bloomberg.com:
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan," questioned why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner kept their posts after failing to foresee the collapse in global credit markets.
Pablo Triana: In Finance, History Often Written By Losers
The world at large was being told something which was plainly not true. The real innovators were ignored, the faked ones were glorified.
Pablo Triana: Taleb`s Value to a Politician
The composer of "The Black Swan" used the occasion to say certain things to conservative British politician David Cameron that instantly and rabidly captured the headlines
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: My Letter Addressing the Guardian's Distortions
I used to think that the US press was guilty of distortions. Recent events changed my mind, as UK anti-Cameron papers tried to cut and paste from my talk to weaken him by trying to demonize me.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nassim Taleb: 'I Was Happy Lehman Went Bust' - DealBook Blog ...
YouTube - Nassim Taleb in Congress warming on Stimulus, and ...
Nassim Taleb Says Geithner's Bank Plan Will Fail (Update1 ...
'Black Swan' Author Taleb Wants His Obama Vote Back
Most Read on Bloomberg: Taleb Wants Obama Vote Back; Citi Sale
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China's hidden risks lie in the fact they their central bank has leveraged trillions into their industrialization producing products which they sell at below cost levels. Their massive infrastructure development has been state-of-the-art when it has not been necessary, since their overall productivity levels don't require such an expense. Unless the Chinese people can buy up their oversupply of goods, once the US consumer stops their buy resulting from the US government stimulus monies, China will see a big recession.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmFzeaqMu8U
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
quote:
With the advent of the Internet, the Blackberry and other tools that allow for near-instant communication, so-called black-swan events will become more frequent. One way for regulators to counter that randomness is to make financial products, “simpler, less mathematical.”
/quote
I would say "more reality-based" although I understand that as a direct result, economic analysis will require less use of post-graduate mathematical modeling. I think the important thing is to make the economy based on real products and services, which provide real utility to the purchasers of them, AND CAN IMPOSE RISK ONLY ON THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO TAKE SUCH RISK. It is a violation of the Constitutional right to property that we were all put at financial risk by a few incompetent, over-privileged investors, and continue to be. I know Taleb understands all this, and was just talking in economists' jargon for convenience, but this needs to be emphasized: money is a means of exchange, not a means of control.
The disconnect between the problems facing main street and Washington keep widening. For the past year we've heard nothing but talk of regulation, but zero action. What a joke.
good articles... http://www.iamned.com
meanwhile, the stock market is surging and everyone is too busy to counting their money to show any initiative
Bernacke and Geitner have lifetime jobs in the banking industry. When these guys fail, it only affects our bottom line in a negative way, not theirs.
Simple. They kept their jobs because the banks like them, and they are calling all the shots. that's blatantly apparent.
Audit the FED. Barney Frank and Ron Paul have a bill in congress, HR 1207, to do just that. Everyone should call and/or email their Reps. and Sens. to get this bill passed.
Why? Because it's all rigged for the wealthy. Obama is a part of the scheme because he keeps the status quo in charge of the money. I know it's hard to hear that, but why else would these guys be in charge? There comes a point where you know the system is not working for the common man.
it breaks my heart bec I believed so much in Obama.. but keeping these jerks in charge speaks for itself..
True equality: A black Dem is just as useless as a white Repub.
After he signs a health care bill, if he doesn't start working very closely with Barney Frank, Ron Paul, Nassim Taleb and Paul Krugman, then I'll be disappointed with President Obama's economic policies. But so far, we have a stimulus bill with more environmental sense than I would have expected possible with 40 Republicans in the Senate and a crazy 60-vote filibuster rule. I think his reasoning is that people shouldn't die for being destitute, and that's a reasonable top priority. He never campaigned as particularly leftist and the economy was only hurting Main Street when he began his campaign. Worst of all, the economics he was exposed to most as a University of Chicago grad would be the "ideas" of Milton Friedman, basically Reaganomics. Even if he's not ideological about it, he's likely to have heard little else, than that's just how economics works. I think he's really learning econ on the job, and I'm confident the people I named above can teach it to him. I won't stop supporting him unless he fails to seek their counsel after health care passes.
So true -- the Obama deception, say anything to get even the little people to give him $25 and $50 and even $100. It all added up. And then he punked us and, if you're on their mailing lists, they're still asking for campaign donations. Unbelievable hubris.
Watch this and tell me how dangerous these students look to all the G-20 knotzis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etv8YEqaWgA&feature=player_embedded
I just wanted to point out that in the video that shows the Pitt Police attacking anti G-20 protesters, that the bad guys are in black--And that they are the Corporate Cops who are protecting the guys Taleb names as the crooks behind the scam.
thank you for posting this
It's simple, we're a government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers, not the people..!
Geithner, Bernanke, and Summers are giving President Obama the same type of economic advice Herbert Hoover's economic team gave him. Without a new team the President will go down in history as the re-incarnation of Herbert Hoover.
http://www.escapethenewgreatdepression.com
and we need FDR right now!!!
