Government Worldwide Incompetence
Please consider what the highly-respected author of ‘Black Swan’ has to say about Covid Incompetence and Denial.
Six Key Ideas
- “I think this is a case study of government worldwide incompetence in dealing with a problem and denial,” said Taleb, whose bestselling 2007 book warned of highly improbable events and their potential for severe consequences.
- “Ten months into the pandemic, we still don’t have systematic testing when you board a plane or when you want to go to a restaurant or something,” said Taleb, formerly a professor of risk engineering at New York University.
- “If we had instant, systematic testing, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be talking now about the pandemic.”
- “We don’t know what’s going to happen. Imagine this continuing until January, February, March because in the winter people are inside so contagion rates are higher,” Taleb said. “Think about what can happen. It’s not that rosy.”
- Taleb is a former derivatives trader and also a scientific advisor at Universa Investments, a hedge fund that earned a return of more than 4,000% in the first quarter. Universa uses a complicated risk mitigation strategy known as tail-risk hedging that positions the fund to profit from dramatic market corrections spurred by so-called black swan events.
- “You should realize you have more uncertainty ahead now than you think. The returns can be a lot better or a lot worse than you think,” Taleb said, though he refused to comment on returns directly. “There’s a tendency of people to underestimate that uncertainty is chronic.”
In a video interview (click on preceding link to play) Taleb had this key thought that was not in the article.
“We still spend trillions of dollars worldwide on nuclear weapons when the risk is the virus. The solutions are not that complicated. So I think this is a case study in government worldwide incompetence and denial.”
This is not just Trump, incompetence is everywhere you look.
But Trump is the chief denier.
Mish
i read his books. big fan. but he should really stick to stats and philosophy.
I read the article and watched the video, and nowhere does Taleb accuse Trump of anything as Mish thinks its does – more Fake news. This once-interesting blog is barely worth reading – at least not any article about Trump.
I now look forward to getting banned for calling Mish out on his TDS, which will be another sign of his bias.
So many experts love to share their criticism when they themselves are also clueless about how to handle a pandemic. My proof? Because none of them have that in their resume. I mean it’s sad enough that Biden pretends that he can do better than Trump on Covid-19, it’s just horseshit because he has not done it. Sure he may say that he will work with scientists, but which one of them have handled a pandemic like this one? US is too big a country that lock down does not make sense and lets not forget why there was a shortage of masks initially – because Chinese bought all the masks in US and shipped them back to China very early on.
And this nonsense about decoupling is not possible. Too many other countries are capable, eager and already joining the supply chain, so lets just wait and see. If Chinese Communist Party wasn’t so much in the way, all this would not have happened. Just because you have not suffered from CCP’s influence it does not mean it is not there. And while you think US or other countries will never be a victim of CCP’s expansionist strategies, there are also people who are rightly concerned what if it could happen.
Nassim Taleb is right on point and a Trump win will initiate the downfall of U.S. global leadership & most certainly digital assets will make rejection of USD inevitable!..A Biden win may or may not restore leadership of global civilized decorum our founding fathers had in mind, Biden is no doubt the only option to Trumps dark karma & failed U.S. & Europe leadership of Covid -19 Trump may win over gun toting rednecks and thugs living in self centered denial ripping the moral fabric of our country, However true patriots believe the POTUS should serve & protect all Americans and set the example for the rest the civilized world!..Trump is the worst example of a true leader & he is responsible for more U.S. deaths due to not mandating masks at the start than any soldier that ever fought against the United States!..Biden wins or we are all in deep shit!..
“Trump is the worst example of a true leader & he is responsible for more U.S. deaths due to not mandating masks at the start than any soldier that ever fought against the United States!”
Fauci initially said not to wear masks- because they don’t work anyway. He was correct.
“A CDC study of two Korean flights showed that even asymptomatic passengers could and did spread COVID-19 to other passengers even though
each passenger was given an N95 mask, and staff members followed strict infection-control procedures at the airport and in the air overseen by
the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 27, 2020) – A new report about how one flight – only 17% full, and with passengers wearing masks – has been linked to
an outbreak of 59 COVID-19 cases, is just the latest reminder about how deadly flying can still be, despite a deceptive industry study to the contrary.”
This recently from the Daily Beast: Daily Beast:
“What’s particularly troubling about the return of COVID in Italy is that the country has done everything experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been
advising. Face masks in public places have been compulsory for months, social distancing is strongly enforced, nightclubs have never reopened,
and sporting arenas are at less than a third of capacity. Children who are back at school are regularly tested and strictly social-distanced, and yet,
the second wave seems completely unstoppable.”
