ABSTRACT
The dialectic interplay between the ordinary and extraordinary has been a feature of the best strategic thinking since ancient times. Author's methodological approach is inspired by an attitude reminiscent of Taleb's. Over decades, given periodic business cycles, what seems extraordinary becomes ordinary and should be expected to recur, including the dire effects of crises. This is why Taleb focuses attention on seemingly rare Black Swan events, like financial crises, that may nonetheless have momentous or even catastrophic impact. The efficient market hypothesis (EMH), the foundation of most of modern mathematical finance theory, is an extension of the neoclassical myth of the market into the realm of the financial markets. There is a critical methodological consequence to economists assumption that the price system contains all the information that is necessary for understanding economies: their blindness to all things private. The author's conclusions represent the present limit of his imagination, but do not let the limits of his imagination limit yours.
