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| Black is beautiful! |
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness, is definitely in the highest tier of world class economists. He is not only a distinguished scholar and university professor, but he has also been a highly successful, hands-on capital markets trader and writer of exceptional range and wit.
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"Would you like to make
a deposit?" |
If you don't believe that reading about how our markets and economies really work could be fun (and who in their right mind would!?), you should give The Black Swan a try. How can you miss with chapters entitled: "The Uncertainty of the Nerd", "The Speculator and the Prostitute", "How To Look for Bird Poop", and "How To Be Wrong With Infinite Precision".
Reading Taleb always reminds me of our "robusterian" capital markets "specialists" over at "The Agency". Their latest effort on modeling the credit union world as they know it was captured in the recently released Risk-Based Capital Proposal.
Taleb's glossary in The Black Swan identifies the crux of the problem with the proposed risk-based capital rule…
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| A "ROBUST" SWAN... |
"The Empty Suit Problem (or "Expert Problem") - Some professionals have no differential abilities from the rest of the population, but for some reason, and against their empirical records, are believed to be experts: clinical psychologists, academic economists, risk"experts", statisticians, political analysts, financial "experts", military analysts, CEOs, et cetera. They dress up their expertise in beautiful language, jargon, mathematics, and often wear expensive suits."
NOT QUITE SURE WHY NCUA KEEPS SHOOTING US THE BIRD, ARE YOU?
2 comments:
I think it is actually a picture of a robust peacock!
It's a swan in an "empty suit"...
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