Wall Street groveling

The New York Times has a nice round-up of the apologies proffered by various titans of Wall Street, which range from not much of an apology at all ("The issue is not so much the products, but the housing market”) to pretty contrite ("The issue is not so much the products, but the housing market.”).

But if you're looking for some really good groveling, check out Citigroup's statement upon announcing that it had made $4.4 billion in profits over the first quarter. "All of us at Citi recognize that we would not be where we are without the assistance of American taxpayers," says the company. "We are gratified that Citi has been able to repay their TARP investment in our company, with a substantial return, as well as create a significant increase in the value of their equity in Citi. Still, that is not enough. We owe taxpayers a huge debt of gratitude for assisting us at a critical time."

And indeed they do. All that said, you can sort of understand why the Wall Street CEOs aren't more personally apologetic. Given that all their colleagues and competitors made pretty much the same mistake, it's hard for them to understand why anyone thinks they personally did something wrong. It really was bigger than Dick Fuld. But that goes to how tone-deaf they are: They're being asked to apologize as representatives of -- and participants in -- Wall Street, which collectively did something terrible.