Why Central Planning Leads To Instability. Bass Reads Taleb
During his recent lengthy discussion on the broad topic of global central bankers, optical backstops, and our coordinated cognitive dissonance, Kyle Bass, of Hayman Advisors, suggested everyone read "The Black Swan Of Cairo" penned by no less a tail-risk philosopher than Nassim Taleb (and Mark Blyth). The Foreign Affairs article from June 2011 brings into clear prose the fascinating dichotomy between the centrally planned smoothing efforts of world bankers and politicians and the inevitable (and much larger) instabilities that spring from this suppression.
It is both misguided and dangerous to push unobserved risks further into the statistical tails of the probability distribution of outcomes and allow these high-impact, low-probability “tail risks” to disappear from policymakers’ fields of observation.
With freedom comes some unpredictable fluctuation. This is one of life's packages: there is no freedom without noise - and no stability without volatility.
Why is surprise the permanent condition of the U.S. political and economic elite? In 2007-8, when the global ?nancial system imploded, the cry that no one could have seen this coming was heard everywhere, despite the existence of numerous analyses showing that a crisis was unavoidable. It is no surprise that one hears precisely the same response today regarding the current turmoil in the Middle East. The critical issue in both cases is the arti?cial suppression of volatility -- the ups and downs of life -- in the name of stability. It is both misguided and dangerous to push unobserved risks further into the statistical tails of the probability distribution of outcomes and allow these high-impact, low-probability "tail risks" to disappear from policymakers' ?elds of observation. What the world is witnessing in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya is simply what happens when highly constrained systems explode.
Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These arti?cially constrained systems become prone to "Black Swans" -- that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers.
Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems.
Seeking to restrict variability seems to be good policy (who does not prefer stability to chaos?), so it is with very good intentions that policymakers unwittingly increase the risk of major blowups. And it is the same misperception of the properties of natural systems that led to both the economic crisis of 2007-8 and the current turmoil in the Arab world. The policy implications are identical: to make systems robust, all risks must be visible and out in the open -- fluctuat nec mergitur (it fluctuates but does not sink) goes the Latin saying.
As Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it, "A little bit of agitation gives motivation to the soul, and what really makes the species prosper is not peace so much as freedom." With freedom comes some unpredictable fluctuation. This is one of life's packages: there is no freedom without noise - and no stability without volatility.
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Noted, but likely missed some other things that Kyle Bass mentions he read/looks at in the video.
Congressional Budget Office
WWW.CBO.GOV
and a book: "All the Devils Are Here"
Hm... will have to go through that video again.
Nassim as always = insightful.
What a load of tripe.
When you put it in it's true perspective of a world being run on the greased skids of a massive religious oppression, drug distribution and energy control system.
Suppress this, acadummys!
ORI
/the-plan/
No network will run these anti Ben/Barry ads on gold:
http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2011/12/fox-rejects-anti-obama-bernanke-ads.html#more
Its no wonder the MSM won't play them- the 2nd spot is basically a red pill for the sheople condensed in 60 animated seconds.
-Doc
They also mentioned the book "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" http://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financial/dp/0691152...
Now if only central bankers, economists and politicans would read and understand this paper ...
These principles of complex systems, both natural and man-made, are well-acknowledged in the pure sciences and non-financial engineering. It is even partly modelled by actuaries of insurance institutions. Why are economists always the last to catch up and yet the world is run by them?
In short, the objective is not to seek to control everything but to protect ourselves to the best of our ability, without interfering with the systems themselves. This "black box cushioned" approach is an honest and humble one to the limits of all our models in the face of real-world complexity and has been used successfully for thousands of years. Unfortunately, given these days we largely live in democracies, it can only be successfully enshrined via institutional and legal rules until it becomes cultural. This requires leadership, which means risk, which means nothing will change now until we undergo serious crises that threaten (or tear) the very fabric of our societies!
Hmm I am a big Taleb fan but I think he's getting a bit lazy here. First off, he's applying his theories to foreign policy, which is an area that he's not an expert in. Secondly, he assuming that the MOTU don't want huge risk. It could be argued that they want fast and radical shifts because that is when they may: seize more power, profit from human misery, and/or effect sweeping cultural shifts
(ie: Senate says US can torture and detain indefinitely without charges)
Hey Doc - hope you and the good folks on here at ZH keep up the good work; it is appreciated. I can't believe how brainwashed I was a couple years back.
