公司。那把大锤呢？冰箱生产流水线上的工人将它挂在墙上作为警示。

张瑞敏的下一个目标是带领海尔跻身财富全球500强企业之列，这无疑任重而道远。1998年集团的销售总额为23亿美元，已经是1985年销售额的5000多倍，但是还不到排在《财富》全球榜上第500位企业年收入的三分之一。不过，海尔仍堪称中国市场这个“小鱼塘”中的一条“大鱼”。在国内，海尔在空调（36.8%）、冷藏柜（47.2%）、电冰箱（40%）、洗衣机（35.9%）的市场份额都位居榜首。海尔是国内第四大彩电生产商，并且在其他小型家用电器，例如热水器、微波炉上占据重要地位。海尔正在快速成长: 自1984以来,海尔的年收入以平均83%的速度递增。目前海尔旗下拥有50家企业(18家是独资所有企业，23家是控股公司，并且有9家合资企业)。它拥有逾20000名雇员和约11亿美元的固定资产。海尔产品行销全球87个国家，并且正在印度尼西亚、菲律宾、马来西亚和伊朗建造自己的工厂。海尔不仅仅是第三世界的一个奇迹。在美国，据说海尔已占据近20% 的小冰箱市场份额；海尔空调已进军欧洲市场。

被张瑞敏从倒闭边缘挽救回来的企业原本是一家集体所有制企业。全国约有2500万家这类准社会主义的商业实体，它们原则上为工人集体所有，但是受到地方政府和党委的监管。尽管这些通常以城市为基

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础的中小型集体企业面临的问题和规模庞大、腐败丛生的国有企业不尽相同，但是，国有企业和集体企业一样都受到责任不明、管理不善等问题的困扰。

即使海尔集团在官方仍然是城市集体企业，张瑞敏也是受市政府委派，海尔还是能够成功解决上述难题。(与此同时，海尔已经在上海证券交易所上市，并且极有可能海外上市: 中国的资本主义让人看不懂)。在海尔公司的组织机构中列有这样一类机构——“党群系统”，这在中国以外的地方是找不到的。公司还有宣传部、党委办公室和武装部,市政府的影子无时不在。“我们处于混合经济中”，张瑞敏说。“你必须长有三只眼睛：一只盯住市场，一只盯住员工，另一只盯住政策。”海尔集团的成功更为重要的意义在于：它证明了即便在这些约束条件下，集体企业和国有企业仍有可能恢复生机与活力。

张瑞敏是青岛衬衫厂一名工人的独生子，他说，他最初的爱好是中国古代文学。正如张瑞敏今天所说，老子(公元前6世纪哲学家)和孙子(公元前4世纪军事思想家)不仅为古代将士提供了作战指导，他们的思想同样给现代商业的经营之道带来了深刻的启迪。老子对公司运作提过这样的忠告：“功成事遂，百姓皆谓： 我自然。 ”孙子也说过，“声东击西”，这句话对营销策略很有借鉴意义。

在张瑞敏20多岁时，学校由于文化大革命的原因停课了几年。在这段时间中，他花费了大量时间用于闭门阅读，并且在青岛市政府的管理机构中步步高升，当时的地方工业仍按照苏联模式的指令性体制来运行。张瑞敏着眼于未来，如饥似渴地、用审视的目光自学了西方和日本的管理学方面的必读书目。 张瑞敏能够把他所积累的知识付诸实践的机会在1984年意外的来到了。由于中国对外开放，外国公司进入中国就要寻求合作伙伴。海尔自己的网站承认：当时青岛电冰箱厂仅有“一排破旧不堪的建筑，摆着几部车床”，月生产能力仅84台，当年还亏损179，000美元。处于世界领先地位的一家德国白色家电制造商利勃海尔-豪萨尔茨杰拉特提出，愿意将现代电冰箱生产技术出售给青岛电冰箱厂。青岛市同意了，但厂长对工厂吸收这项技术的能力感到悲观，因此辞职了。当时在市政府家用电器处任副职的张瑞敏被任命接手了这项工作。

