Via Bloomberg Taleb says: We have had worst form of banking structure.. Capitalism when banks made profits, Socialism when banks showed losses! 2 Tiered structure is the way to go , where the First tier comprises banks that are completely nationalized and are operated as utility companies. Second tier comprises companies that are free to take any risk they want to take,but with the rider that they will never ever be bailed out!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrGmhg4Dgpg&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]

Via Bloomberg The IMF report released yesterday , Jan 27, signaled that write downs and losses at banks totaling $1.1 TRILLION so far are only half of what’s to come. Losses on that scale would leave banks needing at least $500 billion in fresh capital to restore confidence in their balance sheets. Here is how fast things are changing…A couple of months back, I read a book called “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown” by Charles R Morris.

You cannot expect to read mathematics the way you read a novel. If you zip through a page in less than an hour, you are probably going too fast. When you encounter the phrase “as you should verify”, you should indeed do the verification, which will usually require some writing on your part. When steps are left out, you need to supply the missing pieces. You should ponder and internalize each definition.

This is a book which I have been planning to read for quite some time, may be since an an year . Finally found sometime to spend on this book. However the book turned out be just about OK, not engaging, considering the amount of hype around it .Having said that, this book has to be read by anyone who is in to back testing trading rules / strategies and has only a vague idea of stats!