FOX wouldn't run this? Really? Fox News won't run an anti money printing, anti Obama commercial? 99% of FNC programing is devoted to just that. It's like the food network not running commercials for food.
Hey Regionalindian,
I wouldn't call this a load of tripe:
"BUT ALONGSIDE THE “CATALYSTS AS CAUSES”
CONFUSION SIT TWO MENTAL BIASES: THE ILLUSION
OF CONTROL AND THE ACTION BIAS (THE ILLUSION
THAT DOING SOMETHING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN
DOING NOTHING)."
It gives us something to consider om
The whole thesis is a load of tripe OM. That is the point I was making. False premise, blatantly so.
Sure they write well and are good philosophers.
ORI
ORI, I think parsing is necessary here: of course Taleb doesn't get to ultimate causes. I doubt he is that insightful and certainly would not have been published if he had tried. Nevertheless, he uses a point (at least loosely) defensible from modern physics/math to attack a fallacy in the edifice of untruths being built by the elites and does it in their own journal. That IMO is a worthwhile step.
Regarding ultimate causes, or even deeper layers of cause, the discussion quickly becomes difficult - Is it a group of bad guys? Do groups of bad guys spontaneously arise given human DNA? Is it a predator-prey type of cycle that occurs almost unavoidably throughout human history? Is it original sin? An astrological cycle?
Go back to your Vedic roots here. The ancients had a much deeper understanding of cause, purpose, and cyclic events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eutiNgwyKtk
+10, Tao,
The only way to 'beat' the system is by using the assets of the system against it. I was pleased that Taleb did exactly this. Unfortunately, most ZHr's will think he is a 'bad guy' and a part of the system. It seems to this oldman that he is a master of irony.
As to the following paragraph of yours, the predator-prey thing is most interesting. Imagine putting the carnivores on one side and the rest of us on the other----on which side will be found the police, military, pols, press, bankers, and other carnivores? This is a question that has occupied an oldman for several years.
Sorry, but I only remember a few stories of the Rig Veda----pretty good tales and still true. Isn't it time for a new line of human thought?
Thanks for your comment---thought provoking om
doop
I think you're missing the point. This article underlines the whole concept of this site. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else and you are subject to the same laws that govern this universe. Know that all the preventive measures in the world wont save you. Stop trying to control everything and JUST LET GO! You are not your khakis, you are not your grande late, you are not your fiat money.
Nassim Taleb obviously hasn't read any work by Dr Paul Krugman, or he would realise that the world is not black and white. Taleb is a PURIST who believes that we can't have ANY central planning or intervention in the economy. That is just patently ridiculous. If we have a ‘free-market’ then who is going to protect us from DERIVATIVES like options, futures, swaps, swaptions and credit default swaps? We need to be protected from Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein who are out to get us with their derivatives!
#OccupyWallStreet
'swaptions'
How long did it take to come up with that one? Be honest...
Great stuff as always MDB.
A swaption is an option to inter into an interest rate swap.
Swap your worthless paper money for junk silver coins. :)
-John
http://johnu78.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-get-started-in-amateur-radio.html
By all means get a HAM radio license. It is not that hard anymore. They have done away with the requirement to memorize MORSE CODE. The Manual shown in the article has all the answers to the test questions. The basic Technician's license is just basic electronics. Read the book, remember the highlighted material, review the questions in the back, memorize a few frequencies, go online and take the practice exams here: http://www.eham.net/ till you consisitently make above a 90 and then go pay your $15.00 and take the test. You'll pass. There is a ton of cheap used radio gear out there. Look at Ebay.
THIS IS NOT CB RADIO !! The transmitter power limit for CB is 5 measly Watts. The limit for a HAM radio operator is 2000 watts on certain freqs. There is a serious crowd envolved here. The FCC penalizes anyone who acts like brainless CB radio types. This is where all community service people are located. Top notch good people who watch out for one another. If the world comes apart you will need this. There are, right now, only 700,000 HAM radio operators in the US, but there are others located all over the world.
Check. Complete. Great advice.
The Internet is precisely that - a complex system that after a thunderstorm even can be garbage, let alone a currency collapse with fascist kicker.
73's to you and yours.
http://www.signalharbor.com/73.html
Thnaks for that.
My neighbor up the hill was a big ham radio operator. His name was Barry Goldwater. He's gone now, and so is his radio tower.
