Category Archives: John

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

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4GsCXnL9LE]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5qbo7i_VMQ&NR=1]

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

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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.

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 Interview – The Brian Lehrer Show 052110

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HatTip to Dave Lull

Nassim Taleb Interview – The Brian Lehrer Show 052110

WNYC-Nassim Nicholas Taleb, former hedge fund advisor, professor, and author of the best-selling book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House Trade Paperbacks; 2 edition, 2010), continues his exploration of randomness and the unpredictability of markets with the new edition of his book. Will the new financial reform bill help predict the next “Black Swan”?

Regulations are what got us here, because the regulators, with Basel ll, allowed banks to use measures of risk that were absolutely not scientific.
Give me a regulation and a cup of coffee and a few hours and I’ll come up with a way to beat that regulation… you see?

Keywords: economist detractors, hard assets, government bonds, fragility, robust to forecast errors, why should innocent future generations pay the price, failed auction, new suckers, long term interest rates, Paul Krugman, private debt to public debt, arbitrage tax laws or regulation, Basel ll, transparent derivatives trading, eliminating moral hazard from the system, punish people who make the mistakes, low debt, small size firms, society not bailing out failing companies

Nassim Taleb Issues for Investment Officers Now

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HatTip to Dave Lull.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT77byy5tWQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euucVyjc9Kw]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKvhkHPY5IQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOsVMiLa06s]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE2Rf1j38c]

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.