开始的几个月对一名经理来说无异是一场噩梦。那年冬天，工厂没有钱购买取暖用煤:工人们就烧从厂房窗框上剥离的木条。裙带关系盛行，生产不稳定,产品质量拙劣。职工们把大部分时间用于观看在附近的一家火葬场里举行的葬礼。

多亏当时中国的农业改革使得农业合作社有了现金积累。张瑞敏用从他在青岛市郊农民朋友那里的贷款支付了一部分拖欠工人的工资。他最受欢迎的举措是为厂里买了一辆汽车。对于一些住得较远的工人来说，上下班是一个很大的问题。汽车是奢侈品，它意味着更加美好的未来。张瑞敏每天和工人们一起坐车上下班的行为深深地打动了工人们的心。（老子说过：“故贵以身为天下，若可寄天下。”）

引进利勃海尔的技术后，张瑞敏把这家德国公司的样品摆在装配线工人一眼就能看见的地方，以便他们看明白什么是质量。到1986年，海尔已经实现了盈亏持平。1991年，青岛电冰箱厂兼并了青岛其它三家白色家电制造企业，在此基础上组建了青岛海尔集团。

除了一项将在2001年到期的技术合作协议外，与利勃海尔公司的联系已于1994年终止。海尔方面已完全超越了这种合作，不再需要购买德国的设备——实际上，海尔正在把自己的生产技术出售给外国公司。举例而言，去年海尔曾经出口家电技术到西班牙。但是集团的名称令人想起某种联系: “Haier”的中文发音与“Liebherr”的发音近似。

海尔的转变是经营艺术的一个典范，哈佛大学商学院已将其引为经营实例。海尔主要有两种策略:扩张和管理。首先是海尔作风。占地面积120英亩的海尔工业园座落于青岛市郊，去过的人都能感受到那里的流水线文化，一种融合了独特的国外管理理念和略带毛泽东时代自我批评味道的中国特色的文化。张瑞敏显然从日本质量管理大师今井正明的著作中吸收了思想精华。今井正明的“5-S运作”取自 5个罗马字母拼写的、以“s”开头的日文单词。大致可译为：seiri（摒弃不重要的东西），seiton（按照使用顺序摆放工具），seisoh（保持工作场所洁净），seiketsu（保持自身整洁），shitsuke（遵守车间纪律）。

海尔新增加了第6条，“安全”，并且通过“6-S自检站”贯彻这套制度。每个班次交接时，出了差错的工人必须站在车间内一个所有同事都能看到的划定地点。那些未能改正错误的工人可能会被公司内部的业务通讯批评或者被处以罚款，如果屡教不改还可能被解雇。这最后一步在中国的从前几乎是闻所未闻的。有

国际经贸高级英语精读 罗汉主编 复旦大学出版社

人埋怨这样的做法太过严历，一名经理人员对其嗤之以鼻：“市场不相信眼泪。”

在海尔各家工厂的墙壁上到处张贴着写有“海尔精神”（敬业报国）、“海尔作风”（反应迅速）的标语。帮助把这些管理理念注入新收购的企业，这是苏芳雯领导的海尔企业文化中心的工作。苏芳雯1988年进入海尔，现在差不多成了集团中的一名传奇人物。她的工作是帮助那些从前在纪律松弛、管理混乱的环境中工作的人们强化纪律和质量管理的观念。每当海尔收购新的公司时，友善、果断的苏芳雯及其助手总是第一时间到达那里。他们熟悉西方管理经验——张瑞敏列举了迈克尔·波特和彼得·森杰的影响——但是培训员工又带有明显的中国特色。例如，苏芳雯从五星级酒店的激增中获得灵感，为了让流水线上的工人能够形象地认识到国际市场要求更高的品质，墙上又多了条标语：“提供五星级服务，扩大市场份额”。

如果这一切听起来不过像是在高喊口号，那么有一点颇有教益，它就是，在苏芳雯的口号中有一些非常严厉的东西。一张标语不加掩饰地告诫全厂职工：（1）一些员工缺乏质量意识。（2）一些工长放纵马虎作风。（3）一些部门主管懒懒散散。加强合作，改善风气！

(节选自《财富》杂志，1999年2月15日)

Tending the Investment Pools

As Gates converts billions of dollars of Microsoft stock into philanthropic tender,Michael Larson will be shepherding the funds every step of the way.He will manage the foundation portfolios until the dollars are expended on syringes, scholarships, and software.“People have no idea the kind of pressure that Michael Larson operates under,” says Roger McNamee.“For one thing, he s running money for two of the largest foundations in the world.The better he does,the more good works can be done.”

