Her Majesty's question has sparked a series of ludicrous claims about the prescience of individual forecasters.
女王的问题激起一片可笑的声言，纷纷宣称某某预测师有先见之明。
"Although bankers with their fancy MBAs appear to have been dumbfounded by the financial crisis, regular attendees to Gresham College's free public lectures in central London, were not," maintained one press release this month, citing a talk given in November 2002 by Avinash Persaud . But the lecture is as disappointing as the claims are inflated. "Despite record corporate bankruptcies, weak economies and a market meltdown, banks are generally safe" was Prof Persaud's conclusion.
“尽管有着各式MBA的银行家们似乎被金融危机惊得目瞪口呆，格雷欣学院(Gresham College)在伦敦市中心举行的免费公开演讲的老听众却不会。”上月发布的一份新闻稿如此宣称，并引证阿维纳什•佩尔绍德(Avinash Persaud)在2002年11月发表的一场演讲。然而，不但这番声明言过其实，那场演讲也令人失望。“尽管企业破产案创纪录、经济疲弱以及市场崩溃，但银行大体上是安全的。”这就是佩尔绍德教授的结论。
Giulio Tremonti, Italy's finance minister, raised the predictive bar last week when he said Pope Benedict XVI was the first to foresee the crisis. A 1985 paper showed, according to Mr Tremonti, "the prediction that an undisciplined economy would collapse by its own rules".
意大利财政部长朱利奥•特雷蒙蒂(Giulio Tremonti)上月提高了预测门槛，声称本笃十六世(Pope Benedict XVI)是第一个预见到危机的。据特雷蒙蒂说，一份1985年的文件显示，本笃十六世“预言放任的经济将自行崩溃”。
Much closer to the truth was the more mundane assessment by Charlie Bean , the Bank of England's deputy governor, who noted that elements of the global economy had troubled lots of economists and policymakers for a long time. "We knew they were unsustainable and worried that the unwinding might be disorderly, though I don't think anyone could have guessed the course that events would actually take," he said.
比较接近事实的是英国央行副行长毕恩(Charlie Bean)较为平实的判断。毕恩指出，全球经济的基本面长期以来困扰着许多经济学家和政策制定者。他表示：“我们知道那不可维系，也担心可能进行无序的调整，但我不认为会有人猜测到实际的调整过程。”