{"id":4131,"date":"2012-02-09T22:45:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T06:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2012-02-09T22:45:53","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T06:45:53","slug":"flight-of-the-black-swan-the-spectator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/flight-of-the-black-swan-the-spectator\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight of the black swan | The Spectator"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>When Taleb held a public discussion with Cameron about debt two years ago, the admiration was mutual. Taleb described the then opposition leader as \u2018the best thing we have left on this planet\u2019. Even now he stands by that assessment. \u2018I saw in him, then, someone who wants to rebuild society along the right model. Cameron was the first leader to grasp that deficits are dangerous.\u2019 But this was two years ago. Our conversation moves on to what has happened since.<\/p>\n<p>British economic output is forecast to grow by \u00a3100 billion over the next four years, I put it to him, but with a corresponding increase in the national debt of \u00a3360 billion. The analogy Taleb reaches for is not flattering. \u2018In any Ponzi scheme, there is great growth initially,\u2019 he says. \u2018Then you have to pay it back.<\/p>\n<p>\u2019But he\u2019s quick to add that Cameron had limited choices. \u2018Debt may be necessary for a while, you don\u2019t want to create great social disruption.\u2019 He can talk about the economic danger of high debt, but recognises there is also political danger in austerity. \u2018I try to stay outside immediate debates. I talk about structure that we should arrive at, not what should be done tomorrow morning.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/essays\/7637843\/flight-of-the-black-swan.thtml\">Flight of the black swan | The Spectator<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Taleb held a public discussion with Cameron about debt two years ago, the admiration was mutual. Taleb described the then opposition leader as \u2018the best thing we have left on this planet\u2019. Even now he stands by that assessment. \u2018I saw in him, then, someone who wants to rebuild society along the right model. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-4131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributors","tag-david-cameron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4132,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions\/4132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}