++AuH2O
Is that MDB or MDB_?
Does the mock troll have a stalking troll. How droll.
Don't stop TJ you're on a roll!
And I fell for it like an a$$ hole.
I'm not gonna touch this with a 10ft...
The single -1...case closed Perry Mason.
LOL. Bit of a pretzel on that one, no? I don't think you quite pulled it off.
Doh. didn't notice the _
+1 to keep this satire from falling below the threshold.
A totally unregulated market simply results in the same problem humans have always had, people vie for power and eventually too few win. Soon after everything crashes. Same basic problem for every form of govt humans have ever participated in as far as I can tell. Humans are not suited to running things smoothly. Govt regulation won't solve the problem and creates many more besides but since when the markets are free they don't fail OFTEN ENOUGH they make for some catastrophic outcomes as well. People that vie for and win power are pretty good at holding things together and focusing all resources on broken systems distending and exagerating the crashes, regulation or not. Interestingly from my view regulation or not is a moot issue, we'll break anything we set our minds to controlling, and I have a difficult time telling weather the regulated or unregulated markets are better or worse at the end of the day. Additionally the catastrophic outcome route has this new fangled problem due to the ability to nuke ourselves into oblivion.
I give your post an AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! No, seriously, well said.
After examining the people who grab power, you should look at the throngs who obey them.
With no willing serfs, there is no emperor.
Free Markets and Unregulated Markets are not the same.
Especially in the example of an unregulated market where the big players can change the rules at anytime, any amount of leverage can be used, no reserve ratios are required, etc.
The question of how to prevent regulators from becoming corrupt, complacent or incompetant is one that can be extended to people in any position of power. I unfortunately don't have an answer for this one.
I was just thinking that you actually can have Free Markets, if the only regulations are to prevent fraud and doing harm to others.
But that must be too simple, like I can be.
Proposed Amendment to the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of Production and Trade.
In a free market, there is no power to be sought - the government has nothing to redistribute and no monopolies to distribute in exchange for votes (either outright monopolies, or indirect ones through regulation). The purpose of the government in a free market is to act as an objective 3rd party to resolve conflicts and enforce property rights. That means stopping fraud.
What we have now is the framework of a market economy littered with redistributory taxation, tax-influenced actions (to avoid them), regulations that prohibit market entry, labour monopolies, government backstopped banks, money that can be created at will and no cost, inter-state tarrifs and monopolies, etc...
The Trotskysts used to call the USSR under Stalinism a "degenerate" worker's state. This is the way we can think of market economies like the US today... degenerate market economies. We go through the motions of market economics, but really everything of importance is centrally planned.
Fonz all you've said is just one word....greed. It wins every time no matter what. Also don't mean to be the spelling Cheney but weather has clouds whether is what you meant. Like your post.
Can't tell whether this is serious or joke. Either way it's hilarious
+1
-1
How can you speak good and evil at the same time?
Have more than one listener.
The levered derivatives market is a result of gaming the complexity of the system. The author realizes the system has become super complex, and thus ripe for sudden failures. You misconstrue his beliefs regarding being a "purist". Taleb is not an economist like Krugman; however, unlike Krugman, he doesn't regard economy as a science.
MDB- I totally get you now. Finally you connect with exactly what I was trying to connect.
Just kidding but actually your question of who is going to protect us from "DERIVATIVES" is people smarter than you. That is the free market.
The smartest people will be sought to direct capital. You have no idea how powerful the free market is. Just get out of its way and we can be back on track in 5 years.
Or behind door B- 24 years of depression!!!!!!!
The free market is not 'free' at all since it offers no free benefits such as education, welfare, housing and retirement plans. To say this is 'freedom' is simply fallacious. Millions of people in China and India have been lifted out of poverty by increased regulations and welfare spending, and libertarians are doing everything they can to end this process. Simply sickening.
Despite of your clown hat you hit the target. And you don't even know that!
MDB II also uses spell check another dead give away to imposter
Is your use of the word fallacious supposed to be ironic?
One of your best lines ever, I think. LOL.
Your jive is getting goofy. In the past these have been great and you have stayed in character. OWS, is that like supposed to be "growth" for your character or something? Come on!
Tell us MillionDollarBoneUs, how would central planning or intervention help protect us from DERIVATIVES, hmmm? What level of it would keep up safe from Jamie and Lloyd?
