Black Swan author for bank nationalisation

LONDON: Bank nationalisations are ���absolutely necessary��� to avoid taxpayers having to bear the burden of their risk-taking, said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the best-selling finance book ���The Black Swan.���

���You cannot trust the banks in taking risks,��� Taleb said in an interview. ���We have a very strange situation in which it���s the worst of capitalism and socialism, a situation in which profits were privatized and losses were socialized. We taxpayers have the worst.���

The global economy will slow close to a halt this year as more than $2 trillion of bad assets in the US help sink economies from Russia to the UK, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday. Taleb echoed comments from New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who says the majority of US banks are insolvent.

���You have to eventually nationalize US banks, you have to take the problem by the horns,��� Roubini said. ���In my view, actually most of the US banking system is insolvent.���