What do you guys think about Nassim Taleb's Black Swan? Kinda difficult to convince himself that the world is full of unpredictable events and knowledge is fragile, while being a derivative trader, running a fund and vehemently claiming that country A has better sound economy than country B, without realizing that he can be wrong, which was a core essential philosophy of Taleb. Insights? inputs?
I first heard this guy on Charlie Rose a few days ago. I was rather impressed. His criticism of Bernanke is probably why I liked him. His arguments against the debt are compelling and worth listening to. Anyway you can check out the interview here. He's kind of hard to follow but worth it, imo. http://www.hulu.com/watch/221164/charlie-rose-nassim-taleb
Ask him what kind of positions he puts on. Is he short premium a la Vic Niederhoffer ? If that's the case, then he's saying one thing and doing another. If he was so confident about his theory, he'd constantly be buying out-of-the-money puts. I'll bet he doesn't do this. Why ? It's a losing strategy. Vic had a winning strategy, but he got greedy and complacent and didn't offset his short positions to cap his max loss.