读Geopolitical Alpha（四）——The Wiza

好吧，还是绿野仙踪 —— 过去的好时光啊。

开头作者一句话，就带到了纸醉金迷的华尔街：

“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.”

                                                                — Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 

据说电影很好看，有机会看看。这一章是讲什么呢？

I aim to give the investor and businessperson the tools to break openthe black box of consultants, to be able to differentiate a stellar one from asubstandard one. The constraint framework allows investors to criticallyevaluate and wield the insights from experts and frees them from blinddependence.

作者接着说，一共有5大类的限制：

First, no matter what the person across your conference table tells you, he is not in actual intelligence.

作者的进一步解释，这个是要特意强调谦逊和概率思考 —— 就是不要相信吹牛B：

The way to differentiate a good political consultant from the bad ishumility. Not necessarily humility of behavior, but intellectual humility – doubt – built into his or her analysis. If your consultant givesyou a high-conviction view without a scenario analysis or a probabilitydecision tree, he is not humble and is likely overstating his statisticallyinsignificant insights. The real experts will present you with either a setof scenarios and data points to monitor or a decision tree with probabilities.

第二点，是意识到这个的复杂性：

Second, political and geopolitical paradigm shifts discussed inChapter 1 have moved the market-relevant questions from the frontiersof economic development to the core...  in the complex political and economic systems of the most liquidmarkets – the G20 economies – the constraints to power are too great.

第三，是想说你的独家消息可能并不独家：

Third, intelligence-driven forecasting can lead to “funneling,” theoversimplification and mass dissemination of information from a handful, or even just one, source.

第四，是考虑到消息的互动性、反身性，以及背后的人性：

Fourth, policymakers and the markets enjoy a reflexive relationship,meaning policymakers often use the markets to force action fromtheir political counterparts.

最后，是专家真的是专家吗？

Finally, are you sure you are speaking with an expert?

所以，最终作者是想强调，这是一项不能外包的工作：

Most investors think that the way to political or geopolitical insight is through access to intelligence. No matter how many times they get burned, they keep buzzing back to dive-bomb the “intelligence” streetlamp.

一定要有第一手的信息：

That said, I don’t think investors should wall themselves off in theiroffice and draw decision-tree diagrams with no contact to the outsideworld. They just need to approach all aspects of that outside world withhealthy skepticism.

其实哪行哪业不都是这样吗？作者的三点建议，关于如何寻找专家：

Academics: Academia is filled with undervalued and underappreciated assets.

Technocrats: Talk to retired policymakers and insiders, but adjustyour expectations... If you intend to speak with former government officials, go for the second- and third-tier technocrats and bureaucrats rather than the top dogs.

Regulators: Sector-specific insights do exist and are valuable. If you need sector intelligence, hire a consultant that specializes in regulatory analysis.

最后再次强调：

As investors, we cannot outsource our fiduciary duty to someone else.

The ultimate forecasting buck stops with us.

这是你自己的生意。