We doubt that it has gotten by any of our readers that the two big media winners arising from the current economic debacle are Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The first we can understand (although he has done a little too well for himself from all this to still be considered a disinterested party).But Taleb?
Who charmingly seduced book buyers into believing that every criticism he levelled at others didn't apply to himself?
Who ran a sub-performing investment strategy on the basis of a faulty calculation of the probabilities that it would work?
Whose, possibly correct, claim that 'he saw it coming' is based on having studied a different data set (that revealing what is nothing more mysterious than an overcrowded trade), not on any particular insight into improbable events that the 'imbeciles' didn't have?
Whose erroneous position that banks assessed risk improperly because they were stupid reveals a serious ignorance or denial of where the rewards in the system lay?
Seeing images of him basking at Davos in the sweet light of universal adulation, it couldn't help but occur to us that he is to the credit crisis what an equally trivial front man for a mediocre Irish rock band was to the era of cheap liquidity. Can they please get Van Morrison next year, instead?
As an aside, among the sociological marvels of the present - second only to the successful election of Obama - would be America seeking economic succour from two natives of the eastern Mediterranean.
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