You gotta stay around and argue this shit to attain the level of performance you seek here at ZH.
MDB, The important point that Nassim makes is to highlight the broad misunderstanding of the characteristics of risk; and how risk evolves in different systems. A free market should be sustainable if it is allowed to grow AND fail, in effect instability can create longer term stability as Nassim seems to argue. A regulated system in fact seems to create inequalities rather than eliminate them, particularly as they don't seem to apply to everyone. I would argue that Jamie and Lloyd wouldn't survive in a free market system. I write this partially for my own clarification as I was momentarily in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with you.
The attempt to maintain stability currently is by the protection of the status quo, or vested interests, or the 0.01%....thereby preventing creative destruction...which is the core of (the success of) capitalism.
The sooner a bad idea/investment/system/ is tested and fails the better for everyone.
We have unlearnt a lot...time to re-read Joseph Schumpeter from 1943.
Commodity-backed, non-fiat money with an end to fractional reserve banking takes care of all that, genius. "Derivatives" cannot exist in a concrete world. Why its simplicity escapes even imbeciles like you is beyond me. And if you are in fact only feigning your bombasticity, then shame on you nonetheless.
The bombastard is just trolling. Even a gibbering Barney Frankster knows that the "free" in "free markets" means unhampered, not free of charge.
If we had free markets, the derivative problem would have cured itself. The big Wall Street banks failed because of their reckless leveraged derivative bets, and in a free market they would have been allowed to go under, destroying their debts as they self-immolated. But the Fed bailed them out with $17 trillion in gifts, loans and guarantees, thus the debt remains.
As Kyle Bass put it, "Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell."
Or like those Pemex bathrooms in Mexico--toilets without toilet paper.
Yeah, I doubt someone as insightful as Mr. Taleb reads science fiction so I gotta agree with you about the Krug.
And, um, your Mommy can "protect you" from swaptions and all manner of fancy financial derivatives. I sure as hell don't want the federal gov't to attempt it.
I've always found caviat emptor works for my protection. If I don't understand it, I don't put my money near it.
whats' so sad at this point is that you don't even realize that besides the fact that most people DO NOT HAVE THE BASIC UNDERSTANDING TO EVEN GET YOUR SATIRE, is that, while it's funny it's really just tragic that we have accepted making fun of mass ignorance is an acceptable manner of entertaining ourselves. its not really. it will not get ANYTHING done besides promote snickering by those 'in the know' .
ive always loved your posts, but i'm starting to think otherwise. it's not funny anymore. it's sad. america is going down the shithole and if there isn't anything a person can do about it besides accept that mass delusion , ignorance, and deliberate self distraction will prevent people from 'waking up' , then you can laugh all you want. i'd rather be a bit more stoic about some sort of collapse.
what are you going to do after it happens? laugh sarcastically all the way to the movie theatre while you step over homeless people and see punks and police fighting one another while society becomes defined by social victimisation.
this isn't the solution. and it's sad way to enjoy the predicament if there is not solution in sight.
i've been reading your posts for years now i think and youre not enlightening anyone anymore mdb. sorry. just saying---
much love though. thanks for the laughs. but this is no longer a laughing matter.
or the fact that you're responding to an impostor
blawyer, a sense of humour is more important now than ever and satire has always been an effective tool of the critic (the old victorian cartoons are a great example); if i was on the titanic i'd rather be beside a fellow cracking jokes than one wailing away in despair
MDB, Pretty obvious that either you have never read his work or you did not understand what you read.
Banks in a free market would operate like a Rothbardian bank or as complex as the first banks during the renaissance. It's like a storage facility that specializes in keeping your money safe and if you'd like, will lend it out for you so you can make a few bucks on it while you save for a rainy day.
With twice as many thumbs down as you have thumbs up on your posts, do you honestly think you have any business flying the 99% flag?
Thanks for posting this CBO link and Tyler(s) for posting the article. Yes central planning and theft by our dear Muslim. I better not rile up the Dems and tards who post here who love the muslim.
"Thanks for posting this CBO link and Tyler(s) for posting the article. Yes central planning and theft by our dear Muslim. I better not rile up the Dems and tards who post here who love the muslim."
dude, you gotta dump the mullet comb-over and one trick pony schtick. yomama is incompetent and corrupt to the core but he is in fact the symptom of a a complex systemic failure rather than the cause itself.
