To user "Greg Richards": Janet Tavakoli smear campaign against Nassim does not seem to be working at all. Please, try something new.
taleb is one of the best jokes around. well, maybe that "i-know-it-all" guy from CNBC europe is ahead of him...
Hey, hey! Let's lay off NNT. We all know he's an expert. I actually have one of his business cards: PS: I own/like 3 of his books.
Though he is totally obnoxious, surely this card is a joke. Please tell me it's not his real business card.
I don't know why people make such a huge deal over what is essentially a simple statement that Taleb makes: Educators posit that linear and other models of statistics are capable of dealing with highly non-linear systems, and then use the same tools to manage risk. He claims this is wrong and worse, is being taught to naive students at major universities, who then go and run corporations and are regulators, run hedge funds, etc. I agree. Where I disagree with Taleb is that he doesn't propose a solution, only a criticism. He simply cites Mandelbrot and leaves it at that. Further, for years he took the other side of trades that were put on by the same people that derive value and manage risk by models like CAPM. He put on these trades not because the opposing trades were ill framed, but because he simply applied the negation operator to their philosophy and therefore he must be trading truth. So, if Neiderhoffer is putting on this trade, Taleb should be on the other side of it for no reason other than Neiderhoffer uses linear statistics. That is as naive as the people/methods he criticizes.
academic jealousy is the worst kind. someone gets a bit of PR and the rest gang up to knock he/she down. when i was into the underground music scene, a band would get a contract and all the others would yell " sell out " or " rock star" derogatorially. it's the same kind of jealousy, just the participants are older, more complex, and wiser--- most of the time. although envy/jealousy is a prime driver: http://www.amazon.com/ENVY-Theory-B...=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244823223&sr=1-5 enjoy! surf
Here is a very readable version of what Taleb believes. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/complexityAugust-06.pdf
given equal access to capital who is expected to generate higher risk adjusted return: a Niederhoffer or a Taleb?