I read The Black Swan in 2007 when it came out, and found it very intriguing. It is a mixture of autobiographical anecdote and sharp statistical analysis. I used the idea as part of a speech at Harvard, and the audience, at the question time, ignored most of my talk and concentrated on my discussion of Black Swans.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Paul Volcker on the street, with his secretary and close friend, Anka. (Possible conflict of interest in this story: Volcker was on the Advisory Board of Adam Smith Global Television. He didn't advise much, and it was good of him to let his name be used on the stationery. Mostly, A

Paul, When I was at your house on Sunday, you said the stimulus was not going to be enough, and faulted Bernanke for not backing additional stimulus. But additional stimulus would have to be voted by the Congress. And all the political folk say there is “no political will” for more stimulus. Furthermore I men

Sometimes, only sometimes, the financial community comes up with an apt metaphor. One that struck me recently from a Wall Street Journal conference on lessons learned from the Great Crisis of 2008 is that large banks should have “Living Wills.” If you don’t personally have a Living Will, you should probably thin