{"id":2822,"date":"2011-01-13T12:52:30","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T20:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"tag:google.com,2005:reader\/item\/9db99c96468f735d"},"modified":"2011-01-13T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T20:52:30","slug":"the-bed-of-procrustes-philosophical-and-practical-aphorisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/the-bed-of-procrustes-philosophical-and-practical-aphorisms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Shared by  JohnH<br \/>\n<br \/>\nHatTip to Dave Lull<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<table style=\"float:left\" width=\"110\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding-right:25px\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carnegiecouncil.org\/people\/data\/nassim_taleb.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carnegiecouncil.org\/people\/data\/%3Av_get\/303379\/nassim_taleb.html\/_res\/id=sa_Picture\" alt=\"Nassim Nicholas Taleb\" width=\"110\" border=\"0\" height=\"140\"><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding-right:25px;padding-bottom:15px\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carnegiecouncil.org\/people\/data\/nassim_taleb.html\">Nassim Nicholas Taleb<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\n<i>Editor&#8217;s Note: On December 2, 2010, Mr. Taleb gave a talk at the Carnegie Council about his latest book, <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bed-Procrustes-Philosophical-Practical-Aphorisms\/dp\/1400069971\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1294777690&amp;sr=1-1\">The Bed of Procrustes<\/a><i>, and about the global financial crisis. He asked for the talk to be off the record. However, he kindly wrote this summary for us.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<b>1. <\/b><b>Hidden Risks and Agency Problems:<\/b> The main cause behind the recent crisis<br \/>\nwas the accumulation of hidden risks in the system, compounded by the agency problem. <\/p>\n<p>The agency problem is when the manager (the agent) serves his own interest<br \/>\nat the expense of the person he is supposed to represent. This can be made obvious<br \/>\nwith the following fact: collectively the managers of companies made hundred<br \/>\nof billions over the past decade while, in the aggregate, their investors and<br \/>\nretirees ended up poorer. The same with banks\u2014and taxpayers are paying<br \/>\nfor it. This brand of capitalism suffers from a fragilizing lack of symmetry<br \/>\n(managers of banks and corporations have the upside but not the downside, society<br \/>\nhas the downside but not the upside).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shared by  JohnH <\/p>\n<p>HatTip to Dave Lull<\/p>\n<p>               Nassim Nicholas Taleb<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Note: On December 2, 2010, Mr. Taleb gave a talk &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}