英文早读第262篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
Our acquisition decisions will be aimed at maximizing real economic benefits, not at maximizing either managerial domain or reported numbers for accounting purposes. (In the long run, managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.)
我们的收购决策目标是最大化真正地经济利益，而不是目标于管理范围或者出于会计目的的报告数字。（长期来看，那些注重会计表象而非经济实质的管理层通常在这两方面都不太行。）
Regardless of the impact upon immediately reportable earnings, we would rather buy 10% of Wonderful Business T at X per share than 100% of T at 2X per share. Most corporate managers prefer just the reverse, and have no shortage of stated rationales for their behavior.
不管对报告利润立即产生的影响，我们更倾向于以每股X美金购买优秀业务T的10%股份，而不是以每股2X价格购买100%股份。大多数公司经理喜欢正好相反，并对他们的行为也并没有宣称缺乏理智。
However, we suspect three motivations - usually unspoken - to be, singly or in combination, the important ones in most high-premium takeovers:
然而，我们怀疑通常不对外言说的三个动机，单独或者在一起是在高溢价收购中最重要的因素。
(1) Learders, business or otherwise, seldom are deficient in animal spirits and often relish increased activity and challenge. At Berkshire, the corporate pulse never beats faster than when an acquisition is in prospect.
（1）无论是公司或者其他领域的领导者，很少缺乏欲望，通常享受增加事务和挑战。在伯克希尔，当有望进行一项收购时，公司脉搏最强。
(2) Most organizations, business or otherwise, measure themselves, are measured by others, and compensate their managers far more by the yardstick of size than by any other yardstick. (Ask a Fortune 500 manager where his corporation stands on that famous list and, invariably, the number responded will be from the list ranked by size of sales; he may well not even know where his corporation places on the list Fortune just as faithfully compiles ranking the same 500 corporations by profitability.)
（2）大多数组织，公司及其他，衡量他们自己，或通过其他人来衡量，并且相比于其它标准，更多依赖于规模的标准来奖励管理层。（问一个财富500的经理，他的公司在那份著名的榜单中处于什么位置，并且始终如一地，这个数字都反应的是销售规模在榜单的排名；他也许根本不知道如果同样500家公司按利润排名他的公司将出来对应榜单什么位置。）
10.substance：物质；实质
11.rational：合理；理智；理性；明智
12.suspect：怀疑；觉得
13.deficient：缺乏的；缺少的；不足的
14.animal：情欲的；肉欲的；肉体的
15.relish：享受；喜欢；渴望
16.pulse：脉冲；脉搏；跳动；搏动
17.compensate：补偿；弥补；赔偿
18.invariably：一成不变地；始终如一地
19.compile：编写；编译；编纂；收集
