Nassim (No Brainer) Taleb Get Laughed At

 

 Author and philosophical finance whiz Nassim Taleb began 2014 with a bold challenge to his fellow economic thinkers.

"I would love to debate a prominent economist LIVE in front of an audience… Nobody has accepted so far," he wrote on his Facebook page a few days ago.

So who is up for the challenge?

"I think any economist who debated Taleb would want to use this," The Week's John Aziz quipped on Twitter, pointing to this 2010 interview where Taleb argues shorting treasuries is a "no brainer" due to the U.S. deficit and the risk of inflation.

"So long as you see the picture of Larry Summers going to Davos, you have to stay short U.S. Treasuries for another year. It means they (the Obama administration) don’t know what’s going on,” Taleb told MoneyNews' Dan Weil in 2010.

Taleb went off on Aziz and others, arguing that his actual profit and loss ("PL") wasn't indicative of his 2010 statement, which would have presumably lost money.