So what's this all about?

OK - so I have a blog now. Now I can keep facebook relatively clean of "serious stuff", and put it all here! But, once I decided I needed a blog, I didn't know what to call it.

Some of you may know the book "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The title is a reference to the idea that, years ago, Europeans thought all swans were white, because that was all they saw. But, they eventually found black ones in Australia, proving them wrong. Because Taleb luckily published the book right before the current financial crisis, he has become something of a celebrity philosopher. The term "Black Swan" comes up all the time in financial writing whenever something seems like an unlikely, extreme event that contradicts prior experience. Then, the idea started spreading outside finance and now everyone is looking for Black Swans. Politicians are making the "causes" of the Black Swans into scapegoats, Black Swans make great stories for journalists trying to win Pulitzers; economists want to win Nobel Prizes by finding the next Black Swan etc, etc.

So, I thought something about White Swans would be unorthodox and sarcastic enough for my blog. Besides, many extreme Black Swan stories (i.e. the credit crisis) are really the result of many ordinary choices that accumulate (i.e. the millions of decisions that added up to the crisis, but more on that in a later post). The White Swan must feel left out.

I hope I can post and/or write some interesting and informative stuff here, and maybe entertaining too. I hope you'll read and comment whether you agree or not. If you disagree, perhaps you can point out some Black Swans I haven't thought of.