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Banks have never made money in the history of banking, losing the equivalent of all their past profits periodically - while bankers strike it rich.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 11
Author
Economist
Essayist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Nassim Nicholas Najib Taleb
Nassim Taleb
Never
Strikes
Profit
Periodically
Losing
Bankers
Rich
Profits
History
Equivalent
Money
Banking
Past
Banks
Made
Strike

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don't know that you are richer than they are.
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Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.
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You have family-owned businesses that have been around for 500 years. You cannot name a corporation that survives intact for even a few decades.
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Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish.
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true humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others the rest is either shyness or good marketing
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To bankrupt a fool, give him information.
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Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially suppressing volatility in it.
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Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.
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Don't cross a river if it is four feet deep on average.
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The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.
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Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.
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Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.
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He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once.
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Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.
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The same past data can confirm a theory and its exact opposite! If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death.
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I'm a capitalist but one who is smallist and localist, and who favours businesses where owners are still in charge.
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I always remind myself that what one observes is at best a combination of variance and returns, not just returns.
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Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things.
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When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free.
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Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.
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