Here s how Larson s job works.He s in charge of three large pots of money:the two foundations and the $5 billion or so in Gates personal portfolio, which is mostly invested through Cascade,though there are other smallish accounts also under Larson s auspices.Each of these three pools is discretely managed,with its own objectives and investments.And there s one thing both Gates and Larson want to make perfectly clear.“Michael and I talk regularly about general investment matters,but he has full discretion over the portfolio.” Gates http://rson, his usual grin gone for a second, says, “I wish everyone understood that.When people find out that Cascade has made an investment in something,that s not Bill Gates.I ll call Bill about something I m buying if he needs to know,but Bill might not have any idea what Cascade owns.”(There are exceptions to this rule.For instance, Gates makes his own investments in biotech－more on that later.)

So what s in the portfolios?The Learning Foundation is the simplest.Because Patty Stonesifer and her crew have a fairly constant need for cash, Larson keeps this portfolio mostly in short-maturity U.S. government and corporate fixed-income securities.The William H. Gates Foundation is a little more complicated.Though it may have a smattering of stocks at any given time,it too is almost entirely in bonds—about 75% short-term U.S. governments and corporates.“The portfolio is pretty conservatively positioned right now for a couple of reasons,” says Larson.“First, it reflects my view of the markets.And second, we just had an inflow of a couple of billion dollars.”Another reason bonds are attractive to Larson is that as new money streams in, scaling up in the fixed-income markets is much easier than in stocks. As for the other 25% of this foundation s assets,Larson has made investments running the whole gamut of the bond market.He holds some inflation-protected Treasury bonds called TIPs,and plain-vanilla corporate bonds like Ford, Du Pont, and Time Warner (parent of Time Inc., FORTUNE s publisher).He also has a position in junk bonds and foreign government bonds—Danish, German, Canadian—as well as foreign corporates, gobs of mortgage-backed securities, and all sorts of hedging http://rson farms out some 15% of the overall portfolio to bond managers at Morgan Grenfell,

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PIMCO, Miller Anderson & Sherrerd, and Western Asset Management.“These guys have discretion over the money we give them,but if I don t agree with their take on interest rates or the yen,I ll override them by hedging” Larson says.

Gates $5 billion personal portfolio is another matter.First, there is the question of how much Microsoft stock Gates should own.“The money I have outside Microsoft is less than 10% of the total,” says Gates.“Since we are obviously heavily weighted with Microsoft,we will sell stock periodically in order to get more diversity.It s basically the same strategy most individual investors engage in.”(As if!)

Because Microsoft stock has soared over the past few years,Gates and Larson have had to sell huge amounts of stock to maintain even the semblance of a diversified portfolio. Since the company went public,Gates has sold an average of five million Microsoft shares a quarter, adjusted for splits.That works out to around 80000 shares every single trading day, though Larson sells through a “blind program” during legal windows to avoid insider-trading http://rson tries to sell as quietly as he can through his favorite brokers,including DLJ, Goldman Sachs, and Allen & Co.Gates has sold some 256 million (split-adjusted) shares of Microsoft stock over the past 13 years,for about $5.16 billion.He has given away another 76 million shares.

If Gates continues to sell and give away Microsoft stock,will he still hold sway over the company?“Losing control of Microsoft isn t an issue as I give the money away,” says Gates.“No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.”(Sure, Bill.)Actually, Gates ownership of the company has declined steadily over the years.At the time of the IPO,he owned 44.8% of Microsoft s stock.He now owns just about 18.5%.About half of that decline is due to dilution,brought about by the issuance of millions of shares to Microsoft employees exercising options,while the other half is due to stock sales and gifts.

