Tag: Nassim Taleb

No Real Chance of Another Financial Crisis – ‘Silly’

Guest Post by Jesse

I like Dean Baker quite well, and often link to his columns. On most things we are pretty much on the same page.

And to his credit he was one of the few ‘mainstream’ economists to actually see the housing bubble developing, and call it out. Some may claim to have done so, and can even cite a sentence or two where they may have mentioned it, like Paul Krugman for example. But very few spoke about doing something about it while it was in progress.  The Fed was aware according to their own minutes, and ignored it.

The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it.

Am I such a person? Do I actually see a fragile financial system that is still corrupt and highly levered, grossly mispricing risks? Or am I just seeing things the way in which I wish to see them?

That difficulty arises because economics is no science. It involves judgement and principles, and weighs the facts far too heavily based upon ‘reputation’ and ‘status.’ And of course I have none of those and wish none.

Continue reading “No Real Chance of Another Financial Crisis – ‘Silly’”

Forget Banks – GMOs Are The New “Too Big To Fail’ System

Authored by Mark Spitznagel and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, originally posted at The NY Times,

Before the crisis that started in 2007, both of us believed that the financial system was fragile and unsustainable, contrary to the near ubiquitous analyses at the time.

Now, there is something vastly riskier facing us, with risks that entail the survival of the global ecosystem — not the financial system. This time, the fight is against the current promotion of genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s.

Our critics held that the financial system was improved thanks to the unwavering progress of science and technology, which had blessed finance with more sophisticated economic insight. But the “tail risks,” or the effect from rare but monstrously consequential events, we held, had been increasing, owing to increasing complexity and globalization. Given that almost nobody was paying attention to the risks, we set ourselves and our clients to be protected from an eventual collapse of the banking system, which subsequently happened to the benefit of those who were prepared.

The fallacies used in the arguments against us at the time were as follows:

Continue reading “Forget Banks – GMOs Are The New “Too Big To Fail’ System”

WHY STOCKS WILL CRASH IN TWO CHARTS

“Things always become obvious after the fact” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”  – Aldous Huxley

The S&P 500 currently stands at 2,126, fractionally below its all-time high. It is now 300% above the 2009 low and 34% above the 2008 and 2001 previous highs. Most people believe this is the new normal. They are comfortably numb in their ignorance of facts, reality, the truth, and the inevitability of a bleak future. When the herd is convinced progress and never ending gains are the norm, the apparent stability and normality always degenerates into instability and extreme anxiety. As many honest analysts have proven, with unequivocal facts and proven valuation measurements, the stock market is as overvalued as it was in 1929, 2000, and 2007.

Facts haven’t mattered, as belief in the infallibility and omniscience of Federal Reserve bankers, has convinced “professionals” to program their high frequency trading supercomputers to buy the all-time high. If central bankers were really omniscient and low interest rates guaranteed endless stock market gains, then why did the stock market crash in 2000 and 2008? The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies created the bubbles in 2000, 2007 and today. There was no particular event which caused the crashes in 2000 and 2008. Extreme overvaluation, created by warped Federal Reserve monetary policies and corrupt Washington D.C. fiscal policies, is what made the previous bubbles burst and will lead the current bubble to rupture.

Benjamin Graham and John Maynard Keynes understood how irrational markets could be over the short term, but eventually they would reach fair value:

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” – Graham

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” – Keynes

Graham’s quote reflects the difference between hope and reality. This explains the ridiculous overvaluation of Amazon, Shake Shack, Twitter, Linkedin, Tesla, Google, and the other high flying new paradigm stocks. Story stocks soar because the herd believes the stories peddled by Wall Street and company executives. Five of these six stocks don’t have a PE ratio because you need earnings to calculate a PE ratio. In the long run the market will weigh the value these companies based upon profits and cashflow. It is the same story for the market as a whole. There is no question who is to blame for what now amounts to a three headed hydra of bubbles poised to burst.

Continue reading “WHY STOCKS WILL CRASH IN TWO CHARTS”

What’s America’s Fragility Score?

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

By this measure, the U.S. scores very poorly: 4 out of a possible 5 on the Fragility Index.

There is a certain logic to the idea that stability is a good predictor for future stability: if a nation’s economy and governance are stable and devoid of disorder, this trajectory of stability will be durable, right?
Well, actually, no. Nassim Nicholas Taleb and co-author Gregory F. Treverton argue in their essay The Calm Before the Storm: Why Volatility Signals Stability and Vice Versathat “the best indicator of a country’s future stability is not past stability but moderate volatility in the relatively recent past.”
Taleb and Treverton list five sources of systemic fragility:

“For countries, fragility has five principal sources: a centralized governing system, an undiversified economy, excessive debt and leverage, a lack of political variability, and no history of surviving past shocks. Applying these criteria, the world map looks a lot different. Disorderly regimes come out as safer bets than commonly thought, and seemingly placid states turn out to be ticking time bombs.”

These principles are drawn from Taleb’s work on fragility and anti-fragility as described in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.
These five factors function as a rough rating system to measure a nation’s fragility.Nations with near-zero scores in all five factors are anti-fragile (i.e. durable and able to weather crises) and nations with high scores in all five are fragile, i.e. prone to instability and failure when faced with crisis.
Let’s list all five sources of fragility:
1. centralized governing system
2. undiversified economy
3. excessive debt and leverage
4. lack of political variability
5. no history of surviving recent systemic shocks
How does the U.S. stack up? Let’s go through the list.

Continue reading “What’s America’s Fragility Score?”

WORK

“By setting oneself totally free of constraints, free of thoughts, free of this debilitating activity called work, free of efforts, elements hidden in the texture of reality start staring at you; then mysteries that you never thought existed emerge in front of your eyes.” ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Free Shit Army in West Philly are free of all constraints.

From Nassim Taleb’s book Procrustes:

Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions.

The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.

If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead—the more precision, the more dead you are.

Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.

You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.