《股票作手回忆录·第十四章·游戏永不变·人性永不变》第24节
When I returned to New York early in 1917 I paid back all the money I owed, which was over a million dollars. It was a great pleasure to me to pay my debts. I might have paid it back a few months earlier, but I didn’t for a very simple reason. I was trading actively and successfully and I needed all the capital I had. I owed it to myself as well as to the men I considered my creditors to take every advantage of the wonderful markets we had in 1915 and 1916. I knew that I would make a great deal of money and I wasn’t worrying because I was letting them wait a few months longer for money many of them never expected to get back. I did not wish to pay off my obligations in driblets or to one man at a time, but in full to all at once. So as long as the market was doing all it could for me I just kept on trading on as big a scale as my resources permitted. I wished to pay interest, but all those creditors who had signed releases positively refused to accept it. The man I paid off the last of all was the chap I owed the eight hundred dollars to, who had made my life a burden and had upset me until I couldn’t trade. I let him wait until he heard that I had paid off all the others. Then he got his money. I wanted to teach him to be considerate the next time somebody owed him a few hundreds.
注释摘要
1917年初，利弗莫尔回到纽约做的第一件事是偿还超过一百万美元的债务。要理解这个数字在当时意味着什么，需要知道1916年一美元的购买力大约相当于今天的三十倍，所以这笔钱换算过来接近于今天的三千万美元。一战正打得不可开交，美国虽然尚未参战，但已经通过向协约国出售军需品和物资成了全世界的债主，黄金如潮水般涌入，催生了华尔街有史以来最壮观的牛市之一。利弗莫尔正是…