A cautionary tale of financial woe from the NYT. I hope you folks have been hedging your bets! These pearls about black swans are from Nassim Taleb one of my absolute favorites... "The Black Swan is about these unexpected events that end up controlling our lives, the world, the economy, history, everything. Before they happen we consider them close to impossible; after they happen we think that they were predictable and partake of a larger scheme. They are rare, but their impact is monstrous. My main problem is: Why we don't know that these events play such a large role. Why are we blind to them?" "...I hated school because I liked to daydream and the system tried to stop me from that. Later, I figured out that that the system taught you what little certainties we think we had, and trained you to become a sucker by making you ashamed of saying "I don't know". The world is too ambiguous --the Black Swan comes from believing in crisp and neat texture of reality, and from the overestimation of our skills in mapping the world." Art Fairs, auction houses and galleries exist at the pleasure of the financial community and those that function in it ...careful - "It seemed so obvious that people in Wall Street didn't know what was going on, yet thought that they did. It was so blatant that they overestimated their explanations, the role of "skills", yet didn't realize it. So I kept a tally of predictions and realized they can't predict but somehow manage to convince themselves they could. The Black Swan, that rare, high-impact event, was the main reason for their failure to predict and understand the world...."

His new book will be out soon and it might provide intellectual fuel for new thought about not only the art markets but making art - time for POMO to GO! Highly recommended!