Nassim Taleb (author of the "The Black Swan") suggests Roubini is an optimist

[RedEarth]

Great Moment in Journalism: "Thud"
by CalculatedRisk on 12/07/2008 01:28:00 PM
Charlie Rose interviews Nassim Taleb (author of the "The Black Swan"). This short clip (1 min 14 secs) features Taleb suggesting Roubini is an optimist!

video here......


http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/12/great-moment-in-journalism-thud.html

bio from wiki.......

Taleb holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in management science from the University of Paris (Dauphine) <8> under the direction of Hélyette Geman <9>. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University's Polytechnic Institute<10> and Visiting Professor of Marketing (Cognitive Science) at London Business School. He was the Dean’s Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of New York University, and affiliated faculty member at the Wharton Business School Financial Institutions Center.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) (Arabic: نسيم نيقولا نجيب طالب‎) (alternative spellings of first name: Nessim or Nissim) is a literary essayist, epistemologist, polymath, scholar of randomness and knowledge, researcher, and former practitioner of mathematical finance<2><3><4><5>. As a pioneer of complex financial derivatives<6>, he held a "day job" in a lengthy senior trading and financial mathematics career in a number of New York City's Wall Street firms, before starting a second career as a scholar in the epistemology of chance events to focus on his project of mapping how to live and act in a world we do not understand, and how to come to grips with randomness and the unknown —which includes his black swan theory of unexpected rare events<7>.

Taleb's extremely idiosyncratic literary approach consists of providing a modern-day brand of philosophical tale by mixing narrative fiction, often semi-autobiographical, with erudition and scientific commentary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Taleb

[Speck Tater]

1. The whole interview is also well worth watching.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9713

[RainDog]

2. also on this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x49593#49787

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Next to Taleb, Cassandra would have seemed an unusually frivolous airhead!

Must read the article. What a character!

Just read this on his Wikipdia site!

"The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deem these events "unlikely".

Also, I think it worth mentioning that Ralesa Vassiliava has had her hair cut. Usual short style I think. She'd look a millon dollars bald, wouldn't she?

[sendero]

4. I find Taleb's theory...

... i.e. "black swan" and particularly "fooled by randomness" to be a fascinating description of my own view of how things work.

I encourage anyone to seek out any of the several video clips of him being interviewed, amazing stuff.

As for this particular prediction, or any of his predictions, I'm neutral - but his observations on how humans interpret their experiences is spot on.

[RainDog]

6. the book is a very good read

it's not simply about this current financial crisis - he goes into a lot of different issues.

[snot]

5. did i hear that right --

at the end of the full-length interview at http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9713 , he predicts massive DE-flation?