

Black Swans - unexpected movements in financial markets. - mdemare
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm

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1gor
What 'unexpected' everyone is talking about? Everyone has been pointing at US
imbalances like low saving rate leading to dangerous dependence on consumption
for growth (and consumers in turn depending on low rates to borrow) for 5
years at least.

What's unexpected is that it took so long to unravel.

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kul
<3 Taleb. What's surprising is that people are surprised by this latest crash.
Banks, throughout history, have never made money.

I worked in credit structuring for Deutsche Bank and saw first hand the
manipulation of credit ratings to engineer 'profit'.

<http://www.kulveer.co.uk/2007/09/credit-crunch/>

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aswanson
You should have opened a hedge fund strictly based on shorting those banks.

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jakewolf
Read Taleb's book, "The Black Swan." Very timely these days.

[http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-
Improbable/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-
Improbable/dp/1400063515/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205761039&sr=8-1)

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omarseyal
Honestly, Black Swan is not Taleb's best book. I would recommend you read
Fooled By Randomness first if you have the chance...

[http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-
Market...](http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-
Markets/dp/1587990717)

~~~
davidw
In the above talk, he mentions that Black Swan is better than Fooled by
Randomness.

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matthavener
"igon value"? Surprised the editors didn't catch that..

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bilbo0s
I saw that and thought, " . . . I better not mention it or everyone will think
you are a mathematician . . ."

Thank you, sir, for being willing to take that virtual wedgie for all of the
math geeks out there!

