He’s just like you and me, except for the

£31bn fortune

PROFILE: Warren Buffett

Quotations from Warren Buffett

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you ‘ll do things differently.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

Forbes Magazine’s Rich List of 2010

Forbes Magazine’s Rich List is an annual celebration of the super-wealthy. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is always at or very near the top, and this year’s list sees him only making second place behind Carlos Slim. Other tech personalities also place highly in the list.

Bill Gates is worth an estimated $53 billion. Which is a lot of money. However, Carlos Slim, the 70-year-old Mexican telecommunications mogul is worth more, with an estimated fortune of $53.5 billion. While half a billion dollars is a fortune to the vast majority of us, it’s small beer to these guys.

Mogul ： [məu‘gʌl] has great power and influence in a particular industry or activity 巨子，显要，大亨

Forbes Magazine’s Rich List of 2010

Slim tops the Forbes list for the first time, knocking Gates off in the process. But Gates should now be used to playing second fiddle to guys with more money than him as Warren Buffett stole the top spot off him in 2008 before he retook it last year.

When F Scott Fitzgerald observed that “the very rich are different from you and me”, the novelist was clearly not thinking of people like Warren Buffett. Proclaimed the world’s richest man last week, the American investment strategist eats at his local grill and drives to work from the modest home that he bought in unfashionable Omaha, Nebraska, in 1958, which is today valued at about £350,000.

Grill n 烤架 a place where you can buy and eat grilled food 烧烤店 e.g

bean’s Bar and Grill 比恩酒吧烧烤店

Modest adj not very big or expensive less than you would expect 不太贵的 不太大的 适中的

His modest ambitions 他的小小的抱负

Such is the frugality of the 77-year-old “sage of Omaha”, whose wealth increased by £5 billion last year to £31 billion, that when he married in 2006 he bought a discount ring from his own jewellery company. He has vowed to pass on only a small chunk of his fortune to his children, Susie, Howard and Peter. He wants them to have “enough to do anything but not to do nothing”.

Frugal 节约的 , 俭朴的 [(+of)]She is a frugal housekeeper. 她勤俭持家。

花钱少的 , 廉价的 We had a frugal lunch. 我们中午吃了一顿便饭。 Vow 发誓要 ( 做 )[+to-v][+(that)]

I vowed never to reveal the secret. 我发誓决不泄漏这一秘密。

众所周知，巴菲特是个质朴无华的家伙，而他的子女也继承了这点：他的大女儿苏茜是奥马哈一家针织品商店的老板；大儿子豪伊是伊利诺伊州的一名普通农场主；小儿子彼得是纽约的一名音乐家。“这三个孩都很聪明，有很好的判断力，他们都是正派的好人。”巴菲特评价说。 彼得的哥哥豪伊是个农场主兼摄影师，姐姐苏茜是家庭主妇，在奥马哈养育了两个了不起的孩子，而彼得则投身音乐创作，自己的一双孪生女儿是超市的营业员，两代人过着平凡的生活，看上去与“股神”开创的“天下”实在是极不相称。很多人也曾问彼得——为什么不去华尔街，继承父亲的事业？

生活中，巴菲特对孩子们似乎吝啬得很。巴菲特曾给豪伊买下了他现在经营的农场，而豪伊必须按期缴纳租金，否则立即收回，这对于退学不久的豪伊来说，艰难可想而知。艰难的处境往往更能锻炼人，巴菲特对小儿子彼得音乐事业的支持绝对限于金钱之外。当年，彼得搬到密尔沃基市前，开口向父亲借钱，这是皮特唯一一次向父亲借钱，却被拒绝了，巴菲特的理由是“钱会让我们纯洁的父子关系变得复杂”。后来彼得气愤地去银行贷了款。他说：“在还贷的过程中，我学到的远比从父亲那里接受无息贷款多得多，现在想来，父亲的观点对极了。”

在子女眼里，父亲巴菲特不是名人，他们也不是和世界上第二富有的人一起长大的。幸运的是，父亲身上那种诚实、正直、友爱、宽容的品质都传给了他们，使他们意识到：人生的意义在于用慈善来帮助世界，而不是对父亲的亿万财产展开尔虞我诈的争夺。

His advice has enriched more investors than anyone else in history, but Buffett pays himself a mere £50,000 a year and prefers such ordinary fare as steaks and hamburgers, washed down with Cherry Coke. Not for him the bright lights of New York, even though he owns a private jet, his one extravagance: “I have everything I need and am very comfortable right here at home in Omaha. I feel sorry for people who are consumed by possessions.”

