Planet Money Deep Read: Nassim Taleb

Today, we hear from Nassim Taleb, the former Wall Street trader who published a book called the Black Swan back in 2007.

The book argues that most economic models fail because they don't take into account rare, high-impact events that wind up driving history. (Taleb calls these events Black Swans.) The argument came out looking pretty good after the 2008 financial crisis.

Earlier this year, a new edition of the book came out, with a new section called "On Robustness & Fragility." Among other things, the new section includes a prescription for withstanding a Black Swan.

The short version: Get rid of debt.