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A comment on Japan's Strict Building Codes Saved Lives. Parent comment

Re:Japan's Strict Building Codes Saved Lives by joe_the_user on Friday March 11, 2011 @04:05PM (#2314901)
Aside from the problem of outright extortion, even the savviest financiers can underestimate low-probability risks (as the recent mortgage debacle shows).

While savvy investors may indeed underestimate low-probability risks, I take issue with any claim the mortgage bubble showed this. The sad end of that bubble was an extremely high probability event.

The main thing the debacle showed was the willingness of many people to believe fallacious arguments which made reference to claims about low probability events. Even there, the willingness of investors to believe that standard "this time it's different" line has been shown over and over again.

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Re:Japan's Strict Building Codes Saved Lives by stretchwithme on Friday March 11, 2011 @05:23PM (#2315158)
Yeah. Actually, the savviest investors were the ones betting that the bubble would pop. Of course, the majority thinks otherwise or there would have been no bubble. Savvy in this case was simply looking at the facts and not letting popular opinion keep you from acting.

And, for some, having friends in the government to bail out the fools who bet on the bubble growing forever so you can get paid.

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