贷款发放者学到了什么

通胀引发了一个具有讽刺意味的财务要求：高度盈利的公司，一般有最好的信用，但只需要相对很少的债务。但是在盈利方面不佳的公司对债务的需求从来就没够。相对10年前，贷款发放者对此了解的更加透彻。所以，他们不愿意贷款给资本匮乏，盈利不佳的公司，让他们把债务杠杆抬高到天上去。

即便如此，在通胀条件下，将来很多企业看起来肯定会利用更高的债务杠杆来提高资本回报率。很多公司通常即使维持同等规模的实体商业运营，也需要巨额的资本。而减少股息或者增发新股在通胀条件下都不具备吸引力，这些公司的管理层因此会选择更高的债务杠杆。无论债务成本如何，这些公司都会债务堆积如山。他们的行为会像那些电力公司。那些公司在60年代曾经为八分之一个点的利息而与发放贷款者争执。而1974年，他们对能拿到12%的债务融资已经很感激了。

和60年代早期4%利息的债务相比，以现在的利息水平增加的债务对资本回报的促进有限。但另外的问题是高债务比率会降低信用评级，进而提高利息成本。

所以，除了我们讨论的其它因素，债务比率增加会提高利息成本，也会导致债务杠杆成本增加。更高的债务杠杆成本会抵消更高债务杠杆的各种好处。

除了这些之外，美国企业的资产负债表上，与传统相比已经有了太多的债务。很多企业担负了大量的养老金义务。这些义务把养老金设置成当现在的工人退休时的实际支付水平。在低通胀的1955至1965年，由这些养老金义务引发的负债相当好预测。而今天，没人能够真正搞清楚公司的最终义务是多少。但是，如果未来通货膨胀率平均7%的话。一个今天25岁挣一万两千美金一年的雇员，未来的工资涨幅仅仅和通胀持平，在他65岁退休的时候也要挣十八万美金。（译者注：通用汽车就是这么死的。）

当然，每年有很多年报里有非常精确的缺少资金的养老金义务数字。如果那些数字可信，一个公司可以把这个养老金义务的数字加上当前的养老基金资产，把整个养老金交给一个保险公司。让保险公司承担养老金义务。实际上，找到一个愿意听一听这样一个交易的保险公司都不可能。

实际上，每个美国企业的司库都不敢有发行“生活成本”债券的想法。“生活成本”债券也就是一种无法召回而且息票和价格指数相联系的债务。但是，通过私人的养老金系统，美国企业实际上承担了大量相当于“生活成本”债券的债务。

对更多的债务杠杆，无论是传统的债务还是没有记录的与价格指数相关的养老金债务，股东都应该持怀疑态度。一个无债一身轻的企业的12%回报要远胜于一个负债累累的企业的同样的回报。这也意味着今天的12%的回报的价值要比20年前的12%回报低得多。

巴菲特：《通货膨胀如何欺诈股票投资者》（九）

What the lenders learned

An irony of inflation-induced financial requirements is that the highly profitable companies - generally the best credits - require relatively little debt capital. But the laggards in profitability never can get enough. Lenders understand this problem much better than they did a decade ago - and are correspondingly less willing to let capital-hungry, low-profitability enterprises leverage themselves to the sky.

Nevertheless, given inflationary conditions, many corporations seem sure in the future to turn to still more leverage as a means of shoring up equity returns. Their managements will make that move because they will need enormous amounts of capital - often merely to do the same physical volume of business - and will wish to got it without cutting dividends or making equity offerings that, because of inflation, are not apt to shape up as attractive. Their natural response will be to heap on debt, almost regardless of cost. They will tend to behave like those utility companies that argued over an eighth of a point in the 1960's and were grateful to find 12 percent debt financing in 1974.

Added debt at present interest rates, however, will do less for equity returns than did added debt at 4 percent rates it the early 1960's. There is also the problem that higher debt ratios cause credit ratings to be lowered, creating a further rise in interest costs.

So that is another way, to be added to those already discussed, in which the cost of leverage will be rising. In total, the higher costs of leverage are likely to offset the benefits of greater leverage.

Besides, there is already far more debt in corporate America than is conveyed by conventional balance sheets. Many companies have massive pension obligations geared to whatever pay levels will be in effect when present workers retire. At the low inflation rates of 1955-65, the liabilities arising from such plans were reasonably predictable. Today, nobody can really know the company's ultimate obligation, But if the inflation rate averages 7 percent in the future, a twenty-five-year-old employee who is now earning $12,000, and whose raises do no more than match increases in living costs, will be making $180,000 when he retires at sixty-five.

Of course, there is a marvelously precise figure in many annual reports each year, purporting to be the unfunded pension liability. If that figure were really believable, a corporation could simply ante up that sum, add to it the existing pension-fund assets, turn the total amount over to an insurance company, and have it assume all the corporation's present pension liabilities. In the real world, alas, it is impossible to find an insurance company willing even to listen to such a deal.

Virtually every corporate treasurer in America would recoil at the idea of issuing a "cost-of-living" bond - a noncallable obligation with coupons tied to a price index. But through the private pension system, corporate America has in fact taken on a fantastic amount of debt that is the equivalent of such a bond.

More leverage, whether through conventional debt or unbooked and indexed "pension debt", should be viewed with skepticism by shareholders. A 12 percent return from an enterprise that is debt-free is far superior to the same return achieved by a business hocked to its eyeballs. Which means that today's 12 percent equity returns may well be less valuable than the 12 percent returns of twenty years ago.