“Did Ben Bernanke see the crisis?” Nassim Taleb asked on Bloomberg TV today. “No,” Taleb answered himself, “He was flying the plane and he crashed the plane…[Bernanke] reminds me of the LTCM people. They had brilliant people with great academic records and they blew up the fund and almost blew up Wall Street…Bernanke is someone who talks about returns without talking about risk. It’s identical to a pilot who is talking about speed — not talking about safety. The measures he is using, this quantitative easing, may work but should it fail the risks are humongous.”
This is all very reminiscent of the time Taleb was an options trader. “People would call me up and ask for a magic way to make their money back. That’s what the Obama team is doing. Instead of accepting that we have a risk problem, we have lost money, and you don’t double up with future generation’s money either by increasing deficits and or debasing the currency. You have to face the saying that there is no free lunch.”
There is no place for these rational comments in todays political/economic climate.
I am the only person that understands risk. All other opinions are invalid, and their progenitors should be dispensed with promptly.
- N. Taleb
Taleb made one correct prediction and now he thinks he knows everything. That’s what Charlie Munger refers to as the “shoe button complex”.
Taleb: “Just like a ketchup bottle you bang on with nothing coming out”
See, I’m not the only one.
actually dimple dorf, he made more than a few correct predictions. And if you ever took the time out and read his book, you would know that his stance is that the only thing we know, is that we don’t know.
Funny, sounds exactly like my opinion of ‘Fooled by Randomness” when I was 22 an read (half of) it in ’05. Just picked it up again and am becoming much more of an NNT fan.
^^^ unlike
Taleb has made some correct predictions as well as some erroneous ones. The difference between him and most other over-credentialed eggheads is that his wrong predictions cost very little when they don’t pan out, but his correct ones make a boatload.
regardless of whether or not you side w/ his opinions, i think we can all agree that NT is one of the most obnoxiously self righteous, pompus, and close minded individuals on earth. that said, nouriel exceeds him in all the above mentioned traits by orders of magnitude.
to his credit, however, he does have impeccable taste in wall decorations
Ben Bernanke doesn’t like risk people
K. west
I once got stuck to his wall.
Anyone who writes a book and informs you, up front, that the last four chapters are mundane bullshit that you probably don’t want to read has a leg up, in my opinion.
He’s arrogant, obnoxious, pompous, and somewhat closed-minded, but a lot of that, “we” made him.
There’s a lot he has to say that is interesting, and I enjoy those parts. He’s capable of being fantastically wrong on prescriptions, but he’s generally interesting, clearly bright, and happens, in this case, to be correct on Bernanke.
edit: And he has even less hair than I do, which is another plus.
Didn’t this guy promise us he would shut up and go into isolation?
NT has lost more of other people’s money in his life than you will ever know. He was a lousy market-maker, horrific money manager, and still talks, only one reason, wishes to sell more books. If he was so damned good, he’d be making so much money off of his views by simply investing his own capital. Instead, he pontificates and people like “some” on this comments pay to buy his crap. The man has only one view, has had only one view, that everything is going to blow up, great, and this “black swan” crap, anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that the unexpected, the unsavory, the painful, can happen, does happen, will happen and as human beings not all of us can get out of the way on time, that’s why we have natural and man-made disasters which cause physical and financial calamities.
NT should be sitting in his orchard in Lebanon, eating his apples and discussing disaster with some cronies there who have been living in one for decades so are very familiar with pain.
Can you give some examples of his correct predictions?
“The only thing we know is that we don’t know” is one of those things that sounds real smart if you don’t think about it too much. Do you ever cross bridges or take plane trips? Surely you must have some faith that the people who built them really did know something.
The bed of procrustes…mmm…that can be a good addition to my markers.
- P. Jiang
don’t be short the wings
that was Alec Baldwin
Taleb has predicted, as the old saying goes, 15 of the last 4 depressions. At the rate he’s progressing, he’s aiming at 100 of the last 4. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day — as long as it’s not a military or digital one.
If one considers the risk that Taleb is a fraud, does that instead prove him true? Noodle that one
Dude, I read his book. As Churchill once remarked, “there is nothing unforgivable except bad prose”.
Isaac (Bernanke) and Ishmael (Taleb) look the same. It looks like they were separated at birth.
If he is so smart how come he doesn’t like, manage money? Oh right, he couldn’t figure out how to actually generate returns. Taleb is good, quite fun, and smart. But he is way too full of himself. People who didn’t predict shit make piles more money investing than he does.
I am always short the wings. XXV is the new killing it.
It seems like a lot of people struggle to understand non-linearity, or make the mistake of thinking about the problem linearly when it’s not. But it would seem that having an understanding of non-linearity would be pretty damn important these days.
The more I learn about these non-linear phenomena that Taleb and others talk about, the more I see them in everyday life. I’m especially intrigued by the idea of a self-referencing feedback loop, because I think this is one of the dominant forces in the market.
I think Taleb’s analogy of money-printing as a short OTM option position on hyperinflation is apt, and anyone who understands options would hopefully understand the dangers of such a position. Limited upside, very unlimited downside.
You do have to give NNT credit for coming up with the ultimate litmus test for morons – just ask someone what they thought of Black Swan… if they tell you it’s anything other than the financial world’s equivalent of the Royal Nonesuch, well, that should be enough to help you make a hiring decision.
The empewhore has new QE2 clothes hence he is now “clothed.” Nassim teaches that we need to be prepared to cover our eyes.
Managing money is one of the many thing’s he’s done. Look up “Universa Investments.”
He made a boatload putting his money where his mouth is, way back in the 80′s on Black Monday, and more famously in 2008.