Extravagance 铺张浪费之举 ;放肆的言行 ;奢侈品 [C]Food is a necessity, but wine is an extravagance. 食物是必需品 , 而酒则是奢侈品。 luxury

Consumed with 被某种情感所折磨He was consumed with guilt after the accident 那次事故后他深感内疚。

Known for his wry homilies, Buffett has bet his house in jest against that of his friend and bridge partner Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder now relegated from first to third place in the zillionaire stakes, according to Forbes magazine. They used to meet for games at a Holiday Inn near Buffett’s home, but of late they play online - Buffett’s only concession to newfangled technology - under the user names “T-bone” (Buffett) and “Challenger X”.

1. Homily n advice how to behave 说教 布道2. Jest in jest not serious 开玩笑e.g I only said it in jest. 我不过是开玩笑说说的。 Never jest

about serious matters. 千万不要就严肃的事开玩笑。

Buffett’s ranking may seem puzzling, given that in 2006 he announced he was donating his fortune to charity, with about £15 billion going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated to combating Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. The donations are in instalments - the latest for £880m - but Buffett just gets richer.

1. 与 ...战斗 ,反对 Drastic measures were taken to combat inflation. 采取强烈措施对付通货膨胀

This act of philanthropy was an indirect consequence of Buffett’s unorthodox role as a husband and lover. In 1952 he married Susan Thompson, a former cabaret singer who, after raising their children, announced in 1977 that she was leaving Omaha to pursue her singing career in San Francisco. They remained married and on good terms, holidaying together and helping charitable groups.

1. Unorthodox different from what is usual or accepted by most people 非正统的 非传统的

A tennis player with an unorthodox style 打法非正统的网球选手

2.Cabaret 餐馆等处的 )歌舞表演 [U][C]The city has two nightclubs with cabaret. 这个城市有两家有歌舞表演的夜总会。

Buffett had always expected that Susan would inherit his wealth and pass it to charitable causes, he explained later: “When we got married, I told Susie I was going to be rich . . . [not] because of any special virtues of mine, but simply because I was wired at birth to allocate capital.” Susie was less than thrilled by this prospect: “But we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.”

1.Inherit v to receive money property from sb 继承e.g. she inherited the land from her grandfather.

In 1978 Susan introduced her husband to Astrid Menks, a Latvian working as a waitress in a restaurant, who soon moved in with him. Buffett sent out Christmas cards signed “Warren, Susie and Astrid”.

巴菲特的女儿苏珊在奥马哈的家里主持了婚礼。“这是 Astrid Menks 一生中唯一的一次婚礼，也是巴菲特这一辈子最后一次婚礼。”苏珊表示她父亲这样说过。

巴菲特的第一个妻子苏珊在 2004 年 7 月 29日去世，享年 72岁。苏珊在 1977 年就搬去了旧金山，但是和巴菲特仍然保持着婚姻关系和频繁的联络。 Astrid Menks已经与巴菲特一起生活了 20 年，而她之前只是一名普通的服务生

Two years after Susan died from a stroke in 2004, Buffett married Astrid, then 60. “Astrid loves him and takes care of him,” his daughter Susie said. “If Warren didn’t have a cent she’d still be with him.”

Just before their wedding, he revealed his plan to release his ever-growing riches to charitable causes for decades to come.

Buffett likes to make wealth-generation sound simple. He once summed it up thus: “Rule No 1: never lose money. Rule No 2: never forget rule No 1.” His prescience is world-renowned: he refused to buy stocks in the booming 1960s, only to strike gold in the plummeting 1970s. He walked away from the dotcom boom in the 1990s, sticking with boring blue-chips such as Gillette, Coca-Cola and American Express. He always came up smelling of greenbacks.

