Tag Archives: deficit

Nassim Taleb – CNBC 1/28/13

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“If you cannot use randomness and disorder and variability and volatility as fuel, you won’t make it in the long run.”

Nassim Taleb on Icahn/Ackman: ‘They’re Only Human’
Monday, 28 January 2013 10:08 AM ET
Nassim Taleb, author of “Antifragile” and “The Black Swan,” shares his outlook for the U.S. economy, investment strategies and his thoughts on the heated conversation between Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman over Herbalife
Source: CNBC.com

Audio

“Banks borrow cheaply because you’re lending them every April 15 ok, you’re stopping them out.”

Nassim Taleb: We Have to Address the Core of the Problem
Monday, 28 January 2013 10:36 AM ET
Nassim Taleb, author of “Antifragile” and “The Black Swan,” discusses the U.S. economy. “This is not a healthy system. We have to address the core of the problem and we have not,” he says
Source: CNBC.com

Audio

via nassim taleb – CNBC.

Epiphanies from Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Foreign Policy

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The European Union is a horrible, stupid project. The idea that unification would create an economy that could compete with China and be more like the United States is pure garbage. What ruined China, throughout history, is the top-down state. What made Europe great was the diversity: political and economic. Having the same currency, the euro, was a terrible idea. It encouraged everyone to borrow to the hilt.

The U.S. government should have no deficit. There’s way too much debt. It is inexcusable when you have the highest standards of living in the nation’s history! When you get rich, you should have less debt. There’s a vicious element to borrowing when you’re very rich, and having a deficit is an extremely dangerous game.

I have a negative approach to democracy. I think it should be primarily a mechanism by which people can remove a bad leader.

via Epiphanies from Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Foreign Policy.

Squawk Box Europe Debt Slashing Only Solution: Nassim Taleb

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Airtime: Thurs. Jun. 10 2010 | :30:0 10 ET

“We have no other solution but to slash debt,” Nassim Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan’, told CNBC Thursday. He discusses the outlook for the global economy with Bob Long, CEO, Conversus Capital.

Summary from Huffington Post:

Author and New York University professor Nassim Taleb told CNBC this morning reporters that the world’s debt problems were spreading “like cancer” — and worse than at the height of the recession.

“The situation today is vastly worse than two years ago. We had less debt then and more people employed then,” said the author of bestselling book, “The Black Swan.”

“Today we have more hidden risks to the system, more explicit risks, and on top of that we have a lower tax base. So explain to me [how] this remedy is going to work?”

Taleb blamed the U.S. government for spurring the growth of the “cancer” with remedies like stimulus packages, which he said only served to increase debt and unemployment.

“Obama promised us 8% unemployment after the stimulus,” he added.

Instead, he said, Western governments should follow Greece’s lead of slashing debt by belt-tightening, rather than shifting spending from the private to the public sphere.

Playing off the illness metaphor, a CNBC reporter asked Taleb whether he thought the US government would pass a second stimulus package given that “the politicians just can’t stomach another recession”.

“Unfortunately you may be right. They may not be able to resist giving the bad medicine.”