{"id":10433,"date":"2015-07-27T07:49:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10433"},"modified":"2015-07-27T07:49:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T12:49:00","slug":"risk-experts-who-predicted-2008-financial-crash-gmos-riskier-than-2008-crash-the-g-m-o-experiment-carried-out-in-real-time-and-with-our-entire-food-and-ecological-system-as-its-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10433","title":{"rendered":"Risk Experts Who Predicted 2008 Financial Crash: GMOs Riskier than 2008 Crash \u2026 \u201cThe G.M.O. Experiment, Carried Out In Real Time and with Our Entire Food and Ecological System As Its Laboratory, Is Perhaps the Greatest Case of Human Hubris Ever\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Risk Experts Who Predicted 2008 Financial Crash: GMOs Riskier than 2008 Crash \u2026 \u201cThe G.M.O. Experiment, Carried Out In Real Time and with Our Entire Food and Ecological System As Its Laboratory, Is Perhaps the Greatest Case of Human Hubris Ever\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n

Risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u00a0predicted the 2008<\/a>\u00a0financial crisis, by pointing out that commonly-used risk models were wrong.\u00a0 Taleb \u2013 a distinguished professor of risk engineering at New York University, and author of best-sellers\u00a0The Black Swan<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Fooled by Randomness \u2013<\/em>\u00a0Taleb became financially independent after the crash of 1987, and wealthy during the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Taleb noted last year that most boosters for genetically modified foods (GMOs) \u2013 including scientists \u2013 are totally\u00a0ignorant<\/em>\u00a0about risk analysis.\u00a0\u00a0 Taleb\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that proliferating GMOs could lead to \u201can irreversible termination of life [on] the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, Taleb \u2013 and\u00a0tail-hedging<\/span>\u00a0expert Mark Spitznagel, who also made a hugely profitable billion dollar derivatives bet on the stock market crash of 2008 \u2013\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in the New York Times:<\/p>\n

\n

Before the crisis that started in 2007, both of us believed that the financial system was fragile and unsustainable, contrary to the near ubiquitous analyses at the time.<\/p>\n

Now, there is something\u00a0vastly riskier<\/strong>\u00a0facing us, with\u00a0risks that entail the survival of the global ecosystem<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 not the financial system. This time, the fight is against the current promotion of genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s.<\/p>\n

Our critics held that the financial system was improved thanks to the unwavering progress of science and technology, which had blessed finance with more sophisticated economic insight. But the \u201ctail risks,\u201d or the effect from rare but monstrously consequential events, we held, had been increasing, owing to increasing complexity and globalization. Given that\u00a0almost nobody was paying attention to the risks<\/strong>, we set ourselves and our clients to be protected from an eventual collapse of the banking system, which subsequently happened to the benefit of those who were prepared.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Risk Experts Who Predicted 2008 Financial Crash: GMOs Riskier than 2008 Crash \u2026 \u201cThe G.M.O. Experiment, Carried Out In Real Time and with Our Entire Food and Ecological System As Its Laboratory, Is Perhaps the Greatest Case of Human Hubris Ever\u201d Risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u00a0predicted the 2008\u00a0financial crisis, by pointing out that commonly-used risk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[5608,7563,373,7248,690,7562],"class_list":["post-10433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-genetically-modified-organisms","tag-global-ecosystem","tag-gmos","tag-nassim-taleb","tag-risk","tag-washingtons-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10434,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions\/10434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}