关于钱的铁律

摩根·豪泽尔

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、赚多少钱或如何投资，有几条真理适用于您和您的钱。

花钱向世人显示您多有钱，是减少财富最有效的方法。歌手蕾哈娜赚了数千万美元，却在2009年发现自己“实际上破产了”。她起诉财务顾问未尽职尽责，而顾问给出了个神回应：“如果用钱买了东西，最后将得到东西而失去钱，这个道理真的还需要告诉她吗？”

关于钱的第一条金科玉律是：财富是你没看见的那些东西。是你没买的车、没下单的衣服、忍痛放弃的珠宝。金钱可以买到物品，但是财富——诸如现金、股票、债券、存在银行未花掉的资产——可以买到自由和保障。您想要什么，请明智选择。

财富完全是相对而言的。世界银行的经济学家布兰科·米拉诺维奇说，“美国最贫困的人群（5%）比世界上超过三分之二的人都富有”。而且，“印度只有大约3%的人口收入高于美国的底层人群（最贫困人群）”。这些数据根据各国不同的生活成本做了调整。

判断您是否富有的最简单的方法就是和身边的人比较。残酷的是，在美国，大部分人都比较富足，所以您本人的成功就显得普普通通了。如果想体验富有的感受，那就和美国或欧洲之外的世界90%的人群比比。您会明白，富有的感受不过是种心理游戏。

投资目标不是使枯燥最小化，而是让回报最大化。成功的投资过程往往枯燥乏味，需要的主要是耐心与等待。多数人却期待更多的刺激，因此会尽可能频繁地微调、乱调和大调投资，结果却是毁了自己大半财富。如果想在任何事情上都比一般人做得好，您就必须做到大部分人做不到的事。于投资而言，意味着要忍耐长久的无聊乏味。这项能力非常重要。

累积财富的唯一办法就是划清自我价值和实际收入的界限。致富与您的收入基本无关，与您的储蓄率则息息相关。而储蓄率恰恰显示出自我价值与实际收入之间的差异。约束自我价值感，日子总会好起来。

您能拥有的最宝贵的资产是可以全然屏蔽他人的评头论足。大部分人都不擅长理财，所以，想做好，跟别人不一样就行。投资金额不用那么多，投资方式要与众不同。您的致富过程会漫长些，而这会使您短期内看起来像个傻瓜。但谁管他人怎么想？或许他们才是笨蛋。就如查理·芒格所言：“总会有人比您致富快。这不是悲剧。”这不仅不是悲剧，还是必经之路。能做到不在意别人的想法，是取得非凡成就的必要条件。

多花点儿时间研究失败原因而非成功方法。比起向沃伦·巴菲特学习财富知识，一个在次贷危机中破产的人能让您学到更多。因为做蠢事往往比做聪明事更容易也更常见。所以，您应该更努力地避免做出错误决定，而不是花精力确保决策正确。经济学家埃里克·法尔肯施泰因总结得很好：“专业网球赛中，80%的得分都靠自己赢来，而在业余赛中，80%的得分都源于对方失误。同样的规律也适用于摔跤、国际象棋和投资，就是说：新手应将注意力集中在避免犯错上，而专业人士则应聚焦于采取更好的行动。”

人无完人，故而很多事情毫无意义。正如詹姆斯·格兰特所述：“若认为一只股票的价值单纯取决于一个企业的收益，那就是忘了人们曾经烧死女巫、曾一时冲动发动战争，还曾相信奥森·威尔斯在广播里说的火星人已登陆地球。”

任何事情都可能在任何时间以任何理由发生。下周您可能就下岗，明天您可能就被起诉，或者一下中了大奖，也许哪天就得了癌症，还可能被大力提拔。股价反弹的时间可能是您预测的两倍，而股价暴跌的速度也可能是您想象的两倍。历史就是倒霉事一件接着一件来，大部分都与钱有关，而您却对此无能为力。

祝您好运！