In November of 2012, immediately after U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, Ben Bernanke announced the implementation of Quantitative Easing II, Nassim Taleb contacted Bloomberg News interviewer, Erik Schatzker to say “Something has to be done about Ben Bernanke”.
Category: General
Nassim Taleb on ForeignPolicy.com
Foreign Policy has an article on their website with reflections from Nassim touching on Fragility/Antifragility, the stability of countries, city-states and decentralizing government, Lebanon, the European Union, and US deficits, titled Epiphanies from Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Excerpt:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has made a career of going against the grain, and he has been successful enough that the title of his book The Black Swan is a catchphrase for global unpredictability far beyond its Wall Street origins. Born in Lebanon, he weathered the first few years of the civil war in the late 1970s reading philosophy and mathematics — from Plato to Poincaré — in his family’s basement. War taught him how quickly fortunes can change, an insight he soon applied to derivatives markets. For Taleb, investing is about “hyper conservatism,” which includes making lots of tiny bets on wildly unlikely events — like a currency crisis or the banking collapse, on which he made tens of millions of dollars. His newest project is helping governments get smarter about risks, and his fervent anti-euro message has helped win him the ear of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Link: http: // www. foreign policy. com/ articles/ 2012/ 10/ 08/ epiphanies_ from_ nassim_ nicholas_ taleb
Taleb vs Davies
Just posted on Nassim’s Facebook Wall:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Looks like a preview of what to expect from the economics and econophaster establishment. Davies is the gentleman there; others have not even given a simple thougth to model error and which domains are affected by it. But asking people to explain insults can lead to pleasant surprises.http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/10/19/when-taleb-met-davies/
When Taleb met Davies:
This morning, Nassim Taleb returned to Twitter, posting one of the technical appendices to his new book. And immediately he got into a wonderfully wonky twitterfight/conversation with Daniel Davies.
I don’t pretend to understand all the subtleties of the conversation between the two, but, for Tom Foster, here’s an attempt. Davies has promised a Crooked Timber post on other parts of the appendix; I’m really looking forward to that.
Read the rest here…
Nassim Taleb on The Stickiness of Languages
On his Facebook Page Nassim Taleb has linked to a new note on his Philosophical Notebook page on his website.
Link (note 150): http: // www. fooled by randomness. com/ notebook. htm
Technical Notes for Antifragile: Medicine and Convexity (Antifragility)
Nassim has released the “Medicine and Convexity (Antifragility), a summary (technical) sheet” on his Facebook Page.
Additional Notes For Antifragile. Note 1- Medicine and Convexity (Antifragility):
A brief explanation of nonlinearities as detection of risk in medicine (from antifragile), directly from mathematical necessities, or the ideas behind Antifragile.
Link (PDF): http: // www. fooled by randomness. com/ medconvex
Nassim N. Taleb: How We Tend To Overestimate Powerlaw Tail Exponents
Nassim Taleb has linked to a new paper on his Facebook Page: How We Tend To Overestimate Powerlaw Tail Exponents
October 2012
In the presence of a layer of metaprobabilities (from metadistribution of the parameters), the asymptotic tail exponent corresponds to the lowest possible tail exponent regardless of its probability. The problem explains “Black Swan” effects, i.e., why measurements tend to chronically underestimate tail contributions, rather than merely deliver imprecise but unbiased estimates.
Link: http :// www. fooled by randomness. com/ minexponents. pdf
How We Tend To Overestimate Powerlaw Tail Exponents
Nassim Taleb has shared a new paper in PDF form on his Facebook Page titled: How We Tend To Overestimate Powerlaw Tail Exponents
In the presence of a layer of metaprobabilities (from metadistribution of the parameters), the asymptotic tail exponent corresponds to the lowest possible tail exponent regardless of its probability. The problem explains “Black Swan” problems, i.e., why measurements tend to chronically underestimate tail effects, rather than merely deliver imprecise but unbiased estimates.
Link: http: // www. fooled by randomness. com/ minexponents. pdf
Nassim Taleb Lecture at the London School Of Economics
Lecture – Antifragile: How To Live In A World We Don’t Understand
Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about how systems, including evolution, can withstand shocks to them and are able to improve because of it and those systems that reject it, such as modern politics and banking.
Details:
Date: Wednesday 5th December 2012 at 6:30pm–8pm
Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building at London School Of Economics, London WC2A
London School Of Economics
Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
Phone: 020 7405 7686
Website: www.lse.ac.uk
Tickets: 020 7405 7686 (Free, ticketed)
Website Link: http://www.list.co.uk/event/20354307-antifragile-how-to-live-in-a-world-we-dont-understand-lecture/
Nassim Taleb speaking on Antifragile at the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA)
From the website: Mr. Taleb will speak on current market trends and concerns, as well as geopolitical issues that might manifest themselves as critical shifts in market sentiment and direction.
Details:
October 25, 2012 (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM)
Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, 900 Canada Place Way
Vancouver, British Columbia
Link: Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder – Event Summary
Nassim Taleb on Bob Rubin (Bloomberg)
The Bloomberg Businessweek website has a feature piece on Robert Rubin, in the article Nassim is interviewed and shares his view on President Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary and former Citigroup executive.
“Nobody on this planet represents more vividly the scam of the banking industry,” says Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan. “He made $120 million from Citibank, which was technically insolvent. And now we, the taxpayers, are paying for it.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb doesn’t know Rubin personally. He admits that his antipathy, like that of so many Rubin critics, is fueled by symbolism. “He represents everything that’s bad in America,” he says. “The evil in one person represented. When we write the history, he will be seen as the John Gotti of our era. He’s the Teflon Don of Wall Street.” Taleb wants systemic change to prevent what he terms the “Bob Rubin Problem”—the commingling of Wall Street interests and the public trust—“so people like him don’t exist.”