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Category Archives: John

Jim Lewis: Nassim Taleb is wrong about the financial crisis and black swans « InvestmentWatch

This strikes me as another case of ‘Black Swan Coattail Riding’. I can’t recall NNT describing the financial crisis as anything more than a grey swan at best. Can you? Black Swans And Complexity Submitted by Jim Lewis Nassim Taleb is wrong about the financial crisis and black swans. The ongoing financial crisis is not [...]

It’s Here! RSA – The Predictability of Unpredictability

The Predictability of Unpredictability 1st Dec 2011; 18:00 Listen to the audio (full recording including audience Q&A) Please right-click link and choose “Save Link As…” to download audio file onto your computer. Download Nassim Taleb’s presentation (pdf) RSA Keynote Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the brilliant and controversial author of The Black Swan, described in the [...]

For the nonorganic…

For the nonorganic, noncomplex, say an object on the table, equilibrium happens in a state of inertia. For something organic, equilibrium is synonym to death. [Chapter on Political Volatility] via For the nonorganic,… | Facebook.

The continuation of Seneca’s asymmetry

[Unfortunately the link is broken. I don't have the pdf and NNT is pretty clear about not sharing the documents he posts to FooledByRandomnexx.com anyway.] The continuation of Seneca’s asymmetry: “Fragility is the new blue”. I need to find the person who wrote it to give proper credit. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/fragility-blue.pdf via The continuation of… | Facebook.

The entire idea of via negativa…

The entire idea of via negativa is that omission [avoidance of harm, removal of drugs, corn syrup, cigarettes, gluten, carbs by fasting, gym instructors, tail risks, etc.] does not have side effects and branching chains of unintended consequences -hence robust. But big corporations [evil pharma, pepsi] and consultants cannot make money from removing; they only [...]

End Deposit Insurance, Not Bonuses – By Reihan Salam – The Agenda – National Review Online

[Another commentary and rebuttal to NNT's recent NYT 'End Bonuses for Bankers' piece. Again, it would be nice if these articles were based on the larger context of NNT's entire Bailout commentary rather than a single opinion piece. JH] End deposit insurance: a simple heuristic for a complex problem. Taleb of all people should appreciate [...]

No, Wall Street Bonuses Aren’t Destroying the Economy – Daniel Indiviglio – Business – The Atlantic

Going Back to the Partnership StructureTaleb suggests that investment banks go back to what they used to look like a few decades ago — where they were partnerships instead of publicly traded companies. This idea does have some attractive features, as the employees all share in the losses. But that also makes it somewhat unattractive [...]

Concave and Convex.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Concave and Convex. via Wall Photos | Facebook.

My Fear Is The Thing Degenerates Into Class Struggle

Link to Source (My notes) The banks have made 2.2 trillion over the last 2 years. Salary plus bonuses. It is a tax on citizens. Bailout scheme, since Reagan.You need something to break the bank cartel. Federal Reserve policy is there to help the banks. Last year they had record bonuses.The ONLY valuable information you [...]

Edvin David Lemus: Essays, blogs

Longtime reader and tipster David Lemus has a new book out.Here’s a quote: “So the statistics presented as the bell curve can at most work in one world. What polemic philosopher Nassim N. Taleb has called Mediocristan and Extremistan, the former domain is where statistics can be apply to physical measurements with miniscule margin of [...]