The Black Swan Report » Video

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Q&A 2. Excerpt of OWP 2010 Evening Session

JohnH — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:13:27 +0000

… As an empricist, I don’t have to understand the logic behind a system, I just take it as it is
because I’m not smart enough to understand it. I call it the opacity.

From IMD, “International Institute for Management Development,”

PBS Video Taleb & Roubini Examine Potential for Longer Recession

JohnH — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:00:06 +0000

Original Source, PBS Newshour (includes full transcript) HatTip to Dave Lull
Love the ‘Fat Tails’ info graphic. (Note, for some reason sometimes the embed
doesn’t show, if you don’t see a video window on this post, try refreshing the
page. Otherwise, watch it at the original source link above.)

Audio Only mp3

Nouriel Roubini also has a new book you might want to check out.

Nassim Taleb and the Problem with Bailouts

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:23:28 +0000

CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS

Squawk Box Europe Debt Slashing Only Solution: Nassim Taleb

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:51:09 +0000

Airtime: Thurs. Jun. 10 2010 | :30:0 10 ET

“We have no other solution but to slash debt,” Nassim Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan’, told CNBC Thursday. He discusses the outlook for the global economy with Bob Long, CEO, Conversus Capital.

Summary from Huffington Post:

Author and New York University professor Nassim Taleb told CNBC this morning reporters that the world’s debt problems were spreading “like cancer” — and worse than at the height of the recession.

“The situation today is vastly worse than two years ago. We had less debt then and more people employed then,” said the author of bestselling book, “The Black Swan.”

“Today we have more hidden risks to the system, more explicit risks, and on top of that we have a lower tax base. So explain to me [how] this remedy is going to work?”

Taleb blamed the U.S. government for spurring the growth of the “cancer” with remedies like stimulus packages, which he said only served to increase debt and unemployment.

“Obama promised us 8% unemployment after the stimulus,” he added.

Instead, he said, Western governments should follow Greece’s lead of slashing debt by belt-tightening, rather than shifting spending from the private to the public sphere.

Playing off the illness metaphor, a CNBC reporter asked Taleb whether he thought the US government would pass a second stimulus package given that “the politicians just can’t stomach another recession”.

“Unfortunately you may be right. They may not be able to resist giving the bad medicine.”

Videos Posted by NYU-POLY FRE: Interview with Charles Tapiero and Nassim Taleb

JohnH — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:17:07 +0000

NNT enters the conversation around 5:45 NYU-POLY is the school NNT chose to teach at.
iatrogenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenics

Interview with Morton L. Topfer Distinguished Professor and Department Chair Charles S. Tapiero and Distinguished Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb .
Also on Facebook: www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=396575527762

New Yorker Video: Nassim Taleb on Risk and Robustness

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:43:18 +0000

For the inaugural video in the New Yorker Currents series, Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks with James Surowiecki about the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and the future of the economy.

ForumNetwork.org – Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Impact of the Highly Improbable

JohnH — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:31:04 +0000

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Impact of the Highly Improbable

May 19, 2010 51:32

Nassim Taleb professor, writer

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, renowned expert on risk and randomness, discusses The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. This bestselling book is now out in paperback with a new essay, “On Robustness and Fragility.”

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”

This lecture contains strong language.

Tumor is still in the system – Nassim Nicholas Taleb part 1 & 2

JohnH — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:11:47 +0000

Popular NNT / Roubini CNBC clip from August 12, 2009.

I was a trader for 21 years, and anyone taking markets seriously needs to consider the following… You remember the day when Kervial was liquidated? The SocGen rogue trader… ‘the hero’ in France. They sold $50 billion dollars worth of stock. How much did capitalization drop world-wide, based on that? Markets went down 12 percent! With a $50 billion order, you drop markets by 12%. We lost 7, 8 Trillion. A huge amount. So it tells you, don’t pay attention to stock markets. They’re driven by the marginal buyer. It means nothing. Short term markets mean nothing.

Nassim Taleb Hay Festival 2010 Guardian Video Clip

JohnH — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:30:11 +0000

Nice editing. NNT in excellent form. Wish it were longer.

Hay Festival video: On the power of cab drivers
Nassim Nicholas Taleb on knowledge, power and why a cab driver knows as much as a political scientist about what is going to happen tomorrow.

Click arrow to hear audio only version.

When it comes to economic life, we have evidence that a cab driver knows as much as a political scientist-anyone in Washington- in what’s going to happen tomorrow.
People tend to fit their beliefs to the profession, rather than fit their professions to their beliefs…
…when people’s income depends on certain set of beliefs, they will endorse these sets of beliefs, just for the sake of maintaining their lifestyle.

Nassim Taleb Issues for Investment Officers Now

JohnH — Sun, 30 May 2010 23:05:30 +0000

HatTip to Dave Lull.

ai5000 interviews Nassim Taleb
This is a link to the streaming video (which wasn’t playing very well the day I discovered it. Just added the YouTube links). So I made an audio recording of it. You’ll hear a few skips and pops and the last few seconds of the video wouldn’t play, but it’s interesting to hear NNT share a few more specifics of his (then, Feb 2010) investment strategy.

Nassim Taleb Feb. 2010 Issues for CIOs Now.mp3

What I call cash, I’ve changed my definition of cash, my cash is what I call the numerator. It’s not just cash because I’m afraid of inflation. So I have some inflation-linked securities, what I call repository of value. I have a collection of currencies and metals. So it’s a combination of inflation-linked currencies and metals, but very short term… treasury bills, from governments… is what I call cash.