The U.S. job market turned weaker last month, dashing hopes for an economic rebound.
A report from the Labor Department on Friday shows employers cut 92,000 jobs in February, when economists had expected the U.S. would continue adding jobs, albeit at a sluggish pace. The unemployment rate inched up to 4.4%.
Job gains for December and January were also revised downward, with December now showing a net loss 17,000 jobs.
The weaker than expected jobs report comes as Americans are already anxious about the high cost of living. Those affordability concerns will likely be amplified as the war in Iran has triggered a sharp rise in energy prices. AAA reports the average price of gasoline jumped another 7 cents overnight, to $3.32 a gallon. That’s 21 cents higher than this time last year.
So, in order for the unexpected number to be caused by a Black Swan event, the event has to be unaccounted for in modelling. If the number has a 0.1% chance of happening but is caused by variables that were accounted for, it doesn’t count. Is this correct?
And a number that had 50% chance of happening can also be caused by a BS event. Basically the status of BS event is unrelated to the probabilty of the resulting numbers.
And now I’m not sure of what I should do with that concept
I see how it could get used as a variant of “the future can never be determined with full certainty and therefore I can’t be blamed for anything”
Taleb’s book is worth a read, its been few years since I did
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan%3A_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbable
i think he’s a Professor teaching statistics at University now ?
You’ve basically got it, yeah.
Its… admittedly complex to grasp, or explain in detail without me getting a cup of coffee and then giving a whole ass intermediate/advanced level statistics crash course.
The core idea is that… you are not as smart as you think you are, not matter how much your hedge fund or whatever pays you, no matter your pedigree, or what not.
Things can happen that you literally are not capable of conceiving as possible, untill they happen.
Thats a real Black Swan.
But, thats not the same things as things you can concieve of, but think are unlikely, think can be easily hedged against, or aren’t worth hedging against.
Thats just your own hubris.
And now with BlackRock utterly collapsing, we’re all about to find out our pensions and 401ks were … essentially mostly theoretical.
It is like when sg1 went back in time because a solar flair intercepted them while they were traveling.
To split hairs, I think it can be conceivable, but just not possible to assign a viable probability to.
Some one could have conceived a black swan, but since it had never ever happened, there was no data to drive a percent chance of finding one
Some virus that instead of killing anyone just manages to somehow make everyone compulsively tell the truth. Could be imagined, but it would be ridiculous to ask how that possibility is accommodated for in someones financial model.
Even if someone could somehow define a probability for that event, no way of really modeling the outcome since the ability to lie has been always part of the economy.