Plummet n坠子 ;测铅 v suddenly and quickly go down 骤然跌落 暴跌 house prices have plummeted房价已经暴跌

He is one of the most respected voices in financial America, embodying Midwest virtues of probity, modesty and common sense, so his recent warning that America was in recession stirred panic.

He was born in 1930 in a house in Omaha on the banks of the Missouri River, the son of Leila and Howard, a Republican stockbroker elected to Congress on a platform described as “to the right of God”. His grandfather ran the family’s grocery store dating from 1869, where Buffett’s fortune began.

“My grandfather would sell me Wrigley’s chewing gum and I would go door to door around my neighbourhood selling it,” he recalled. “He also sold me a six-pack of Coca-Cola for a quarter [25c] and I would sell it for a nickel [5c] each, so I made a small profit.” He supplemented his earnings by selling lost golf balls. When the family moved to Washington, the 12-year-old Warren took on five paper rounds, using his access to customers to sell them magazine subscriptions.

My subscription to the magazine will soon expire, I will renew it. 我订阅的杂志快到期了 , 我将续订。

By the following year he was making £80 a month, an incredible sum in the 1940s. Through shrewd investment, at the age of 14 he saved the £400 needed to buy 40 acres of local farmland, which he rented out. His first dabble in the stock market earned him a $2 profit before the shares shot up, teaching him that patience pays off.

Dabble v be involved in sth try

James dabbles in politics. 涉猎政治。

After a first degree at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, he went to Columbia Business School in New York, where he fell under the spell of Benjamin Graham, an investment guru who awarded Buffett the only A+ grade he ever bestowed.

Buffett worked for his mentor after graduation but outgrew him, according to Roger Lowenstein, Buffett’s biographer: “Graham would amaze the staff with his ability to scan a page with columns of figures and pick out an error. But Buffett was faster at it.”

Scan to glance at; to browse to skim over粗略地看 ;浏览He scanned the headlines of the evening paper. 他浏览晚报的大标题。

His strategy was to search for “cigar butt” companies, no longer of interest to the market and thus undervalued, but which still had “a few puffs” left in them.

In 1962 he spotted a run-down Massachusetts textile

firm, Berkshire Hathaway, which he bought and transformed into an insurance company. His empire now extends to sweet shops and Fruit of the Loom clothing. He has shares in The Washington Post, Tesco and a controlling stake in CE Electric, which supplies energy to 3.7m English homes.

He denounced the “outright crookedness” of Enron, the collapsed American conglomerate, and the dubious methods used by corporations to calculate pension charges and stock option costs: “CEOs will be respected and believed . . . only when they deserve to be. They should quit talking about some bad apples and reflect instead on their own behaviour.”

This rigour extends to his family dealings, notably his past stinginess with his children. On one occasion his daughter Susie needed $20 to get her car out of an airport car park, but Buffett made her write a cheque to him first. He doesn’t spare himself either: “Only my clothes are more expensive now, but they look cheap when I put them on.”

To most Americans, however, Buffett is a national treasure. But as he put it: “You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.”

Thanks for your attention!Thanks for your attention!

Key to Lesson Twenty: He’s just like you and me, except for the ￡ 31bn fortune

1.Does Warren Buffett live an extravagant life?

No, he lives a very simple life. He pays himself a mere 50,000 pound a year and prefers such ordinary fare as steaks and hamburgers, washed down with Cherry Coke.When he married in 2006, he bought a discount ring from his own jewellery company.

2. How does Buffett educate his children?

He has vowed to pass on only a small chunck of his fortune to his children; he wants them to have “enough to do anything but not to do nothing.”

3. How did Buffett deal with his big fortune?

He will pass on only a small chunk of his fortune to his children and has decided to release the rest of his ever-growing riches to charitable causes for decades to come.

4. What are Buffett’s rules of making money?

Rule No 1, never lose money. Rule No.2: never forget Rule No. 1.

5. What is most valuable quality in Buffett?

Buffett knows not only how to earn money but also how to use the money to serve the society.

6. How do you understand the last sentence in the article?

The last sentence is often quoted in bad economic times like the present world-wide recession, so the tide here might refer to economic tide. “When it goes out” means when the economic situation becomes very bad. Then the financial scoundrel will be exposed as the person who has been swimming naked.