British Economists to Queen: We're Sorry

(AP)  Sorry Ma'am - we just didn't see it coming.

A British newspaper reported Sunday that a group of eminent economists have apologized to Queen Elizabeth II for failing to predict the financial crisis.

The Observer newspaper reported that a letter has been sent to the Queen after she demanded, during a visit to the London School of Economics last November, to know why nobody had anticipated the credit crunch.

According to the newspaper, the letter says that says "financial wizards" who believed that their plans to manage risky debts and protect the financial system were infallible were guilty of "wishful thinking combined with hubris."

Signatories to the three-page letter include Tim Besley, a member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee and historian Peter Hennessy.

The newspaper said the content was discussed during a seminar with a group of leading economists in June, including Nick MacPherson, a permanent secretary at Britain's Treasury, and Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill.

"In summary, your majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole," the newspaper quoted the letter as saying.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the correspondence, but said the Queen often discusses current issues with experts. In March, Mervyn King became the first Bank of England governor to be invited for private talks at the palace.

"The Queen always displays an interest in current issues and is kept abreast of current issues. Obviously the recession is very topical," Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

Luis Garicano, a professor at the London School of Economics, said he had discussed the origins of the crisis with the Queen during her visit. He said she had asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"

The London School of Economics was not immediately available for comment, or to provide a copy of the letter.

[cameraphone]

At first I did not understand why David Letterman needed to apologize to Sarah Palin, but after reading this article I now know why:)

[proudmilvet]

While i understand the British people respect her, why does the Queen have to be Apologized to? With all their wealth,the Royal family will never have to worry about any kind of Economic hardship. The so-called Economists should instead Apologize to the average British Citizen.

[curiously1]

This is when not being Japanese is good !

[debinok1]

The crook never sees the cops coming because he is to busy trying to cover his tracks. Same thing here, the economists and the bankers were to busy trying to cover their own actions that they were not looking at the bubble when it burst.

[edward1975-2009]

I don't know why they are apologizing, the Obama administration with the help of the Pelosi led Congress, have funneled billions of American taxpayer dollars through AIG, to bail them and other economies out, while we here at home enjoy the greatest Depression in the history of this nation.

[Illuminated1]

Susie Orman had been talking about this for years before it finally hit.
She practically predicted the date...
These so called experts knew it was coming and did nothing because their friends were making so much money off the scam.

[John_Merritt]

I believe it is the illusion of 'real' many are having a problem with. Since the electronic age has developed everybody has been playing with a fake currency or what I call an illusory currency.

Money doesn't usually change hands in most transactions, but a credit or deficit appears and is explained away too easily. Balance sheets get out of whack because man's perception is that everything should be a paper holding. How many times have we heard 'its only on paper'?

Paper is a number, is a commodity and a novelty and for many it became imaginary. Too many people are playing in a 'monopoly' board game world and use everything on credit, which is good to an extent. But we do everything to an extreme.

Many do not know when 'enough is enough' or 'too little is not enough'. So we push the envelope. Hence, we have become indebted to everyone we never intended to. It is going to take a while to figure out how to handle this mess, because even the big banks may be having problems with accounting.

An audit won't help because there is a quagmire of assorted derivatives and commodities that are just mind boggling. That is why 'they' threw money at the problem. To flood the plains with money would be easier than to account for what they did not know they even had, or not. (If that was hard to decipher, try thinking that way).

Have a good day guys.

[woeisme1]

If none of the economists could see this coming one has to wonder just what they are being taught in school.

[brianbwb-2009]

There is no way they could not see what had been predicted long ago as the inevitable outcome of deregulated greed. They saw it full well, but lied in order to please their paymasters.

They would now have suckers believe that they stood between two iron rails with wooden planks underneath, heard the whistle, saw the approaching light, felt the vibrations, heard the "cho-choo", and are now saying they didn't foresee that a train was coming.

In America there is also no way that the financial crisis was not understood by trained economists, when even a child could tell that the one way flow of money to the top has a limit.

When corporate America started laying off labor en masse back in the mid 70s, how can it not be foreseen that sooner or later the corporations themselves would lose because there was no one left who could afford what they produced?

These so-called economists are nothing more than a propaganda arm of the "trickle down" fascists, who still have yet to show, after 30+ years, why it isn't trickling down.

Pay me half of what they get, and I can give much more accurate assessments.

[patriot2381]

Financial experts are nothing more than pompus fools, bubbling over with words, but have little control and understanding over their domain. They profit in good times, hide in bad times, and otherwise wander the fields with us sheeple.