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Dr Raj Thamotheram
• 1st
Living Adventurously!
1h • 1 hour ago
#CoronavirusPandemic is not a #BlackSwan!
It was predicted and *could have been heavily mitigated* as South Korea & Singapore have shown.
Governments have made huge mistakes: China in how it handled the early news, USA from the very beginning. But my emphasis is on investors. It's my network, they have a big influence on co's & governments and they should have learnt after the #GFC & other #PreventableSurprises where investors have colluded with/enabled dysfunctional corporate & market behaviour.
Sadly investors didn't learn & have failed to do what they could have. The post-mortems will happen and investment decision-makers will likely be as resistant to learning & change as they have been before. But this time everyone in the world is/will be affected so there will be less opportunity to hide or make excuses.
So why raise this now? Words matter: anyone who is using the phrase 'black swan' is either ill informed or actively part of the problem. But most importantly, the folks who have failed to act have many critical weeks and months ahead, and the potential for collective mismanagement is high.
So whilst you stay safe & look after your nearest & dearest, please also stay aware and engaged - it also matters.
https://lnkd.in/en7hqBs
🦠 This is not a black swan
exponentialview.co
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Peter Burgess
Peter BurgessStatus is online
Peter Burgess You
Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org developing True Value Impact Accounting
5s
I have a view similar to that of Dr. Raj ... my generation of leadership has established a global socio-enviro-economic system that is very very profitable, but otherwise dangerously dysfunctional and catastrophically fragile is this coronavirus health crisis is demonstrating. This is what optimizing for profit performance over decades has given us. Stupidity on steroids. PeterB #TVM
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Guan Seng Khoo, PhD
Guan Seng Khoo, PhD 2nd degree connection 2nd
APAC Adviser at Kamakura Corporation
24m
So, I don’t think Raj meant that in his post, but probably referring to the state of complacency and the feeling that it “was someone else’s problem” remote from ....., but Raj would be the appropriate person to respond. My apologies if I was too presumptuous!
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Dr Raj ThamotheramStatus is online
Dr Raj Thamotheram Author
Living Adventurously!
20m
Thanks. Yes I've said everything I need to. Some will choose not to understand.
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Daniela Carosio
Daniela Carosio 2nd degree connection 2nd
Senior Partner at Sustainable Value Investors
11m
Thanks Raj for pointing it out. We are all saying this is unprecedented, yes in the consequences. But it could be included into 'preventible surprises'. Here and there the deniers have made a u-turn, there are still some deniers of the need to prevent, see Bolsonaro in Brazil for instance. The relevant question now is how we foresee returning to normal…business as usual is of course not possible anymore after this experience. Relevant aspects of human cooperation, interrelations, solidarity, social and environmental health cannot be neglected anymore
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Guan Seng Khoo, PhD
Guan Seng Khoo, PhD 2nd degree connection 2nd
APAC Adviser at Kamakura Corporation
35m
We actually went through something similar with a lot of fear and uncertainty during the SARS period in 2003 with no income for our startup company for over 6 months from early 2003 as none of our potential clients in the Asian region dared to meet us in person if we were to fly in from S’pore, one of the centres of the infection spread, with a constant worry of closing down our company and same for other industries incl that of some of my friends running restaurants specialising in duck and chicken dishes (as SARS virus was associated with the bird flu). The kind of containment and partial lockdown were already practiced together with the split and remote team work environment during this period as well as the infection spread and contagion led to quite a no of deaths as well across all ages. So, when we first got to know about COVID19 in January, S’pore and those countries which experienced SARS were more ‘acceptable’ and amenable to the current measures that might look extreme for some of the countries ....
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Désirée Lucchese
Désirée Lucchese 2nd degree connection 2nd
Responsible Investment Professional | ESG Integration | Climate Risk | Sustainable Impact
36m
Thanks Raj! It is time for system-level Governance. A governance of the commons, led by a reassessment of ‘utility’ and ‘short term gain’. The virus is reminding us of the systemic implications of entrenched economic and financial flaws. Nature and the law of physics state their case. Hopefully we will see more investments in public health care, international pharmaceutical R&D, social and green bonds, greater transparency and resilience thinking.
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Quentin HollandStatus is reachable
Quentin Holland 2nd degree connection 2nd
(TPO) The Private Office Chartered Independent Financial Planners. Ambassador for external Professional Relationships.
1h
I find it fascinating how people are merely sniping at our officials and directors. There is not one official or director in the world who expected, imagined or planned for this global pandemic. None of them will have taken their psost wanting it either. Most all of the work I see going on now by politicians(with sadly some notable exceptions in the EU and US) working their hardest to save people and economies. We need to positively support each other now. Post mortems should always be held after the event not during it.
This is not a black swan
This pandemic was predictable. Now what?
Azeem Azhar
Mar 26
Many terms can be used to describe the Covid-19 pandemic.
Virulent. It has been, spreading to 475,052 people as I type this, faster than SARS.
(Photo by Fabio Jock on Unsplash)
Unprecedented in its economic impact? Certainly. It has delivered the deepest, fastest economic shock in history, according to Nouriel Roubini.
Earlier this month, it took only 15 days for the US stock market to plummet into bear territory (a 20% decline from its peak) – the fastest such decline ever. Now, markets are down 35%, credit markets have seized up and credit spreads (like those for junk bonds) have spiked to 2008 levels. Even mainstream financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley expect US GDP to fall by an annualised rate of 6% in the first quarter and by 24% to 30% in the second. The US Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, has warned that the unemployment rate could skyrocket to above 20% (twice the peak level during the financial crisis).
In other words, every component of aggregate demand – consumption, capital spending, exports – is in unprecedented freefall. While most self-serving commentators have been anticipating a V-shaped downturn – with output falling sharply for one quarter and then rapidly recovering the next – it should now be clear that the Covid-19 crisis is something else entirely.
But there is one thing that it certainly isn’t.
It isn’t a Black Swan event. As defined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, this is an extreme, unforecastable, rare event, a genuine “no-one could predict this” occurrence.
[A]n event with the following three attributes.
First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme 'impact'. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
This was predictable and predicted.
Not just by Bill Gates four years ago at some level of generality. But at the very specific level of detail. Take this paper pointed to me by my friend Vishal Gulati, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection by Cheng, et al from 2007.
As Vishal says:
Vishal Gulati
@vishalgulati_
@iphigenie @azeem You probably dont want to hear this but I think you are wrong about this on many levels
1. This is not 1 paper, there are 1000s such papers on this very risk every year
2. In recent past we had 4 such outbreaks (SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1)
March 26th 2020
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Indeed, Taleb concurs:
such a global pandemic is explicitly presented there as a white swan: something that would eventually take place with great certainty. Such acute pandemic is unavoidable, the result of the structure of the modern world; and its economic consequences would be compounded because of the increased connectivity and overoptimization. As a matter of fact, the government of Singapore […] was prepared for such an eventuality with a precise plan since as early as 2010.
Even at times of this, analysis and specificity, matter. The responses we make today, fire-fighting and battlefield triage, are essential until we get on top of this pandemic. But what happens afterwards, the decisions we take to shape the future, are also vital. Understanding how the major parties in our economies (governments, investors, corporations, boards) prepare for a predictable event is a critical piece of the puzzle.
If our custodes, our governments, were genuinely blindsided by a black swan, that is one matter. If they recoiled, fumbled, at a white one, that is another.
Stay very safe, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE and wash your hands.
Azeem
P.S. 478,283 confirmed cases as I hit send.
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