英文早读第252篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
Our own position in this respect is satisfactory. We believe our net worth, valuing bonds of all insurers at amortized cost, is the strongest relative to premium volume among all large property-casualty stockholder-owned groups. When bonds are valued at market, our relative strength becomes far more dramatic. (But lest we get too puffed up, we remind ourselves that our asset and liability maturities still are far more mismatched than we would wish and that we, too, lost important sums in bonds because your Chairman was talking when he should have been acting.)
我们在这方面的处境是令人满意的。我们相信我们的净值，按所有承保人以分摊成本方式计价债券，是在所有大型财产意外险控股集团中相比于承保规模相对最强的。当债券以市值计算时，我们的相对优势变得更加巨大。（但是避免我们过于膨胀，我们提醒自己我们的资产和债务仍然远没有匹配我们期望的地步，并且我们也在债券损失了很多，因为你们的董事长在该采取行动的时候却在夸夸其谈。）
Our abundant capital and investment flexibility will enable us to do whatever we think makes the most sense during the prospective extended period of inadequate pricing. But troubles for the industry mean troubles for us. Our financial strength doesn't remove us from the hostile pricing environment now enveloping the entire property-casualty insurance industry. It just gives us more staying power and more options.
我们充足的资金和投资灵活性使我们可以做在预期会延长的不充分定价时期间任何我们认为最有意义的事。但是对行业的困难意味着对我们也是困难。我们的财务优势不会使我们从现在已经笼罩整个财产意外险行业的不利的定价环境中剥离出来。他仅仅给我们更加稳健的能力和更多的选择。
Insurance Operations
保险业务
The National Indemnity managers, led by Phil Liesche with the usual able assistance of Roland Miller and Bill Lyons, outdid themselves in 1980. While volume was flat, underwriting margins relative to the industry were at an all-time high. We expect decreased volume from this operation in 1981. But its managers will hear no complaints from corporate headquarters, nor will employment or salaries suffer. We enormously admire the National Indemnity underwriting discipline - embedded from origin by the founder, Jack Ringwalt - and know that this discipline, if suspended, probably could not be fully regained.
国家保障公司的管理层，由菲尔莱舍尔及罗兰德米勒与比尔莱昂斯的一如既往的协助下，在1980年表现极为出色。尽管规模没有增长，承保利润率相较于行业达到了历史最高水平。我们预期1981年这项业务规模会减小。但是公司总部不会对管理层有任何抱怨，对雇员或者薪资也不会。我们非常钦佩国家保障公司的承保准则——从最初由创始人杰克令怀特开始就嵌入血液中——并且知道这个准则一旦中断或许很难再全面恢复。
99.dramatic：戏剧性的；巨大的；引人注目的
100.lest：以免；免得；唯恐；担心
101.puff up：肿胀；肿起
102.abundant：大量的；充裕的；丰盛的
103.hostile：敌对的；敌意的；不利的
104.complaint：抱怨；控诉；委屈
105.embed：把……嵌入；深留