When Obama was elected, if asked for an opinion, I replied he would disappoint.
Freddie, however, gives credence to the concept that humanity is doomed, and in his case deservedly so.
He's right for the wrong reasons, but that's okay.
I find the whole "Kenyan/Muslim" thing to be a reliable dipshit indicator, handy for avoiding idjits like Freddy.
sure, but, platinum is a better standard than gold.
http://expose2.wordpress.com
Interesting. I think we're seeing Liberalism rise from the ashes.
A Phoenix Kung Phao Chicken so to speak
Liberalism or Liberace, one or the other.
And you thought the red chairs in the POTUS speeches were audacious. Good lord the oval office has been bedazzled.
Thank you ZH! After seeing Bass yesterday I wanted to hunt this down. You make my education easier. Hvala!
'Hvala!'
Must be some sort of Balkan creature...
I'm really going to change your life: www.google.com
Hold on to your socks!
there is no freedom without failure....blow the fucking squid up already
the totus needs to declare banksters enemies of the state so that his assassination squads can go murder them
BINGO! I love the economy of those words.
the control strings do not originate with the totus and terminate with the squid.
the control strings originate with the squid and terminate in the totus.
squid pulls the shit string, totus fills pants.
not sure how you formed your concept of the organization chart, but totus is an actor way down the chart under "dime a dozen."
think the same dude did a cameo as osama. but that role is over.
...Which makes this organizational chart particularly dangerous: wealth manipulating the strings of power.
Precisely..And well entrenched, over a looonng time..!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eric_tank/2678855518/
Tycoon Socialism — Time to Bring it to an End
Taleb, repackaging the same wisdom here in effort/hope that it gains a bit more traction and wider acceptance before TS really HTF.
In one of his books he gives a synopsis of an old (Russian?) novel wherein a military official in some remote outpost town makes it his life's work to prepare for and/or prevent an attack by hostile forces that would exploit some key vulnerability that he alone apparently is fully aware of. His efforts are repeatedly resisted by the townsfolk and other officials who essentially don't want to commit resources to any such outlier, inprobable threats.
In the final chapter the protagonist is much older and on his deathbed...when every bell in the town starts ringing in alarm. The enemy has finally recognized that one particular vulnerability and the attack is on. The town is doomed and the old man's thesis has finally been validated but it is too late.
Hope that things don't play out similarly for Taleb and us all.
Seems like the train left the tracks in 2008 and we are all just witnessing a slow motion train wreck. But it is happening soooo slow that people don't preceive it as a grave situation. They think the danger has passed.
BTW, that story was in the Black Swan book.
Harry Browne was trying to warn folks (thru several books) in the early 70s..!!
+1747 for your HB reference. Just finished How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation (1970). He nails it. Bill Buckler lists his description of the debasement of currency in that book the best he has ever seen.
Hmm, reminds me of "An Enemy of the People." -- Henrik Ibsen
Middle Eastern conflicts were not that hard to predict: http://www.cfr.org/society-and-culture/effects-youth-bulge-civil-conflic... (2007)
Middle Eastern populations are very young, on average 50% or more are younger than 25, which make them prone to conflicts:
Societal denial is the primary cause for 'black swan' events, not the unpredictability of events per se. When you see the denial and tolerance (or worse reward) to failure, then the eventual blow up is inevitable. The problem is not that people at large cannot spot the trends and look at fat tails, the problem is that they are penalized for doing so and rewarded -- for not. Taleb is largely only describing a symptom, not the core of the problem, the core of it being: the system is corrupt and oppressive and it plants the seeds of its own failure along the way by denying any (including intellectual) opposition and accumulating mistakes. Calling eventual failure a 'black swan' is fancy rationalization, but it adds little to how anything (if at all) can be fixed. The way things are: the system in general has so many vulnerabilities that are ignored on a systematic basis that every fault line represents a black swan - if so, then it is very far from initial analogy that Taleb used come up with the term initially.
Seem like obvious observations: don't prop up despots and don't provide banks with a taxpayer put. They sure learn 'em at Brown! But I guess ZH is about pounding home the message over and over again in the hope more people listen over time.
My favorite part of the Bass interview was when he smiled and admitted, "...they are going to print more money." That's for sure!
"...they are going to print more money." That's for sure!
Fucking Robotrader wins again!
Like Charlie fucking Sheen!