Despite compulsory face masks in public places in Italy, “the second wave seems completely unstoppable.”
Nassim Taleb is no dummy. I agree there has been a world leadership vacuum but a pretty good sized chunk of countries have done an excellent job of containing the virus. I agree and think it is criminal that there is not wide availability of rapid, accurate, inexpensive testing. Some of FactOnJoe’s claims have some basis, the western leadership and big pharma do not seem to be very interested in educating folks on using vitamin D nor promoting real research on inexpensive relatively safe antivirals and other possibilities, of which there are many. It is a sad state of affairs when my friends and family have to call me for medical advice on how to handle their Covid infections. Being very afraid their covid case could develop into a bad one that could bankrupt their family and kill them. So far lots of success and no hospitalizations but its anecdotal. To all of us here in the US, here’s hoping for a peaceful election.
FactsOn Joe , Trump is the biggest Remdesivir supporter.
Trump is buddies with Gilead.
FactsOnJoe’s claim about payment for Covid death is fake new.
I am tired of correcting unfounded allegations. Please check your facts or I will just start deleting your comments.
please Mish, do us all a favour and get rid of him/her
No more FibsonJoe?
I will let that slide precisely once.
One more asinine comment like that will be your last.
If I was ZH, you would be gone already.
Trump started a war with Venezuela, too, but you repeatedly and constantly ignore that fact in order to spread FAKE NEWS about it.
I think you made my point. I have been reading you blog for years. I can tell in your writing you have a hate for Trump. He stands for almost everything you have been against for years. You are voting for the third party candidate, but only publish negative things about Trump. He has accomplished the single biggest thing you wanted in 2016.
Please do delete my account and messages. I send entirely to much time reading and commenting.
Btw I do apologize for insinuating you we’re voting for Trump. What I should have said is , A vote for anyone but Trump is basically voting for war.
bye, bye
I had a denial of service attack and had to turn off comments for a while
saw that, wondered about all the Melbourne Cup spam
Taleb is a fraud: All his Black Swan theory is plagiarized from Bertrand Russell .
“…A chicken which experiences every day that it gets fed when the farmer’s wife comes over to the chicken run will finally come to the conclusion that there is a causal link between the approach of the farmer’s wife and feed being put into its bowl.” “But one day the chicken doesn’t get its food?” “No, one day the farmer’s wife comes over and wrings the chicken’s neck…”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons states $72.9 billion in worldwide spending on nuclear weapons in 2019, not “trillions”.
If he labelled Trump directly I missed it.
I guess most politicians nowadays prefer you not see their lips moving, for our own good no doubt because the lies had become intolerable as to witness directly.
The incompetence mentioned is a feature not a mistake, Taleb would know how plausible deniability works which would be why he is not able to directly accuse anyone further.
What is Taleb’s qualification to make this claim? From Wikipedia “essayist, scholar, mathematical statistician, and former option trader and risk analyst, whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty.” Nothing, another armchair quarterback who used a crisis to write a book.
He is old. He must know stuff. Just like an opinion everyone has an asshole.
Mish, what is the going exchange rate between bricks and sheets of plywood in the big cities? The former are (once again) appearing mysteriously on street corners, the latter can’t be had at lumber yards. Folks out your way are known to be well-provisioned and prepared, right? Maybe you can make a killing on an arbitrage deal.
In case the party of love and tolerance does not win the presidency there will be some “peaceful protests” against all shops selling luxury items in Democrat controlled cities and states.
Few black owned and other minority owned restaurants and stores might get burned to the ground like happened in Minneapolis.
Mish has lost rational thought. He has been overcome with emotion. It’s easy to see when people overlook all the good and just focus on the bad.
His number one reason for voting for Trump the first time was ——-no more wars.
How easy we forget.
A vote for Biden is a vote for war. Pretty simple.
Joe Biden was one the biggest cheerleaders for Iraq war and he was in a position to do something to stop or slow the rush to war since Joe Biden led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time.
Instead Biden was almost more excited about the rush to war than Bush and Cheney…
I can imagine the creaking sound of all the old dicks standing up just at the word ”war” in the capital building.
I imagine Rome was very similar.
