A historical testimony to the US congress! Or is it?!

Taleb's testimony to the congress

Can you recall a moment when you could honestly say ‘I told you so’, but when no one listens? Well this just might be one of those for me. This Thursday September the 10th marks perhaps a historic development for both Washington and the financial markets. The US Congress’ Committee on Science and Technology held a [...]

Taleb Bets on Hyperinflation, or even Deflation

Universa Investments LP, the hedge-fund advised by “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb,  has a new strategy where they’re betting that the massive stimulus efforts of global governments will lead to hyperinflation. The governments pumping money into the economy cannot prevent hyperinflation, and in the loger run will lead to deflation as well . The strategy has also been reported [...]

Taleb @ Zeitgeist Europe ’09

Staying the Course: Part II – Zeitgeist Europe ’09 The panel explores those improbable events that the marketplace under-assesses but which end having a powerful and unanticipated influence for investors.  Taleb author of brilliant book The Black Swan says “the more you study economics the less competent you’re going to be…. the past is not [...]

Time to Cash Out: Why Paper Money Hurts the Economy

Two years ago, Hasbro came out with an electronic version of Monopoly. Want to buy a house? Just put your debit card into the mag-stripe reader. Bing! No more pastel-colored cash tucked under the board. Turns out it wasn’t Lehman Brothers but Parker Brothers that could smell the future. At least, that’s what participants at [...]

Black Swans, complexity, financial collapse etc.

A very thoughfull guy, John Petersen, looks into the future and explains what our societies are facing with the current transformations onset by the evergrowing complexity in the world. Being a remarkably diverse fellow, Petersen elaborates further on the widely misunderstood impact of what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls ‘The Black Swans’ and gives some other [...]

Let’s face it; Economists are charlatans!

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At the New Yorker summit Robert Shiller and Nassim Taleb discuss what to do in such times when the spirits aren’t brave at all.  Shiller, a Yale economist who famously predicted the last two booms also wrote a book called “Animal Spirits in which he posits that shifts in the economy follow the irrational actions of [...]

Complex systems, the economy and experts…

After all, we are witnessing the Waterloo of Wall Street. So, ironically, it was in the Canadian province of Ontario, in the small town of Waterloo, that a meeting was convened to shed new light on the world’s financial debacle. In a densely packed conference schedule, the general approach was to take measure of the [...]