As for the actual content of Gates $5 billion portfolio (drum roll, please),it turns out to be not that exciting.And for good reason.“If you think about it, 90%-plus of Bill s wealth is in a single technology stock.He really doesn t need much, if any, equity exposure at all,” says Larson.“Right now his portfolio actually looks somewhat like a big old bond fund.”In fact, a recent snapshot of Gates personal portfolio looks like this:Larson has 70%, or $3.5 billion,invested in short-term governments and corporates, with a small weighting in foreign bonds.He also owns some emerging-market debt and high-yield issues.“Basically we are short on the yield curve right now,”Larson says, again reflecting his wary view of the markets.

What about the other 30%, or $1.5 billion?About half of it—$750 million—is in what Larson calls private equity;that s buyout funds and direct investments,such as Gates stake in Teledesic, McCaw s satellite company (Larson is on its board).That figure also includes funds run by outsiders.About 5% of Gates portfolio is farmed out to managers like McNamee s Integral Capital Partners and Blue Ridge Capital,a New York hedge fund run by John Griffin, former right-hand man of Julian Robertson at Tiger http://rson also has a significant amount of money in short positions—actually more than usual right now—which reflects his view that many stocks are fully, if not overly, valued.He also has a small amount of money with Bill Fleckenstein, who runs a short-selling fund.

Of the nonbond portion of Gates portfolio,another $250 million is in what Larson calls “real stuff.”He means real assets,like commodities (he s been in and out of crude oil futures) and real estate,such as investments in the Reserve,a real estate and golf course development near Palm Springs,and in the Cliveden hotels in England.

The remaining $500 million is in stocks.Given Gates huge position in Microsoft,why does Larson own equities at all? “Because I think some stocks have behavior patterns that run counter to Microsoft,”

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says Larson.“For instance, if and when the air comes out of tech stocks,food and oil stocks could hold up real well. The other reason we do equities is because we have some expertise in certain areas,and we make money at it.”It so happens that one of Larson s interests is media stocks.He favors cable stocks such as TCI and Liberty Media, as well as Cox Communications and Barry Diller s USA http://rson also holds Berkshire Hathaway—he owned 300 shares last year and recently bought a bunch more—which he thinks became particularly attractive after its Gen Re acquisition.“Gen Re was in the S&P 500.Berkshire isn t.So after the deal,index managers had to sell Berkshire,depressing the price.” Gates does make his own investment decisions in biotech.Says he: “I ve always been interested in science—one of my favorite books is James Watson s Molecular Biology of the Gene.I m an investor in a number of biotech companies,partly because of my incredible enthusiasm for the great innovations they will bring. I serve on the board of ICOS [which develops drugs to fight inflammatory diseases].I continue to make a number of investments in this area.”At various points Gates has owned stock in other biotechs—including PathoGenesis, Targeted Genetics, and Chiroscience—but he is out of all those stocks now.He recently bought a stake in a company called Advanced Medicine, a private biotech firm. As for tech stocks,“We pretty much don t own em,” Larson says, “not with Bill s other asset.”It could be awkward, of course, if Cascade owned, say, 3% of a small tech company that Microsoft s strategic planners later decided they wanted to gobble up.Or if that small company felt inclined to sue Microsoft at some point.Gates does, however, own some tech stocks through his investments in McNamee s partnerships.And Larson concedes that he might be short some tech names.“I do think the market is high right now,and there is an awful lot of excitement about tech stocks,” says Larson.Whoa! Does that mean he thinks Microsoft is overvalued?“I wouldn t bet against [Microsoft],” he says.

Larson continues:“I just think at some point the cycle is going to turn.We ll have some rotation.There will be some trigger event that will change the equity market s point of emphasis.Agriculture, for instance, will come back.Stocks like Deere & Co. [which he owns a bit of] will make out.Oil looks interesting.There are some opportunities in that sector,and I don t think oil has to go back to $20 a barrel [for oil stocks to work out].”

