Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that he was "dead wrong" with a prediction that the U.S. housing market would begin to recover by now, but he remains optimistic about the nation's economy.
股神巴菲特周六在致伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司股东的公开信中认错，表示自己在去年对美国房地产市场的复苏判断“错得离谱”。但他表示还是对美国的经济持乐观态度。
In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett said he is sure housing will recover eventually and help bring down the nation's unemployment rate. But he did not predict when that will happen.
在致伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司股东的年度报告中，巴菲特表示他相信房地产最终会复苏，并降低美国的失业率。但他没有预测楼市复苏将在何时出现。
Buffett said housing "remains in a depression of its own," but he predicted, in typical plainspoken style, that the housing market will come back because some human factors can't be denied forever.
巴菲特在公开信中承认目前楼市“ 还是很低迷”，但他还是直言不讳地预测，因为人为因素的影响，房地产市场还是终究会复兴起来。
The housing prediction proved painful for Berkshire Hathaway. It owns more than 80 subsidiaries, including the Geico insurance company and See's Candy, and five of them depend on construction activity.
巴菲特去年的楼市误判让伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司很受伤，该公司拥有超过80家子公司，其中包括政府雇员保险公司和喜诗糖果公司。旗下有五家公司主要经营建筑业务。
Those businesses, which include Acme Brick, Clayton Homes and Shaw carpet, generated pre-tax profits of $513 million last year. That's well off the $1.8 billion those companies added to Berkshire in 2006.
巴菲特投资的5家房地产相关公司，包括艾可美砖料、克莱顿房屋公司和逸夫地毯公司，在2011年税前利润为5.13亿美元，与2010年相当，但明显低于2006年的18亿美元。
Berkshire's insurance companies took $1.7 billion in catastrophe losses last year, including from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Berkshire reported only $154 million in underwriting profit, down from $1.3 billion the previous year.
伯克希尔的保险相关公司在去年承担了17亿美元的灾难损失费用，其中就包括日本的地震和海啸。年度报告中显示公司的承保利润只有1.54亿美元，远低于上一年的13亿美元。
Buffett reassured Berkshire shareholders that the company has someone in mind to replace him eventually, but did not name the successor. He emphasized that he has no plans to leave.
巴菲特还在公开信中向股东确认公司已有了接班人的人选，但并未透露继任者的名字。他也强调目前并无离开的计划。