Coronavirus and Black Swans

We all expect Black Swans in our lives; we just don't know what they will be. This is how we survive. We now even write about them, predict them, and warn about them. But they are unlimited in magnitude, and thus we cannot regress events to any mean.

Tricky, at least that what the Coronavirus tells me. Consider. This virus exploded upon the earth, claiming many lives and economic disaster. It now seems to linger, just hanging about like some serpent waiting to strike. Staying alert, we can control it a bit, but by nature modern humans are not alert. They take chances; they expect good outcomes; they feel mostly invulnerable. Moreover, staying alert would cause changes in all our lives we don’t want.

With no vaccine forthcoming and with the virus not mutating to a harmless relative, we may have trouble ahead.

Hopefully, this problem will be solved, but the next Black Swan is on the way, the nature of which we know not, from where we know not, and delivered how we know not. It is coming. And though we are ready, our leaders need what they love to give the bankers, a stress test. Our leaders, however, are best suited to giving after dinner speeches while cruising the rubber chicken circuit.

* The Black Swan, Nassim Nicolas Talib, 2^nd Ed, 2010.

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