What about interest rates?“I think they will trend higher.It s true we don t see much inflation now,but wage inflation is evident,and everything is in such high gear right now.I think long rates could climb 100 basis points,which could be a shock to the market.It could also make for a real nice buying opportunity.”But Larson knows he has to go easy.“Sure, I could torque up the portfolio,”he says, perhaps a little wistfully,“but that s not what I m paid to do.The point wasn t for Bill to become richer than the Sultan of Brunei.”No, but that happened anyway, not because of anything Larson did but because of Microsoft s explosive growth (and a little imploding on the Sultan s part.)

The point is that the real growth engine is Microsoft.Just how big will the company, and therefore Gates fortune, become?How much will Gates end up giving away?No one knows, of course, not even Gates.But consider this: If Microsoft s stock compounds over the next 20 years by merely 10%, Gates fortune, even assuming some selling,could be worth $400 billion.Impossible, you say?Well, what would you have said 13 years ago—the day of Microsoft s IPO,when Gates holdings were worth $234 million—if someone had told you he would be worth $80 billion before the end of the millennium?Impossible.Andrew Carnegie was regarded in his day not just as a robber baron but—after the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which hired guards killed seven striking steel-workers—as a plutocrat with blood on his hands.He reshaped his image by giving away most of his fortune during his lifetime,and today he is remembered less for the strike than for his phrase “the man who dies...rich dies disgraced.” Today, Bill Gates is known variously as the creator of Microsoft, as the richest man in the world,and

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as a monopolist hell-bent on world infotech domination.Hard as it may be for some people to swallow,future generations may remember Bill Gates instead as the greatest philanthropist the world has ever known.

(excerpted from Fortune, March 15, 1999)

管理投资组合

当盖茨把价值成百亿美元的微软股票用作慈善事业时，迈克尔拉森将像牧羊人一样照看资金运行的每一步。他将对基金进行管理，直到这些钱最后花在医疗、奖学金以及软件上。“人们并不知道迈克尔拉森的工作压力有多大，”罗杰·麦克拉米说，“首先，他在替这个世界上规模最大的两个基金管钱；他的工作越出色，所能成就的善事也就越多。”

我们来看拉森是如何经营的。他掌管着三大笔钱：两笔基金外加主要通过Cascade公司投资的约50亿美元的盖茨的个人投资组合。当然，拉森还掌管着几个小账户。这三个基金都是独立经营的，每一部分都有自己的目标和投资方向。有一件事盖茨和拉森都想向外界澄清。“迈克尔和我会定期谈一谈投资的总体事宜，但具体投资完全是他说了算，”盖茨如是说。拉森收敛了他那习惯性的露齿一笑，说道，“我希望每个人能理解这一点。当人们发现Cascade进行某项投资的时候，那不是比尔盖茨的决定。如果比尔想知道的话，我会电话通知他我在买什么，但比尔可能一点也不知道Cascade买了什么。”（当然也会有例外的时候，比如盖茨自行决策投资生物技术领域—后文会有所提及）。

那么，拉森的投资组合里有些什么呢？其中最简单的是教育基金。因为帕蒂史多纳西弗和她的同事对现金有持续的需求，拉森将这笔基金主要投在快要到期的美国政府和公司的固定收益证券上。威廉H盖茨基金稍微复杂一点。尽管该基金任何时候都持有少量股票，但它基本上也完全由债券组成——其中75%是短期的美国政府和公司债券。“这个组合定位比较保守，这里有几方面的原因，”拉森说，“首先，它反映了我对市场的看法；第二，我们刚有一笔几十亿美元的现金流入。”债券吸引拉森的另一个原因是，当新的资金流入时，资金在固定收益市场上同比增值要比在股票市场上容易得多。

至于该基金资产的另外25%，拉森将他们分配于债券市场的各种金融资产上，他持有那些被称为TIPs的保值国库券，以及福特、杜邦、时代华纳（时代公司的母公司，《财富》杂志出版商）等普通公司债券。他还涉足垃圾债券，丹麦、德国、加拿大等国的政府债券，外国公司债券，大量的抵押证券，以及各种对冲基金。拉森将投资组合的大约15%的资金委托给摩根格伦费尔公司、太平洋投资管理公司、米勒安德逊和谢勒德公司以及西方资产管理公司的债券经理人。“这些人对委托资金拥有处理权，但是如果他们对利率或日元汇率的看法与我的观点不一致，我会对他们的投资进行对冲，以抵消他们原来的操作。”拉森说。 盖茨价值50亿美元的个人投资组合是另外一回事。首先一个问题是盖茨应该持有多少微软股票。“我在微软以外的资金不足总资产的10%，”盖茨说。“既然我们持有微软股票明显过多，那么我们会定期地出售该股以使资产进一步多样化。这和大部分个人投资者采用的策略基本相同。”（似乎！）

