Nassim Nicholas Taleb's previous books, Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, and more recently Antifragile, all dealt one way or another with how humans, including economists and bankers and stock brokers, don't understand randomness and risk very well. His most recent book, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, deals with a new subject - the morality of giving advice or creating policy if one has no "skin in the game", if one sufferers no consequences if the policy is a disaster for others. As he points out, the very politicians and policy makers who disrupted the Middle East in the name of "spreading democracy", resulting in the death or displacement of millions of people, still retain their high-paying jobs, and may even be unaware of the chaos their policies have produced. Taleb is arrogant and very sarcastic about some of the academic and political fields and people whom he thinks mislead the public while suffering no consequences themselves. If you are a government policy wonk or an economist or a politician you probably won't like this book. I find his sarcasm acceptable, because I think he is right on most of the issues he raises.
Posts
