Sorry ma'am we just didn't see it coming

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Source: MSNBC

LONDON - 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.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32156155/ns/business-world_business/

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Did anyone mention the President Bush the perpetrator of the economic decline to her Majesty?

[Mz Pip]

1. The Queen will be fine

THe apology should be directed at towards the people who are hit the hardest by this.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. I know, things are getting bad in the UK

[Dutch]

16. Yup. Apologise to the people who are losing their jobs and their homes.

Not much prospect of Brenda facing either of those two eventualities any time soon.

[Hugin]

3. I don't know why, but, this made me smile.

:)

[hobbit709]

4. Evidently being an eminent economist makes you blind to the real world economy.

[truedelphi]

5. LOL. It's sort of like being a weather man inside a TV studio

Who is busy predicting a gorgeous weekend, although any one with a window view of the world would see it's raining cats and dogs.

[geckosfeet]

8. Hmmm yes. The more eminent, the less useful.

[dipsydoodle]

6. .....as the actress said to the Bishop

I'm sorry - I just didn't see..........

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. I haven't heard that saying for a long time!

[dipsydoodle]

15. It's an age thing

and I'm old enough to remember it. :)

[ScottLand]

7. Bush should weigh in on this.

He can say "I didn't see it coming" better than anyone!

[Warpy]

9. I predicted it along with a lot of other people

on the DU economy board. Nouriel Roubini predicted it. Krugman was a little hazy on the details, but he said something wicked this way comes.

The mystery to me is why all those high priced suits who apologized to Her Majesty missed it. Were they so blinded by a positive cash flow that they missed the fact that it was being generated by debt and a whole lot of shenanigans supported by wishful thinking?

Personally, I think any economist who missed the unfolding disaster, especially after August 2007 when the CDO/CDS scam started to collapse, should hang up his Guccis, put on some overalls, and consider a career doing something useful like digging ditches.

Apology's not going to do it, boys. You've proven yourselves hopelessly incompetent.

[Sal Minella]

10. But those who knew about Goldman-Sachs' stock-profit pumping

magical quantitative divining overwhelmacious machine weren't talking.

If any of those (?five?) guys had been talking, the Queen would have known.

[Eric J in MN]

11. I hate it when the recession is called a "credit crunch."

Credit is usually tighter during a recession.

But most recessions aren't described as a "credit crunch."

Framing the problem that way implies that the solution is to give money to banks, instead of giving more food stamps to ordinary people.

[LeftishBrit]

14. I think it's just the latest euphemism...

100 years ago, people spoke of a 'panic' or 'crisis'. This sounded too scary, so the word 'depression' came into use. After the Great Depression, this was also scary, so it was changed to 'recession'. Recessions have got some pretty bad associations by now, so this time it's a 'credit crunch'. Probably the next one will be called 'tasty ice cream' or something.

[TheBigotBasher]

13. Actually the problem of mounting debt

combined with house price inflation was spotted by both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party in 2001 and 2005, just no one listened to them. (You can find the manifesto for both Parties online).

[T_i_B]

17. At least the Queen still has a job

Maybe the apology should be made to folk down the local job centre?