But as you keep saying over and over Biden will be a puppet to Harris and the radical left. And we are vehemently anti war… so stop worrying about war. (trump dropped largest bomb since nuke in ww2 on afghanistan, 37 missles out of nowhere on syria, execution by drone and elite forces in africa, iran). Stop kidding yourself trump loves war. divide and conquer. psychological war, trade war, physical war, space war.
Joe Biden wants to lockdown whole of USA if an “expert” recommends it to him and Fauci who originally said people do NOT need to use masks and told people to go on a cruise has said that USA should be shutdown until end of winter so vote for Joe Biden is a vote for more FAILED lockdown policies that have failed in USA and that have failed in Europe.
Lockdowns just transferred the infection to the winter when without lockdowns they would have been gone through in the summer and closing schools and closure of colleges and limits on bars and restaurants just prevented the herd immunity level firebreaks from being formed among the part of population who is not in large danger from Covid namely under 50 year olds.
The over 70 years should have been protected since for them the death rate from Covid is over 5% so 94%+ survive and for 50-70 year olds things should have been left under their own consideration and decision since 99% survive but with masks recommended and under 50 year olds should have been encouraged to live as before with just hand-washing.
The school closures were the stupidest decision in Covid pandemic.
Many children have fallen badly behind and many will fall further behind if there are more school shutdowns.
The 2nd most stupidest decision was Federal government paying all the Covid patients treatments if they died from covid and then giving extra +20% on top of that like passed in the Cares act.
If a person dies from renal failure or cancer the hospital haggles the price of his treatment with the health insurance company and gets paid less than they want but if that same person has Covid in the death certificate then Federal government pays what the hospital wants and then Federal government pays extra +20% on top of that.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that once hospitals saw most of their routine operations being postponed due to Covid those hospitals were hurting for money and the temptation to mark as Covid deaths people of whom just 6% died from Covid and the rest 94% had on average 2.6 comorbidities per CDC stats became quite large.
Now tens of millions of people are depressed and saw no hope due to being fired and laid off and bankrupted as a business and due to media scaremongering about Covid people are so desperate that suicides are spiking all over Europe and in USA and drug OD’s and use are through the roof and the same for alcoholism and violence inside families is also spiking.
It is absolute appalling how media and Democrats have treated HCQ despite there being data since July 2nd from Henry Ford Hospitals that shows it dropped death rates over -50% if given immediately after admission to people who have so bad case of Covid they need hospitalization and the recommendation to stay home until the symptoms worsen was a literal death sentence for many people who could have gotten HCQ from their own physician through a telemedicine prescription if that would have been pushed as a solution and almost 150 studies collected in one site show that death rates are -89% lower in countries where HCQ is widely available and is prescribed early.
Henry Ford Hospitals study:
Site listing 150 studies on HCQ and Covid:
The way media attacked Trump and how Democrats POLITICIZED the issue of HCQ when Trump recommended HCQ will be written as examples in history what partisan hate filled political games only interested in political power can cause.
Furthermore the lockdowns in Democrat controlled states likely worsened deaths too because studies have shown that people with D-vitamin deficiency are 60% more likely to catch Covid and 52% more likely to die from that and people’s D-vitamin levels were low after the winter and the lockdowns worsened and prolonged this situation when people were at home and NOT getting sunlight and Democrat Governors closed beaches all over USA.
Why is there still no recommendation to take 1 pill of D-vitamin supplement per day?
People who have enough D-vitamin are 52% less likely to die from Covid:
People who have enough D-vitamin are 60% less likely to catch Covid:
8 in 10 Covid hospital patients have a D-vitamin deficiency:
Meanwhile Fauci is championing Remdesivir at 3000+ dollars a dose despite studies showing that Remdesivir provides NO BENEFIT in death rates and at the same time Fauci is SILENT on D-vitamin which lowers likelihood of getting Covid infection massively and which lowers risk of death from Covid massively and toward HCQ Fauci has been ANTI-SCIENCE based on examples I posted above.
You know, we really need to let actual scientists, doctors working in their specialty, and epidemiologists do what they have trained for many years to do. Doctors whose specialty is brain x-rays should stay out of it. Reality TV stars, even stable genius ones, should listen to the actual experts. Specialists in “facts” on Joe should let the grown-ups who have studied this all their lives figure it out.
The medicine regulators have FAILED on a massive scale, the medical establishment has FAILED on a massive scale, doctors who WATCH people DIE when they could be saved with HCQ or D-vitamin are complicit in killing people.
The education of doctors has gone massively wrong somewhere and all the drug company money should be TOTALLY BANNED so no lunches, retreats, conferences, trainings etc. paid by drug companies for doctors anymore.
