Black Swans

What Does Black Swan Mean?
A Black Swan is an event or occurrence that varies from what is generally expected of a situation and which is be extremely difficult to predict.

Black Swan Events were described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book, The Black Swan. He is a finance professor and former Wall Street trader.

He used “The Black Swan Theory” to explain the existence and occurrence of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations.

Characteristics of a Black Swan Event

1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
2. The event has a major impact.
3. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected.

Ten Principles for a Black Swan Robust World

Taleb enumerates ten principles for building systems that are robust to Black Swan Events:

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail.
Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks and hence the most fragile become the biggest.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.

4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant or your financial risks.
Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning.
Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”.
Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.
Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement.
Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs.
Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself.

You can read more about Nassim Nicholas Taleb here.

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Lehman Bros’ fancy accounting

There has been much furore in financial sphere over the recent revelation of misleading accounting techniques used by Lehman Bros.
An accounting trick, known as the Repo 105 aided financial relief to Lehman Brothers just before its supernova collapse. It now seems that the shenanigans spells used by them may cast a legal jeopardy for executives of Lehman and its auditors Ernst & Young.

The implosion of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history in September 2008 led the financial meltdown that plunged the economy into the most severe recession since the 1930s, which now thankfully shows some signs of recovery.

How did they do it ?
After puffing itself with billions of troubled assets that couldn’t easily be sold, Lehman camouflaged its debt and financial condition by using the accounting gimmick, the examiner appointed by the bankruptcy court revealed in a 2,200-page report on a yearlong investigation.

The report also unveiled that Lehman put together complex transactions that allowed the firm to sell “toxic,” securities at the end of a quarter wiping them off its balance sheet when regulators and shareholders were examining it and then to quickly buy them back.
The “Repo” here means repurchase.

Now, Repo 105 has entered the list of names of vehicles for accounting tweaks, along with others like Raptor partnerships etc.
In the sagas of those two companies, the role of the accounting firms was central.

Here are some of the accounting scandals that came to light in recent years:

(a) AIG - Accounting of structured financial deals
(b) Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities - Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff. David G. Friehling was charged with securities fraud, aiding and abetting investment adviser fraud, and four counts of filing false audit reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission in regards to this Ponzi scheme. He faces up to 105 years in prison on all of the charges.[33]
(c) Anglo Irish Bank - hidden loans controversy
(d) Satyam Computers - Falsified accounts

In the meltdown’s wake, Justice and the SEC launched wide-ranging investigations of companies across the financial services industry, believed to include insurer American International Group Inc. and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as Lehman. A year and a half after the financial crisis struck, charges haven’t yet come in most of the probes.

The Report doesn’t reach a conclusion on whether executives violated securities laws. It does say that the executives’ decision not to disclose the effects of its business judgments “does give rise to
colorable claims against the senior officers who oversaw and certified misleading financial statements.”

Colorable claims here implies that there appears to be sufficient evidence to support the awarding of civil damages in a trial.

The report says there also are colorable claims against the outside auditors, Ernst & Young, for “its failure to question and challenge improper or inadequate disclosures” in Lehman’s financial statements.

However, EnY said: “We never concluded our review of the matter, because Lehman went into bankruptcy before we completed our audit.”

These incidents certainly reiterate the value of accounting ethics, which have, in recent years gained currency due to the diverse range of accounting services and recent corporate collapses, attention has been drawn to ethical standards accepted within the accounting profession.

Read a related interesting article : Why Lehman Bros went bust; what it means for you

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