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 the result of a perplexing phenomenon of complexity. It is the beginning of a train wreck we have seen for decades. We are not wandering into a surprise or horrified by the dark specter of a Black Swan rearing its long tailed head; this macro crisis appeared on the horizon long ago, easily calculated by any actuary armed with the knowledge that governments were not investing tax streams, but stealing them for current consumption.
via Jim Lewis: Nassim Taleb is wrong about the financial crisis and black swans « InvestmentWatch. HatTip to Dave Lull.
Now here’s the difference. Obviously people make all sorts of predictions, but they don’t believe in them. Which is why only a few people actually invested and made money out of the crisis, and those who did predict but did not believe actually lost money. The evidence that you are looking for lies in the investments that were made. Were they fully invested in their ideas or not?
Why didn’t all the actuaries make money out of the crisis. The problem is not about predicting the crisis, its about how intense the crisis is going to be. If you think a storm is coming then you’re right even if you category 5 hurricane shows up. But if you can’t judge the intensity then you’re lost.
Well put!