Moving from a doctor/specialist/surgeon position to a drug company employee with huge salary must be absolutely BANNED.
FibsonJoe is working overtime today.
“The medicine regulators have FAILED on a massive scale”
Medicine regulators? Do they keep the robots from stealing your medicine, or what? Do they keep the picnic apes away too?
Do the nurses know you’ve wandered out of the memory car unit?
Would you feel better if I had said that the “Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency” aka MHRA has FAILED massively in UK and that “Food and Drug Administration” aka FDA has FAILED massively in USA?
Please Mish enough of this idiot
FoJ and Herkie need to have a right-left word-off.
The one who continually fails to make a point with the least amount of words is the winner.
Comment longer then Original blog post alert! Yawn…
I see you become a doctor by reading news on google.
UK, France and Spain and Belgium did massive shutdowns/lockdowns and destroyed their economies and after the lockdowns were lifted infection rates are spiking higher faster than in USA on per capita terms.
Countries which were recommended as models like Czech Republic are in serious problems.
Trump has said many optimistic hyberbolic statements about coronavirus but the current situation in USA is NOT worse than in Europe in many European countries.
Now UK, France etc. are again doing lockdowns again and destroying their economies further and Spain has everything closed from 10 PM in the whole country and closing parts of Madrid completely in lockdown.
All the while Sweden is muddling through having never done a lockdown and streets in Sweden are throbbing of people and they go out normally with just every other seat just kept empty to lover the spread of coronavirus.
USA should have followed the Swedish model…
I’m in Spain right now – this is not true. It’s region by region, sometimes city by city. Bars are still open late here where I am, but there is increased spacing and lower capacity rules.
I am in France and it is lockdown everywhere but there are so many exceptions that it is almost like normal. Small stores are supposed to close but there is a mayors’ revolt. For the first time in memory some mayors are refusing direct orders from the government. Very strange situation.
If you lived in Liverpool you wouldn’t be quite so blasé about it. Doctors are on the main news as I write saying they’ve never worked under such pressure.
Covid: ‘We are hanging by a thread’ – hospital doctor link to bbc.co.uk
Has UK recommended D-vitamin supplements for all people after STUDIES have shown that good D-vitamin levels lower deaths by -52% compared to D-vitamin deficiency?
(which many people most likely suffer in UK thanks to the previous lockdown in UK where UK police chased people away from parks and beaches and almost everybody stayed home and looked at telly)
NO!
Has UK taken HCQ in use so that everybody admitted to a hospital with a serious case of Covid is immediately given HCQ?
NO!
Has UK told doctors to prescribe HCQ early before people get in a bad way after 150+ studies have shown that prescribing HCQ widely and early to Covid patients llowers death rates -89%?
NO!
The whole medicine regulation agency staff in many countries needs to be FIRED starting from FDA and those who led those agencies during Covid need to get charged for thousands of manslaughters each and locked up and shamed so badly this kind of malpractice that has happened against HCQ and against D-vitamin NEVER happens again.
There are either complete IDIOTS leading the FDA and similar agencies in many countries OR they have been thoroughly CORRUPTED by drug companies that would make no profits from HCQ since it is off-patent and costs 10 dollars per prescription or less and there is even less money in D-vitamin since it costs about 5 dollars for 100 tablets.
There would be NO need for Remdesivir at 3000+ dollars a dose if HCQ and/or D-vitamin had been used (especially since Remdesivir provides NO BENEFIT in death rates, it only allows people who would have been cured anyway to get out of hospital a few days earlier) and there would be no hundreds of billions in profits from Covid vaccines if HCQ and D-vitamin would have been used since there would be NO need for a vaccine.
HCQ is not a cure.
Hey look I found one that’s NOT 3 months old that says it does. Something tells me science is only believed when it suits your political views. Sad.
Highlights
•
First COVID-19 outpatient study based on risk stratification and early antiviral treatment at the beginning of the disease
•
Hydroxychloroquine at low dose in combination with zinc and azithromycin proved to be an effective therapeutic approach against COVID-19
•
Significantly reduced hospitalization rates in the treatment group
•
Reduced mortality rates in the treatment group
I don’t care about the politics, I’d just like our leaders to take the right decisions, if HCQ is a cure all they should be using it. For some reason they aren’t, otherwise if it worked and they used it we wouldn’t be having this second wave in Europe and the states would avoid what’s to come,
Just finished reading that, very interesting. Do you know the date of it, I know you said it was quite recent, but I can’t see it. I’ve been trying to find out why it’s apparently being ignored but don’t seem to be able find much news on it, I’m probably looking in the wrong place.
