Nassim Taleb Criticizes Obama, Bernanke, and Summers

[rmondave]

The system is fully controlled by the banks, and other large special interests. The Media has brainwashed so many Americans that they are intellectually impotent, even if they did receive a good education. Drink your coke, and your light beer, smoke your ciggies and eat at Micky D's and tell me you are intelligent? Maybe on paper you have a diploma or a government job stating you hold a degree, but the Average American today is pathetic and full of idiotic ideology spoon fed to them ...

[SaveTheWheat]

YES economics is physics first! What goes up must come down. The stock market is the real black market. It is an entire holographic universe that favors the scum of the earth.

[NewbWorksDwarven]

There really is no one who understands the underpinnings, the backdrop and the fundamentals of what is really going on in the world economically and philosophically. More important philosophically or epistemologically.

[SaveTheWheat]

@NewbWorksDwarven

No. There are those who understand.

[php5001]

He's definitely got the fundamentals Right..paraphrase: "..people who did the right thing now have to finance people who did the wrong thing.." He's right that is complete bs & that's what the ppl with their hands out at the governments' door in this country thrive off. Why should ne1 get handouts? Being born in America is like winning the lottery & people take it for granted. Excess is a hugely overlooked culprit here and if we don't fix this culture crisis first how can we fix anything else?

[equsnarnd]

I like Taleb, he's a good guy and intelligent but he hasn't got a clue when it comes to understanding economics. He needs to read a simple text like Economics in One Lesson. He needs to grasp some of the macro economic concepts and not those of the Keynesians.

[chrisjohnsonfl]

@equsnarnd Uh, he's referenced Hazlitt, Hayek and other Austrian economists in interviews and writings. He has a pretty strong idea of understanding economics. He in no way supports Keynesian theories or concepts. He is about keeping things small and lowering the fragility by limiting the amount of government control.

[equsnarnd]

@chrisjohnsonfl I listened to the clip again. Referencing isn't the same as understanding. Why do I think he doesn't understand.

1. Hate mail from banks?

2. Support for Cash for Clunkers

3. Ben Bernake is a great Central Banker

4. Economic establishment failed us.

These are the things he says that makes me think he doesn't understand.

[chrisjohnsonfl]

@equsnarnd Hate mail from banks is his discussing how banks were doing dangerous things with other people's money but sending threatening letters to a single person who owed very little. He doesn't support Cash for Clunkers, I realize he has an accent but listen, he states he discourages such deficit spending because it gave those who bought non-eco-friendly cars a chance to get money back. Unlike him. He never states that Bernanke is a 'great Central Banker'. Read the title 'Taleb criticizes.

[atulbakale01]

@equsnarnd : He is in England, and he meant England's central banker is great and not US..

[pretorious700]

@atulbakale01 Please, he's talking about central banking globally.

[flipdabird02]

You're a fckuing idiot. And also a bigger idiot that's quick to jump the gun on saying that Nassim doesn't understand. For example, #3 - he's actually talking to an audience in England, so he said "You guys (meaning you Brits), have a good Central Banker"...

[equsnarnd]

@flipdabird02 Despite you kindergarten approach, I listened to the clip again and am more inclined to agree with you about him being right. Which would please me as those are my views as well.

[pretorious700]

@equsnarnd Keynesianism IS macro economics. The whole macro economic/huge aggregate models approach is what has failed. Taleb has forgotten more about economics than you'll ever know.

[equsnarnd]

@pretorious700 That opinion and a 2 bucks will get you a cup of coffee. A small cup.

[azotidjr]

@equsnarnd Taleb is as close to an Austrian as it gets with his decentralization and anti-fragility themes. Google "The Black Swan of Cairo".

[pismo10]

Obama could care less long term, he just wants to buy himself the next election and that's is it...

[IMD]

We live in a complex system that delivers extreme deviations. Current risk management and economic analyses methods fail us in such a system because of low predictability. What should we do in such an environment? At the IMD OWP 2010, Nassim Nicholas Taleb will present simple rules (lower leverage, less reliance on deficit spending, less mathematical risk management) for a black swan robust economic system.

[farhadcoyote]

Why didn't Obama go and run for presidency in a socialist country? Why did he decide to run in a capitalist country? He is doing everything 180 degrees off where it should be.

[morrissey8485]

Hey! I believe in Sana damn it! LOL!!!!!

