Taleb deleted my comments, calling them nonsensical. So, I posted a new comment, telling others that Taleb apparently didn’t favor free speech, when his words were questioned. I knew there was a risk he would delete my comment, and he did. He also blocked me from posting further comments, with these word:
“Removed comments (and commenters) that are either nitpicking & diverting from the main argument or lacking in both rigor & elegance.”
Elegance?! Perhaps he ought to put his own house in order before pretexting its lack thereof to gag his own fans who have the misfortune of not being born with the yes-man gene (beni-oui-oui, as he must have learned from his French education).
I’m not superficially referring to his broken English (after living what? 10, 20, 30 years in the US?) but his use of the words “Imbecile” “Idiot” etc. almost as substitutes for pronouns of those who are not Mandelbrot & a few others. Am I revealing a white elephant in the room (as he so likes to say) by stating that this is not simply not elegant, but gross, boorish, low class?
There are deeper concerns about NNT that pertain to his pertinence in the public debate. Since we know that his Facebook wall is not a safe haven for conversation I’ll post here, with the hope I’ll have more luck than the last water boarded victim .
His prediction of Zimbabwean style inflation has yet to materialize. Fine, it doesn’t have to, as long as it is substantiated. Is it?!
In fact, to *have had* materialized in the past 20 years. Not so fine. Indeed, he criticizes the US for what Japan did 20 years ago without the slightest hint of inflation, let alone hyper-inflation.
Yes, an increase in the money supply would/could result in inflation. But the money supply is not increasing either in Japan in the past 20 years or the US recently.
The reason? Flooding banks with banking reserves is not a measure of money supply : you can bring a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. And in the case of Japan, the horse are corporations with a extreme aversion for debt after the debacle of the 1990s. In the case of the US it is households that have to repay their mortgage (decrease in debt).
Zimbabwe’s inflation was a result of an excess of demand due an abrupt drop in supply’s capacity (land being taken away/re-claimed from white farmers by people who did not have the skill to manage it).
The problem facing the west is in some sense the opposite : drop in demand relative to capacity.
This should prompt Hernn Dr Taleb to think the problem through in the serenity of his gated community in CT before making appearances on the TV programs he so reviles (!) to shout his support for the deficit terrorists in his broken English.
Well, perhaps he did, but I’m afraid he did not come through, neither in his Neanderthal “bear-rock” imagery or Hollywood-comic “is there pilot (Ben B.) in the plane” analogy. Talk about idiotic/imbecile…
I’m slightly distraught by having learned about Taleb’s behavior, although it’s very slight. It’s the first character flaw I will give him (I’ll go ahead and disagree with everyone else disliking his supposed arrogance and/or namecalling – he’s appropriate with it 99% of the time in my opinion). What’s unfortunate about it is that this happened between Taleb and an appreciator of his. It seems he has an interest almost entirely in discourse with those who agree with him on his facebook page, which I think is fine for the most part since he is smart enough to know when what he’s saying is very likely to be correct, which is indeed almost always the case. When incorrect, however, something like this may happen, it seems – and like I said, that’s such a minority of the time, I’m fine with that, unfortunate as it is. Everyone is human.
Lastly, it’s his page and, democracy or not, it’s still a gem for those seeking insight. Take it or leave it.