pplooker wrote:
As for Taleb, the guy is probably a genius philosopher and a smarter human being than I, although I feel his whole proposal has a paradox embedded in it and I'm not the only one. But how on earth to use his observations to practical benefit is beyond me.
I believe that Taleb has basically come up with a set of good, but half-baked ideas. He has told us that the world is a more uncertain place than some of us previously thought, and his reasoning makes this observation a valuable one. What he has not done, however, is tell us how we might proceed safely through this world of periodcially occurring unlikely events.
HB, OTOH, seems to use Taleb's final conclusions
as a starting point in his analysis--yes, the world is uncertain, sometimes profoundly uncertain, and armed with that insight what can we do to protect ourselves? This line of reasoning is an excellent introduction to the PP as a remedy for some of these uncertainties in life.
Earlier in the bogleheads thread I used the analogy of Taleb making a dramatic announcement that lightning strikes at random times and in random places, while Harry Browne is going door-to-door in his easygoing manner selling well-built and reasonably-priced lightning rods (with easy to read installation instructions).
In other words, Taleb's current body of work sells an interestng narrative mostly for entertainment value (considering how hard it is to translate his analysis into concrete action--BTW, I do not consider an options barbell strategy to be of much value to most retail investors), while Harry Browne's work sells a unique perspective on the markets along with a simple, well-designed and durable investment strategy that is perfectly matched to his market perspective.
