some comments made against taleb is unfair.. it is always easy to say booms and busts cycles with hindsight..
but what were most ppl saying before the bust?

and how much do MBA, CFA, Finance degrees cost? > 150k? and it teaches VAR models for 1500 year events?

yewming , Singapore,

I think people who turned out to be "right" become prisoner of their fame. They tend to do irritating small things like what are described for Taleb in this article. Anyone can forecast something grotesque if that does not happen in reality no one cares, however if it does happen he becomes a champ!

Yugal Joshi, Mumbai, India

The comment "Dr John gives the answer drummed into the heads of every statistic student: 50/50" is nonsense. Most stat books agree that a coin that is heads 40 times in a row is NOT unbiased. And the author should acknowledge Bayesian statistical theory which takes prior knowledge into account.

Richard , Chicago, USA

"Now, someone who can give you answers - that would be worth paying $60,000 for."

Careful there - lots of answers are being sold but are they the right answers? You never know until you've already paid.

Preston, Conifer, USA

Mr Taleb is a great salesman - however his work is just a rehash of John Stuart Mill in the 19th Century - he was the first to write about the black swan phenomenon

stuart anson, Dubai, UAE

Mr Taleb says: "The Kobe earthquake of 1995 cost a lot more than the Tokyo earthquake of 1923."

Is he talking nominal terms - or about the cost in real terms (inflation adjusted, per head, as a percentage of GDP/GNP, potential lost, human lives or other measures)?- Please clarify.

Huw Sayer, Norwich, England

It was not a black swan. A black swan is a random event. This was an evolutionary cycle. These are two very different things.

Taleb is an entertainer and gets paid to speak / sell books, so basically another randomness fool of his own description.

He sees everyones vanity and but his own....

MJ, tokyo,

Bravo!

C.C. Corry, Westerlo,

This guy will make a nice character in Dilbert , like dogbert , who tells you the obvious on a million-dollar charge. More funny is that he is for real...

Bhaskar Gollapudi, London, UK

This man is not alone, people having been saying this for years now and were called "conspiracy theorists"!

Now it's time to realize why a lot of them are right.... the reason is because this is all engineered by the global elites!

Wake up and see the truth!

Andy T, North East, England,

I didn't think Appleyard would pass over the chance of a dig at Dawkin's and atheism! There's one in every other of his articles - Prof D has really needled the religious.

paul newbold, sheffield, UK

In Politics and Economics there are 'Events' that just happen and can bring disaster to those who too streched and cannot take the strain.

Borrow too much money, lie about your earnings believe that property always goes up (White Swan), There are Black Swans in homeless Delhi.......Oil ?

Goldfinger, Gloucester, UK

And Roger, he doesn't refer to loans as weird scams. He's refering to the overly complex and convoluted forms of securities wrapped up in other vehicles, that have no value at all and the only money made is in the actual transaction.

Andrew, Abu Dhabi,

Can't see the point of allotting so much space to someone who, it seems, everyone listens to or reads - at a price - but nobody pays any attention to. Otherwise we would have fewer crises, less greed and a fairer society. How does he get away with earning such a good living for stating the obvious?

peter fieldman, paris , france

What Taleb is saying is obvious observations of life, he is 100% right, the main problem is we have all lost the ability to read the signs.

His point on banks is spot on, they lost billions on Soveriegn debt loans, when that market closed they turned to domestic home loans, what bad loans next?

purps, chelmsford, England

Taleb says the ways we plan our business and economic lives are logically flawed. Survival demands economic, business and personal Changeability = Tinkering, anathema for most managers. 100K tonnes of Motor Torpedo Boats will beat 100K tonnes of Battleship. Can Business Leaders face up to this?

Tony Ericson, Warwick,

I've read Taleb and what is clear is exactly how people take risk for granted - nothing new in that, but when you consider that these same people have huge influences on the economy and economic policy it becomes frightening. More so when they remove the fail safes e.g. like with the banking system.

duncan, Wokingham,

$60,000 for a man who asks questions and tells you you have a problem?

Now, someone who can give you answers - that would be worth paying $60,000 for.

oxford dom, oxford,

Excuse the pun but some of his ideas are random! However his attack on 'The experts' is worthy of further investigation. Why oh Why, when the global education system has pumped out millions of MBA's / 'Business knowledge' to said experts are they still unable to follow fundamental business basics?

Steven, Dunedin, NZ

PT Barnum would've liked this fellow. Roll up, roll up... I suppose it is quite good that the people who have been doing the suckering have become the suckers for a while.

James, Manchester,

Amazing how Taleb splits opinions - I'm on the side who think he's superb, have read his books & agree with 99% of it (though not the part about govnt bonds being safe).

Adam, UK,

He does himself no credit saying very stupid things such his (the reporter's?) description of banking activity. Making loans is not a "weird scam" its the essential function of the banking system, the fact that they have done it poorly in recent times doesn't make it a "scam"

Roger, London,

Answer to Brian's puzzle over "good is the enemy of the best" quote. It is taken work by Buckingham and Clifton of Gallup. Build on your strenghts=best, try and fix weaknesses=merely good.

Jeff Morris, Leeds,

Taleb approach differs from the majority in financial services in that he's happy to admit he doesn't know what's going to happen in the future - after all who does.

This doesn't stop the finance industry trying to convince us that high fees are worth paying as they can make accurate predictions

Andrew Sawrey, Ireleth, Cumbria,

He's quite right. Just read Sunday Times' Economics Editor David Smith's blog - go back 3 years and you'll read all the standard reasons a housing crash couldn't happen. House prices are high when people start talking at parties about how high they are. Common sense beats theory 9 times in 10

Jonathan, London,

Taleb's approach is no better than anyone else in the financial markets as he proved with the failure of Empirica. He got lucky with the 1987 crash and has been trading (writing) on his reputation ever since.

John, LONDON, ENGLAND

great words and why not it going to be good to change and view things by choosing a diferent route.

steve fincham, bridgend , south wales

If people weren't lazy office-jockeys, just attending desk jobs and collecting a salary at the end of the month, they wouldn't need to pay thousands/millions for books and lectures.

Cycles repeat themselves over and over.

doh

John, London,

'World is an uncertain place and the improbable can happen ! '
'Clothes matter; they send signals... '
'Don't watch TV '

(yawn ... ) What an original thinker ! ! ! !

NMB, California, USA

are you joking? after a boom you get a ......!

it really isn't rocket science

Rob Dee, Dulwich, uk

Another Rasputan?

brian keating, agde, france

I think Monty Python got there way before Taleb...

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition".

Jon, Swindon,

The most important of all Taleb's life tips is # 8. Nice reading his profile. Thanks to The Times.

Ganesan Kannuchamy, London, UK

What about pigeons then?

ray, croydon, uk