World economy facing numerous 'black swans', IMF chief warns

[CHIMO]

The global economy is facing a flock of "black swans", the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn told students in Washington on Monday night that "great uncertainty still prevails. Indeed, numerous black swans are now swimming in the global economic lake."

Strauss-Kahn was referring to the theory outlined by writer and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who has argued that investors take too little account of unpredictable high-impact events. Black swans can be either positive or negative.

Strauss-Kahn's reference to black swans is cryptic, since by definition a black swan event is so unpredictable it should be invisible to forecasters, and make a mockery of their forecasts when it breaks cover.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/05/world-economy-faces-black-swans-imf-strauss-kahn

[Marblehead]

1. IMF

criminal organization.

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Oh yeah. Naomi Klein laid it out........

in "The Shock Doctrine".

[Dr. Righteous]

3. Criminals

The US needs to stop funding the IMF completely and withdraw from the United Nations. We're broke, we can't afford to be lending money we don't have to the IMF so they can use it to fund/purchase brutal third world governments.

[jakeXT]

4. They got their IMF guy into Ivory Coast

Who is Alassane Ouatarra?

Internationally recognised as the winner of last year's election, Alassane Ouatarra studied in the US and obtained a doctorate in economics in 1972 from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked as an economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and later at the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). He returned to the IMF in 1984 as director of the African department, and in May 1987 was appointed counsellor to the managing director at the IMF. Ouattara became prime minister of Ivory Coast in 1990, but was barred twice from running for the presidency because his father's side of the family is from Burkina Faso. In 2007, however, Laurent Gbagbo said Ouattara could stand in the next Ivorian presidential election. Ouattara won 54.1% of the vote, his support coming mainly from the predominantly Muslim north, and from the poor immigrant workers from Mali and Burkina Faso working on coffee and cocoa plantations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/ivory-coast-question-and-answer

Japan is major setback for the global economy, here are his thoughts

(I’ve received close to 600 requests for interviews on the “Black Swan” of Japan. Refused all (except for one). I think for a living & write books not interviews. This is what I have to say.)

The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: ” The mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure resultant from an accident of a nuclear installation to individuals of the public, who live in the vicinity of the site boundary of the nuclear installation, should not exceed the probability of about 1×10^6 per year (that is , at least 1 per million years)”.

That policy was designed only 8 years ago. Their one in a million-year accident occurred about 8 year later. We are clearly in the Fourth Quadrant there.

I spent the last two decades explaining (mostly to finance imbeciles, but also to anyone who would listen to me) why we should not talk about small probabilities in any domain. Science cannot deal with them. It is irresponsible to talk about small probabilities and make people rely on them, except for natural systems that have been standing for 3 billion years (not manmade ones for which the probabilities are derived theoretically, such as the nuclear field for which the effective track record is only 60 years).

..
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm