Eight months after Queen Elizabeth asked scholars at the London School of Economics how they had failed to predict the financial equivalent of a meteor smashing into the planet, she finally got her answer: Basically, Your Majesty, we were all high on money, and no one wanted the party to end.
More accurately, a three-page letter from a group of eminent British economists said, “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.
Thanks for clearing that up. Now, off with your heads!
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2 Responses to British Economists Try to Spread the Blame for Financial Crash
eric_gates - July 28, 2009 at 4:44 pm
If anyone’s head comes off, then almost everyone’s should.
Human beings are, by nature, fallible with respect to money and planning for the future, and a financial education does not, despite outward appearances, render its recipient non-human.
It happened before. It’s happening now. It will most certainly happen again.
dhensler - July 28, 2009 at 5:27 pm
In a word . . . GREED . . . by homebuyers, mortgage brokers, lenders, financial engineers, politicians, investment bankers, insurers, etc., . . . greed that blinded normally rational people to risk. GREED always nails the greedy in the end. Unfortunately, there is always collateral damage.