[neilk]

You're right in some of your criticisms -- I had already edited it to remove some of that language.

But do we have no middle ground here?

We agree, for instance, that most people really AREN'T equipped to understand finance as it is practiced. The difference is that you believe there is a class of people whose advice can be relied upon. Taleb thinks not for epistemological reasons. The perverse incentives I mentioned are (for him) barely worth discussing, since they are just corruption rather than self-delusion.

(And when I say corruption, I don't mean they are necessarily evil people; I mean their agenda is now misaligned with the customers').

Anyway, I keep saying "Taleb says" because I am not well versed in these matters. I study it about as much as a layperson can, and all I know is that most of it still seems too complex to predict.

[BrentRitterbeck]

There is a class of people whose advice can be relied upon. It's up to you to find out who those people are. If your broker is not performing up to snuff, you have the right to fire him. It's just like I have the right to fire my auto mechanic, who knows more about cars than I do, if he's not doing a good job.

As for finance being complex, it's really not.