因为微软股票在过去几年里一路飙升，盖茨和拉森不得不出售大量该股以维持即使是表面上的投资多元化。从公司公开上市起，考虑股票拆分因素，盖茨平均每季度抛售了500万股微软股票。尽管为避免内部交易的指控，拉森出售股票是通过合法途径的“暗箱操作”进行的，这仍然相当于每个交易日出售80,000股。拉森的出售行为通过他喜欢的经纪人进行，尽可能不显山露水，这些经纪人包括DJ公司、高盛公司和阿伦公司。在过去的13年中，盖茨已经出售了大约2.56亿股（考虑拆细因素）微软股票，价值约51.6亿美元。他还捐赠了7,600万股。

如果盖茨继续出售和捐献微软股票的话，他还能保持对公司的控制力吗？“我捐出这部分资金和失去对微软的控制力是两回事。”盖茨说。“没有人控制微软。董事会和股东们决定他们是否要我做首席执行官。”（当然啦，比尔。）实际上，盖茨在微软所占有的股份这些年在稳步下降。当微软初次发行股票的时候，他拥有其中的44.8%，他现在仅拥有大约18.5%的股份。股份下降的一部分原因是由于股值稀释，这是公司向行使期权的雇员发行数百万股股票而造成的，而另一部分原因则是由于出售和赠送。

至于盖茨50亿美元投资组合的实际内容（鼓声，请起），事实证明它并不那么激动人心。原因很充分。“你想，如果盖茨财富的90%强都是单一的技术股，他就根本不需要采取更多的（如果有的话）抵御证券风

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险的手段，”拉森说。“实际上，现在他的投资组合看起来有点像一个庞大的旧债券基金。”事实上，盖茨个人投资组合最近的结构是这样的：拉森将其中的70%，即35亿美元，投资于短期的政府和公司债券和少量的外国债券。他还持有一些新兴市场债券和高收益品种。“我们目前基本上是靠做空来获利的。”拉森的话表明了他对市场的谨慎态度。

那么另外30%即15亿美元的投资情况如何呢？其中大约一半——7.5亿美元——投资于拉森所称的私人普通股，即收购基金和直接投资，如盖茨在麦考的卫星公司Teledesic公司（拉森是该公司董事会成员）的投资。这个数字还包括由外部人经营的基金。盖茨的投资组合中有5%的资金是委托给经理人公司经营的，如麦克纳米的Integral 资本合伙公司，Blue Ridge资本公司，后者是老虎基金的投资者朱里安罗伯森的前得力助手约翰格里芬经营的一个纽约对冲基金。拉森还有一笔重要的资金用于卖空——实际上目前比以往更多——这反映了拉森对目前股市的看法，他认为现在许多股票即使没有被高估，其股价也已经很充分的挖掘了价值。他还有少部分钱放在比尔费莱肯斯坦那里，费氏运作着一个卖空基金。

在盖茨投资组合的非债券部分里，另外有2亿5000万美元投资于拉森所称的“真货色”，他说的是实物资产，即初级产品（他曾涉足原油期货）和不动产，如在Reserve的投资——位于棕榈泉附近的房地产和高尔夫球场的开发建设,以及在英格兰的对于Cliveden酒店的投资。

