Tag Archives: dave lull

How Would You Simplify the Financial-Reform Bill? A Freakonomics Quorum – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com

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HatTip to Dave Lull

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the author of The Black Swan. He is at work on a paper called “Why Did the Crisis of 2008 Happen?” (Links to NNT pdf)

“The captain goes down with the ship…”

Time to realize that capitalism is not about free options. The captain goes down with the ship — all captains and all ships — making everyone involved in risk-bearing accountable, no exception, none. Morally, legally, whatever can be done. That includes the Nobel (Bank of Sweden), the academic establishment, the rating agencies, forecasters, bank managers, etc.

The Bed of Procrustes (Work in Progress)

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HatTip to Dave Lull.

Since aphorisms lose their charm whenever explained, I only hint to the reader the main subject of this book, which corresponds to the central theme of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, though rephrased in an aphoristic style —

fooledbyrandomness.com/aphorisms.pdf

PBS Video Taleb & Roubini Examine Potential for Longer Recession

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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.

Black Swan Second Edition

 

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 at Lunch | Bryan Appleyard

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HatTip to Dave Lull

I had lunch with Nassim on Friday. He is one of the most intellectually gripping men on the planet. He is also full of helpful advice, based on Pareto distributions and other such exotica, on how to live one’s life. He applauded me for being seven minutes early – I am usually at least half an hour early – saying this was ideal, told me to spend no more than four hours a week on doing horrible things like, tax, bills and so on and strongly recommended walking downhill for back pain. The rest of the conversation was off the record and thrilling.