Shared by JohnH

This is interesting, NNT is definitely backing Cameron. In a way, he’s throwing down the gauntlet for Obama and others to pay attention. But aligning with any politician is risky.

I’ve been a fan of Taleb ever since I saw him take apart the former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff in this Newsnight discussion, in which he condemned economists for explaining events “after the fact” and for using “bogus measures of risk”.

His attacks on the bankers and the economics profession (“charlatans”, is how he refers to them in the interview), as well as on militant atheists (again, “charlatans”), are as intellectually robust as they are amusing and acerbic.

His Twitter feed is full of humour, wisdom and insight.

So I was astonished — and, as a long-standing critic of the cult of Cameron, frustrated! — to hear Taleb tell me that he regards David Cameron as “extraordinary”. Here’s the relevant exchange:

Here in the UK, the government is giving even more power to our central bank.
Your new government is at least conscious. You don’t have the Office of Management and Budget, which never forecasts anything right.

We’ll soon have an office of budget control.
But here they understand. David Cameron understands expert problems. He is extraordinary.

You have described him as “the best thing we have left on this planet”.
Exactly. I went to Washington, and the discourse had nothing to do with the real problem. And I thought, “He’s the only thing we have left.”