剩下的5亿美元投资于股票。既然盖茨持有巨量的微软股份，拉森究竟为什么还要持有其他股份呢？“因为我认为某些股票的走势和微软相反，”拉森说。“例如，当科技股的泡沫破裂时，食品和石油股可能相当坚挺。我持有其他股份的另一个原因是，我们在某些领域有专业的知识，它让我们赚钱。”恰好拉森对媒体股感兴趣，他喜欢有线网络股，如TCI公司、自由媒体公司、COX通讯公司、巴里·迪勒的美国广播网。拉森还持有伯克希尔哈萨维公司股票——他去年持有300股并且最近又买进了许多——他认为该股在收购Gen Re之后特别具有吸引力。“Gen Re是标准普尔500的指标股，而伯克希尔不是。所以在收购之后，指数经理们会抛出伯克希尔，从而导致其价格下跌。”

盖茨在生物科技领域的确是亲自进行投资决策的。他说：“我一直对科学感兴趣——我钟爱的书之一是詹姆斯·沃特森的《基因分子生物学》。我投资于许多生物科技公司，部分的原因是我对他们的伟大创新有令人难以置信的热情。我是ICOS公司[该公司开发消炎药]董事会成员。我会继续在这一领域进行投资。”盖茨曾经在不同时点上持有过其它生物科技股——包括PathoGenesis公司、Targeted Genetics公司和Chiroscience公司——但他现在已经售出这些股票了。他最近购入了一个私营生物科技企业Advanced Medicine公司的股票。

至于科技股，“我们几乎不持有，”拉森说，“不动用比尔的其他资产。”如果Cascade持有某个小科技公司3%的股权，而微软的战略计划者后来决定吞并它，或者这个小公司在哪天想要起诉微软，那肯定会是很尴尬的事情。但是，盖茨的确通过他在麦克纳米合伙公司的投资持有某些科技股。拉森也承认他或许会卖空某些科技股。“我的确认为市场目前处于高位，人们拼命追捧科技股，”拉森说。哇！他的意思是说微软的股价太高了吗？“我并不这样看坏[微软]，”他说。

拉森接着说：“我只是认为在某个时刻这个循环要轮回，市场热点会交替出现，会有某个触发事件转变股市的热点。例如，农业股将出现回升。如Deere & Co.之类的股票将会走出一段行情；石油股似乎令人关注，这一板块有一些机会，我不认为[要使石油股走出低迷状态]油价必须回升到20美元一桶。”

利率的走势会如何呢？“我认为它们会走高。现在的确没有大幅度的通货膨胀，但是工资上升是明显的，并且目前整个经济都处于高速运转之中。我认为长期利率会攀升100个基点，这对市场将是一个冲击。不过它也会创造出一个良好的买入时机。”但拉森知道他必须保持冷静。“的确，我可以改变投资组合，”他若有所思地说，“但那不是我份内的事。问题的关键不是要使比尔比文莱苏丹更加富有。”不；然而那种情形的确发生了，这倒不是因为拉森做了什么，而是因为微软呈爆炸性的增长（还有苏丹财富的少许缩水）。 问题的关键在于真正的增长引擎是微软。那么公司的规模，以及由此带来的盖茨的财富，将来会有多大呢？捐献后，盖茨最终会剩多少呢？没有人知道，当然，即使盖茨本人也不知道。但是你想：如果微软的股票在以后20年里仅按10%的速度复合增长的话，盖茨的财富，即使假设有一些抛售，也会达到4000亿美元。你说不可能？好吧，在13年前微软刚上市的那一天你会怎么说？当时盖茨的财富价值2.34亿美

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元，如果有人告诉你，在这个千年结束之前，他的身价会达到800亿美元，你肯定也说不可能的。安德鲁·卡耐基在他活着的时候被认为不仅是一个强盗巨头，还是一个双手沾满鲜血的财阀——在1872年Homestead罢工中，他雇用的士兵杀害了7名罢工的钢铁工人。在他的一生里，他通过捐出自己的大部分财富重塑了他的形象，今天，人们记得更多的不是那次罢工，而是他的名言：“把钱财……带进棺材是可耻的。”

今天，在不同的人看来，盖茨或者是微软的缔造者，或者是全世界的首富，或者是专注于世界信息科技领域的垄断者。也许有些人难以接受这样的事实：我们的后代也许会因为比尔·盖茨是历史上最有贡献的慈善家而记住了他。

（摘自《财富》1999.3.15）