{"id":32303,"date":"2018-03-13T18:02:56","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T23:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32303"},"modified":"2018-03-13T18:03:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T23:03:34","slug":"i-hope-for-goldman-sachs-bankruptcy-nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-skin-in-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32303","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI hope for Goldman Sachs\u2019 bankruptcy\u201d: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PHOTO: DAN CALLISTER\/REX<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI hope for Goldman Sachs\u2019 bankruptcy\u201d: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game<\/a><\/h3>\n
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In Taleb\u2019s universe, the fieriest circle of hell is reserved for bankers and neoconservatives.<\/p>\n

Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u00a0is an intellectual brawler, a philosophical pugilist. His new book, Skin in the Game<\/em>, put me in mind of the final scene of The Godfather <\/em>or Reservoir Dogs<\/em>: everybody gets whacked. Bankers and bureaucrats, warmongers\u00a0and wonks \u2013 all are targeted\u00a0by Taleb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

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For the Lebanese-American thinker, their shared sin is that (with some exceptions) they lack \u201cskin in the game\u201d. By this, Taleb means they are insulated from the consequences of their actions: they do not have \u201ca share of the harm\u201d or \u201cpay a penalty if something goes wrong\u201d. This \u201casymmetry in risk bearing\u201d, he warns, leads to \u201cimbalances\u201d, \u201cblack swans\u201d (the rare but high-impact events described in his 2007 mega-seller) and \u201cpotentially, to systemic ruin\u201d.<\/p>\n

When I meet Taleb, 57, at the Club Quarters hotel in central London I am mentally primed for conflict (journalists are another of his targets). But the self-described fl\u00e2neur<\/em> is courteous and polite, helpfully advising me to add an espresso to the hotel\u2019s insufficiently strong coffee. I ask him how his deadlifts are (the stocky Taleb once boasted of lifting 400lbs). An unrelated injury, he laments, has \u201cset him back\u201d but he has shed fat, not muscle (\u201cit could be that when you deadlift you\u2019re always hungry\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself in the same business as journalists,\u201d Taleb says when I raise the subject of my trade. \u201cBut if you don\u2019t take risks it becomes propaganda or PR.\u201d Taleb, a man sometimes described as having praise only for himself, speaks admiringly of the New Statesman\u2019s<\/em> in-house philosopher John Gray. \u201cMy respect for him is so great\u2026 He, visibly, has skin in the game, he was not afraid to be a Thatcherite when it was unpopular and later an anti-Thatcherite when it was also unpopular.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Taleb\u2019s universe, the fieriest circle of hell is reserved for bankers and neoconservatives. \u201cThe best thing that could happen to society is the bankruptcy of Goldman Sachs,\u201d he tells me. \u201cBanking is rent-seeking of industrial proportions.\u201d Taleb, who became rich as a derivatives trader, is not a foe\u00a0of capitalism but of \u201ccronyism\u201d. \u201cIf you\u2019re taking risks, God bless you. This is why I accept inequality. I\u2019ve seen people go from trader to cab driver and back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

PHOTO: DAN CALLISTER\/REX \u201cI hope for Goldman Sachs\u2019 bankruptcy\u201d: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game In Taleb\u2019s universe, the fieriest circle of hell is reserved for bankers and neoconservatives. Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u00a0is an intellectual brawler, a philosophical pugilist. His new book, Skin in the Game, put me in mind of the final scene […]<\/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":[2],"tags":[19269,376,562,690,15196,19270],"class_list":["post-32303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-george-eaton","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-neoconservatives","tag-risk","tag-skin-in-the-game","tag-the-statesman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32303","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=32303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32304,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32303\/revisions\/32304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}