>>"Confident elites simply don't expect the Black Swans"

This is a nuanced argument to parse. On one hand, black swans, by their very nature, are unpredictable (at least according to Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable). On the other hand, I don't know if the problem is "elites not expecting". I think it more likely that it is - willful ignorance combined with bad risk analysis combined with opportunity-cost probability models combined with not enough personal incentives to motivate the "elite" to think deeply enough about probability analysis combined with financial insurance premiums and payouts based on calculations of adverse events with low probability outcomes. (sorry for the run-on sentence.)

Example: people say that the global financial meltdown starting in 2008 was a black swan event. I disagree. Many people expected such an event to occur - though the timing was unpredictable. Many of the people that were warning about such an event were ignored by "financial elites" that were more interested in profits over stability. These "financial elites" operated with a high degree of confidence in the belief that they would be able to pass the buck to someone else without taking responsibility and paying the price for the consequences of their reckless gambling. And that's exactly what happened.

IMO, all these so-called gurus and pundits that after-the-fact kept blaming "bad models" for their failures - were disingenuous and possibly even bullshitting to cover their arses. (of course some of them may have been naive enough to believe that all the blame could be placed at the feet of "bad risk models").