Curiosidade do dia

""Survival of the fittest", a term so hackneyed in the investment media, does not seem to be properly understood: under regime switching, ..., it will be unclear who is actually the fittest, and those who will survive are not necessarily those who appear to be the fittest.
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at a given time in the market, the most profitable traders are likely to be those that are best fit to the latest cycle."

Neste trecho, Nassim Taleb fala sobre o "investment media", mas eu julgo que se aplica, também, à economia.
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Porque acredito em:

"under regime switching, ..., it will be unclear who is actually the fittest, and those who will survive are not necessarily those who appear to be the fittest" 

É por isto que acredito que os estímulos são um erro, quando há um corte epistemológico e dá-se uma mudança estrutural, a situação "normal" mudou, ela já não volta e, torrar dinheiro dos contribuintes é atrasar a transformação inevitável... "stressors are information".

Trecho retirado de "Fooled by randomness"

"Consider the possibility that the roulette winner would be used as a role model by his family, friends, and neighbors"

"Imagine an eccentric (and bored) tycoon offering you $10 Million to play Russian roulette, i.e. to put a revolver with a barrel containing one single bullet out of six to your head and pull the trigger. Each realization would count as one history, for a total of six possible histories of equal probabilities. Five out of these six histories would lead to enrichment; one would lead to a statistic, that is, an obituary with an embarrassing (but certainly original) cause of death. The problem is that only one of the histories is observable; and the winner of $10 Million would elicit the admiration and praise of some fatuous journalist (the very same ones who unconditionally admire the Forbes 500 billionaires and trash those who refrain from taking some market risks).
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Consider the possibility that the roulette winner would be used as a role model by his family, friends, and neighbors. While the remaining five histories are not observable, the wise and thoughtful person could easily make a guess as to their attributes. It requires some thoughtfulness and personal courage. In addition, in time, if the roulette-betting fool keeps playing the game, the bad histories will tend to catch up with him.
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Reality is far more vicious than a Russian Roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a roulette that would have hundreds, even thousand of holes instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security.
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Second, unlike a well defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. Very rarely is the generator visible to the naked eye. One is thus capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette --and call it by some alternative "low risk" name. We see the wealth being generated, never the processor, a matter that makes people lose sight of their risks."

Trechos retirados de "Fooled by randomness" de Nassim Taleb