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It's Falkenstein who is the crank. You can tell he's read Taleb's work with a chip on his shoulder (as many have). Taleb's not saying "shit happens," he's saying, "you can't measure risk -- ever." You can approximate portions, like VaR and bond rating agencies, but we've been way too cocky that our measurements cover it all.

I think allegations of "crank"-ness were discussed until about a year ago. September vetted him. End of story.

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Falkenstein has a weird outlook. It seems to mostly involves seeing those things that are well-liked by wallstreet as successes and anything else as failures - Mandlebrot is thus failure since he hasn't sold his models as a product to wallstreet.

In another post on his blog, he describes the financial regulation of the market 1930-1970 as a "failure" based on the rent-extraction which the specialists derived. Never mind the stable growth of the economy during much of that time and the various financial disasters since then.

You can tell he's read Taleb's work with a chip on his shoulder (as many have).

Did it occur to you that Taleb's frequently inflammatory tone might have something to do with this?

He's saying that Taleb's points are not very useful or original.

I know. I read it. My point was that he thinks that because he thinks that Taleb is simply saying 'shit happens'. He's not. We believed in the Gaussian curves and risk measured in standard derivations. We believed VaR and it ate us for lunch. If it's not very useful or original, September would not have proved him out so well.