Nassim Taleb: More debt will not solve economic crisis
12th May 2010
The world's governments have to put in 'blood, sweat and tears' to end the global financial crisis, one expert has suggested.
In an interview with Bloomberg Radio, The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed out that the economic downturn arose because of growing debt and suggested borrowing more money may not be the best way to rectify this.
Taleb, who is a professor of risk engineering at New York University, likened the ongoing financial crisis to a 'cancer' affecting the world's economies and claimed 'all we've been giving the patient is painkillers'.
'The tumour is getting worse because we are transforming private debt into public debt and public debt is not manageable,' he told the broadcaster.
Offering advice to global leaders, the expert recommended they take urgent steps to cut public debt as it is 'immoral' that future generations should be expected to pay for the mistakes of this one.
The Black Swan, which examines how random events dictate the outcome of everyday occurrences and worldwide events, was described as 'idiosyncratically brilliant' in the Sunday Telegraph by historian Niall Ferguson.