I second that!
"With the advent of the Internet, the Blackberry and other tools that allow for near-instant communication, so-called black-swan events will become more frequent."
Mmm, ok, so that means that investors follow a herd mentality?
Bingo.
The brokers have two screens wired to a central super computer and instant updates on the markets, world-wide, a full time investigative time and full time breaking news advance alert.
AND they know the in-out tallies at the end of every day.
You, on the other hand, have one screen, most of the time it's on Twitter, when you do watch 'live' stock reports, they're already well-aged, or keyed to time with breaking news reports delayed until Wall Street can make their instant bets ahead of your ten minutes too late and a dollar short plays.
As if that's not cooked enough, Wall Street is skimming front end and back end fees off your bets, whether you win or lose, and ETFs pay only half the underlying assets rise, but twice the losses, and on top of that scam and skim, Wall Street is betting into vaporland 100x's your 401k deposits, and not only do they NOT have your deposits in your accounts, but you don't have insurance either.
And no audits.
How is this not a casino?! Hey, it's not their money, it's YOURS.
Exactly what and who are the cops in these videos protecting?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/police-experiment-with-ne_b_301169.html
In a normal world, people who run corporations into the ground are fired, not rewarded. But the financial sector seems to have gamed the system so that both excellence and failure are rewarded. It is high time this ended.
1,000% agreement. For them they fail and it's a success.
If any of us fail, it's a kick out the door.
Meanwhile workloads go up, or we're pigeonholed and unable to find opportunities within the companies we're loyal to, stress increases... maybe it is the ultimate ponzi scheme; set up against the worker. (Note to people in other countries: It'll happen to you too.)
Weather forecasters also keep their jobs when they're wrong.
The means of production and the national debt are held by communist China. Free Tibet!
I'm starting to wonder if these Wall Street failures are taking their orders from the Chinese Communist Party. Everything they do puts this country more at China's mercy. Why assume it is necessarily "just a coincidence?" I think it's significantly more rational to consider the possibility that such a real pattern is by design. Yes, I theorize conspiracy. I think it's the only sane hypothesis remaining.
We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- "The Bruce-Partington Plans"
http://www.sherlockian.net/about/faq.html
The bank bailouts will be Obama's downfall. Obama will be a one term president. The Bush administration and the Fed Reserve (Greenspan et al) started this horrific bailout mess, but Obama carried on the policy. Obama now carries the full burden of the worst Bush decision...yes even worse than Iraq. Remember a year ago Paulson said if congress didn't fork over $700 billion to jump start the credit markets the world will end. Well, it's a year later. The banks still aren't lending. Banks took the money and got bigger all the while watching their smaller competitors get shut down by the FDIC.
Worse than Iraq? These are not separate instances, one has very much to do with the other. Bush and the GOP destabilized and de-funded the very institutions that would have prevented and mitigated the meltdown. By putting the Iraq conflict on our trillions of dollars Chinese credit card, the *US most certainly has diminishing options*. Bush's false rational for Iraq was also behind the bubble: The attacks (and Internet's burst bubble) would not be a cause of dissatisfaction that would interfere with Bush's plans. The meltdown was the perfect storm of Bush/GOP policies and the effects of their kleptocracy. Although, I am the first to say Obama and the Dems are failing to implement responsibility, and we are still at risk.
Partial agreement. The economy is back up - now we need to have more opportunities.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/international/g20....
Excerpt:
>>> The United States is proposing a broad new economic framework that it hopes the G-20 will adopt, according to a letter by a top White House adviser.
Obama said the U.S. economy was recovering, even if unemployment remained high, and now was the time to rebalance the global economy after decades of U.S. over-consumption.
"We can't go back to the era where the Chinese or the Germans or other countries just are selling everything to us, we're taking out a bunch of credit card debt or home equity loans, but we're not selling anything to them," Obama said in an interview with CNN.
Partial agreement. The economy is back up - now we need to have more opportunities.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/international/g20....
Excerpt:
*** The United States is proposing a broad new economic framework that it hopes the G-20 will adopt, according to a letter by a top White House adviser.
Obama said the U.S. economy was recovering, even if unemployment remained high, and now was the time to rebalance the global economy after decades of U.S. over-consumption.
"We can't go back to the era where the Chinese or the Germans or other countries just are selling everything to us, we're taking out a bunch of credit card debt or home equity loans, but we're not selling anything to them," Obama said in an interview with CNN. ***
End excerpt.
So, this means no more offshoring? We have to make things that we, along with other countries will want to buy, if our economy is to recover.
And if wages were good enough for proper effort done, people wouldn't need credit cards to begin with - even a case manager laments those things are virtual necessities given the wages people get. ($12/hr)
One more excerpt, taken - amusingly - from the same article:
***With U.S. consumers now holding back on spending after house prices plunged and as unemployment climbs, Washington wants other countries to become engines of growth.***
Well, we can't have it both ways... or can we?
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First Posted: 09-28-09 09:24 AM | Updated: 09-28-09 09:30 AM