I can only speak for myself. I follow Tavakoli's work and comments pretty closely and I am a fan, but I am also a fan and follow Faber, Rogers, Grant, Grantham, Ritholtz, Mauldin and others pretty closely. Still learning. For example, on another forum I didn't know that Buffett sells puts on stocks he likes. I looked it up in Tavakoli's work, and it is true, so I guess I don't follow her work that closely. Ditto with Rogers and Faber. I follow the work very closely, and I use the stuff I like. I don't agree on all counts with any of them, but I use what I find useful. Also a huge Dawkins fan.
Dear "Mr" Richards, I am "relieved" to see you "are not" Ms. Tavakoli (but I let you know upfront that I represent the interests of Dr. Taleb). This is just to let you know what happens when an author tries a smear campaign against another author, particularly anonymously. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/05/26/uk.oxford.poet.padel/
I guess you anonymously represent the interests of others. But no one should back down from being skeptical and asking due diligence questions in the face of hype. The title and the beginning post of this thread were pure hype. So, if I, say "prove it," regarding these and previous representations, you should not be surprised. For example, the first post said: "taleb makes billions for 'black swan' fund during meltdown." Statements like that have the effect of hyping the "black swan" fund in my opinion. Skepticism is warranted. If as you say you are representing Taleb's interests, then it seems to me you shouldn't be trying to bully those who are skeptical and who vigorously question representations. Rather, you should supply facts and correct the record.
It is easy to figure out why "Mr" Richards has close to 100 posts promoting Ms. Tavakoli and smearing others.
He who represents himself has a fool for a client. You claim to represent Taleb. Instead, you put forth distractions and nonsense to avoid the original issue or any of the issues raised by others who posted in this thread. I believe the title of this thread and the first article are inflated B.S. It is unlikely that Taleb's (or his partnerâs) strategy made $20 billion even on an advisory basis, if the advice was simply buying out of the money put options on the stock market. I do not believe there is enough volume available in the traded markets to come remotely close (one could look at open interest records I guess to see what percentage the aggregate would have had to own to make $20 billion). It would be hard for Taleb or the people he advised to justify buying OTC given that a Black Swan event would likely wipe out his foolish counterparties. Lots of credit risk there, and he doesn't say how he protects himself from his counterparty credit risk.
This is about the ethics of using sockpuppets to promote the book of Ms Tavakoli and smearing people who warned about the crisis.
You obviously don't want to respond to the substance of this thread, so you are trying to create a distraction from the real topic.
You are flailing, and this is a waste of time, since you don't seem to want to address the issues of this thread.