Brian Romanchuk — Comments On "Skin In The Game"

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life is the latest instalment of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series, which is "a combination of a) practical discussions b) philosophical tales, and c) scientific and analytical commentary on the problems of randomness, and how to live, eat, sleep, argue, fight, befriend, work, have fun, and make decisions under uncertainty" (description from the Introduction). This article is a limited review of some of the aspects of the discussion of the book that relates to economics and finance. My beat is bond market economics, I am not here to offer advice on how to live, eat, sleep, etc. As a result, my discussion here is not really enough information to decide whether to buy the book or not, instead, I am just discussing a few points that intersect with the subjects I normally discuss....

Bond Economics
Comments On "Skin In The Game"
Brian Romanchuk

Everyone's Racing To Do Stuff ... While They Don't Have A Clue What The Eventual Consequences Will Be.

Commentary by Roger Erickson

These comics really drive home how stupid most of our local business momentum is. As always, pictures are worth a thousand words.

Everyone's racing to do stuff while they don't have a clue what the eventual consequences will be? Ya think? The only question seems to be "How much faster can we go?" Damn the reality, send the commoners full-speed ahead!

That raises an interesting question. For every lemming stampede off a cliff, is there an evil genius lemming sitting back in their abandoned lairs, enjoying the lunches they left behind? "Who says I can't eat YOUR lunch and kill you too?"

We need less action, and more selection? You'd think that would be natural.

Anybody ever heard of "Preventive Economics?" Or is that an oxymoron?

Orthodox economics: Invented by the aristocracy, to use ON the commoners.

Heterodox economics: Invented by the commoners, to use adaptively.

Two schools of thought, always in opposition? Imagine what could happen if we just all aligned our efforts? And built, instead of subtracted? If Democracy is government by the people, what is the point of a divided government? One dedicated to wasting, rather than compounding net returns?











People will do anything in their power to avoid ingesting food for thought?
What's that say about humans?

That we'll chase every return except the highest return of all?

"We made insane progress and breakthroughs? That's not possible. We don't allow the highest return of all." Political Wit. :(