October 26 is the available date but that means nothing. It’s a pre print so I don’t take those serious. My whole point with Hydroxychloroquine is people don’t have any views or bias to some unnamed steroid that may or may not help people recover. Everybody seems to have a stance on Hydroxychloroquine though.
I don’t care either way. I just hope someone hits the jackpot and comes up with some breakthrough therapy that works very well. This virus is now a part of the human race for the foreseeable future. No vaccine will stop this thing in the next 10 years. Herd immunity is the only way forward, wether that be with a vaccine or though mass infections. Herd immunity is the only way we have eradicated any virus in history. Herd immunity is also a taboo phase now but the only path forward.
I also “hope someone hits the jackpot”.
Regarding this trial, since I last posted I’ve only managed to ascertain that there doesn’t seem to be any peer review, and to date anyway, no one appears to have attempted to replicate it on a larger scale to confirm its findings. Which to me is odd given what’s at stake.
When UK public will realize what Oxford researchers did and how all the pain in UK is caused by this totally flawed Oxford trial setup the reputation for Oxford will NEVER be same.
There is also a CLEAR conflict of interest because Oxford is heavily into Covid vaccine research and was heavily into Covid vaccine research already when Oxford did that totally flawed study setup for HCQ.
Lifting done improperly is the issue. You can’t go from lockdown to pretending the virus doesnt exist. I also agree Spain is not uniformly a basket case. Mallorca is fine, Madrid is doing really bad. Most of Catalania is fine too
“Trump has said many optimistic hyberbolic statements about coronavirus but the current situation in USA is NOT worse than in Europe in many European countries”
Can you say by what metric and provide a source?
Be sure to cycle through all the graphs and drop down menus.
Oh yes, the Swedish model, generous sick pay and unemployment benefit all funded by high taxation. it seems to be catching on in such unexpected quarters….
Until end of July USA paid 600 dollars a WEEK in federal unemployment benefit on top of state unemployment benefit so people were getting about 4000 dollars a month for being unemployed.
This is 2 times more generous that what unemployed people can get in Sweden.
On top of that Trump sent everyone 1200 dollar checks with his signature on them.
Sometimes people who complain about USA relative to the rest of the world have NO CLUE.
And Sweden has the best welfare system in Europe in addition to UK and Germany (all favorite destinations of asylum seekers fleeing claimed “persecution” in the Middle-East or Africa all through Europe until they reach Germany, UK or Sweden).
People in Spain and Italy have nowhere near the levels of welfare that Sweden has and so the gap between what USA did under Trump is HUMONGOUS.
It was found that people REFUSED to return to work because the federal unemployment benefit was so excessive and many people were earning more than they did working.
Sweden is not like the United States. Around 50% of its households are composed of one person. It is much less densely populated. They have done more than many people think and their results are not as good as many people think. And they are still no where near “herd immunity”. See
Well thought out responses can work. If the virus gets way out of control strict lockdowns can work. Note China. A scientific approach coupled with good compliance can work without general lockdowns. Note Taiwan and South Korea.
Lockdowns can blunt the spread of the virus. Note the initial lockdowns of Italy and Spain. Denying that the virus exists, discouraging wearing masks, and undermining local authorities does not work. Note the United States.
My hunch is that if people wore good masks properly, avoided large social gatherings, had good tracking/tracing apps, and there was extremely widespread “instant” (five minute) tests, life could be fairly close to normal.
Sweden didn’t have denialist leaders and the public generally followed safety guidelines. US didn’t. But also look at Norway, Finland. Swedens neighbours did better health and economic wise. Some other factor at play in that region
Did he say something that isn’t banal?
Well, he said this, once…..about 8 years ago, well before Donald Trump stepped into the limelight.
“Simply, people need to be blinded by knowledge—we are made to follow leaders who can gather people together because the advantages of being in groups trump the disadvantages of being alone. It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.”
I am sure that he sees himself as the introspective wise person. He didn’t say anything new or insightful. The “man on a horse” coming from outside the established cabal is the oldest theme in history. It’s just a description of rapid political change as opposed to incremental change so nothing new. Plus 4000 % in one quarter is impressive no doubt about it but it’s just one quarter.
Hopefully the Chicoms will hire him to shut down everything over there.