[kraskata2012]

Taleb is one of the few people who make sense. Summers is stupid, ignorant and greedy son of a bitch.

[mprat001]

... and a sexist pig ... and an arrogant jerk ... and a narcoleptic ...

[kraskata2012]

Summers got paid millions for making speeches at corporate events of the very same companies that he proposed to be bailed out. That makes him a hypocrite, too!

[special1740]

"Harvard endowment is down by 1/3, officially...

but if you were to mark-to-market: that would be more interesting... :-)"

Ouch!

LMAO!!!!!!!!!

[special1740]

Taleb is finally talking about the Federal Reserve. He would mumble on the subject before.

Sneaky dude... Very sneaky dude.

He still has not come up with the proposal of how to cover Medicare and Social Security entitlements.

[AFRIKTODAY]

Someone is reading Von Mises!

[beltane3]

I'm a big fan of this gentleman, think he is fantastic. You can apply his logic in a number of ways.

[snakedad]

This douchebag is one of the people who pay the lowest taxes in the industrialized world and he's complaining about high taxes.

[eirefrance]

His complaint isn't really about taxes per se, but rather the effect taxes can have on rewarding failure and punishing success. I agree with his analysis of how the Obama Administration is working with the same finance industry/economist insiders who helped steer us toward this mess.

[marsCubed]

Where this argument fails is in a failure to understand why successful businesses are able to turn a profit,

It is because their markets (such as GM) did not collapse.

the consequence of mass unemployment is more expensive than bailing out a company which might lose money, but still be close to breaking even.

intelligent management is required, this means that ALL these factors have to be taken into account.

'forgetting' such an important factor is really very poor.

saturation caused the crash.

[marsCubed]

As capital investments become higher, blocks need to control more resources and lever into markets.

Problem is competitors do this too. Eventually some will fail.

Recovery is buy-ups and new venture.

It tends towards bigger blocks the failure of which bring down markets.

This brings down the successful too.

The bubble is the error that growth can continue without this consequence.

Either plan ahead and regulate, or manage the downturn and restrain; slow it way down so people can recover.

[marsCubed]

What has President Obama brought us?

International agreements not to pull each other's economies to pieces in laissez fair panic.

Moves to close private banks and worst transfer pricing scams; so we get to use real numbers.

A slow down and management strategy which puts people into economically useful employment (such as public health investment)

Innovative green energy strategies where the USA will excel. It is a lucrative new market strategy.

Expert advice, real data and forecasts, not dogmas.

[Uroshnor]

The use of the words "root of the problem" is highly misleading, since the true root of the problem, which may be addressed elsewhere by Taleb, but was not even mentioned in this video, is fractional reserve lending and the legal counterfeiting that is the inflation of the currency.

[thane17]

This guy's spot on!

[davejoe75]

Economics is not physics. It's a social science that studies human behavior over time and makes predictions about trends.

A person can't control trillions of micro-decisions occurring every day in our economy. It's our rulers' fatal conceit!

[SaveTheWheat]

@davejoe75

It is physics *first*. Absolutely.

[myGOALisLEARNING]

Why is someone in London England, criticizing Obama ?

[adeadlysniper]

Why not?

[jonz23m]

lol i hope u wasnt being serious

[eeedel]

I love that people criticize the president. Whomever it may be and for whatever reason... but what I DON'T like is when people come out of the woodworks who were COMPLETELY SILENT DURING THE LAST 8 YEARS. People like that should kindly shut the hell up.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

I don't think Mr Taleb is like that, I think he is simply a knowledgable economist

[liber8me]

all the supportors of obama are a bunch of hypocrites. when bush was in power they mobilised mass protests against the war, but now that a democrat is in power the organisers cannot get anyone to volenteer to take action against the continuing wars

[eeedel]

I dont know where you live, but there are anti war efforts taking place ALL THE TIME. You're thinking about it during the last 9-10 months... stretch it out over the next 3 years and its about the same rate as the last administration.

[mpedrick07]

@myGOALisLEARNING perhaps because he lives in America as well and worked on Wall Street when the markets crashed...idk, do you believe that I can't have an opinion Sunni and Shiite conflicts or the Socialist Demagogs in Britain, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the Netherlands, Spain because I assure you I do.

[voyeurdug]

This is a silly-minded person. He mixes metaphors AND analogies, then makes an economic model out of that mess.

[thane17]

clearly everything he just said went right over your head!