英文早读第170篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。

1971 Letter
1971年度信

To the Stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:
致伯克希尔哈撒韦公司股东：

It is a pleasure to report that operating earnings in 1971, excluding capital gains, amounted to more than 14% of beginning shareholders' equity. This result - considerably above the average of American industry - was achieved in the face of inadequate earnings in our textile operation, making clear the benefits of redeployment of capital inaugurated five years ago. It will continue to be the objective of management to improve return on total capitalization (long term debt plus equity), as well as the return on equity capital. However, it should be realized that merely maintaining the present relatively high rate of return may well prove more difficult than was improvement from the very low levels of return which prevailed throughout most of the 1960's.
很高兴报告在1971年，不包括资本利得的运营利润，较最初的股东股本超过14%。这个比美国行业平均水平明显要高的结果考虑到面临纺织运营令人不满意的利润的情况下，使五年前开始的资金重分配的好处更加明显。提高整体的资本化（长期债务加上股本）回报仍将是我们的目标，同样也包括资金回报率。然而应该意识到几乎获得现在的这样相对高回报率将会证明很困难，相比于从大多数整个1960年代流行的低回报水平增长而言。

Textile Operations
纺织运营

We, in common with most of the textile industry, continued to struggle throughout 1971 with inadequate gross margins. Strong efforts to hammer down costs and a continuous search for less price-sensitive fabrics produced only marginal profits. However, without these efforts we would have operated substantially in the red. Employment was more stable throughout the year as our program to improve control of inventories achieved reasonable success.
我们和大多数纺织业一样，继续在整个1971奋力挣扎来获得不太令人满意的净利润。强力降低成本和持续寻找价格不敏感的纺织品仅仅产生微薄的利润。然而如果没有这些努力运营将会严重赤字。通过这一年我们提高控制库存能力的项目所实现的成功让员工更加稳定。

As mentioned last year, Ken Chace and his management group have been swimming against a strong industry tide. This negative environment has only caused them to intensify their efforts. Currently we are witnessing a mild industry pickup which we intend to maximize with our greatly strengthened sales force. With the improvement now seen in volume and mix of business, we would expect better profitability - although not of a dramatic nature - from our textile operation in 1972.
正如去年提到的，肯查斯和他的管理团队一直在对抗强力的行业浪潮。这次负面的环境仅仅让他加强了他的努力。当前我们正目睹温和的行业改善，我们试图去最大化利用这一点去加强我们的销售能力。伴随着这些现在看到的在销量和业务混合上的提高，我们将预期1972纺织运营盈利能力更好，尽管幅度不是那么大。

1.inaugurate：开始；开创；引进
2.prevail：流行；盛行
3.hammer：敲；捶打；猛击
4.marginal：边缘的；小的；微不足道的
5.pickup：改善；改进；好转