But bizarrely enough, it hasn't happened. Sure, there has been plenty of muttering about economists' shortcomings; the groans at their failed forecasts (for instance, the fact that house prices, far from falling by 10 per cent this year as predicted, have actually risen by around 3 per cent) are louder. But even today, in the shadow of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, we still listen obediently when they dispense their wisdom. The ratings agencies, which ought to have had the hardest fall from grace after famously deeming worthless "toxic" assets to be among the highest-grade investments, are still able to provoke panic by merely hinting that they are planning to downgrade a country's debt. We continue to hang on the words of Nobel laureates and professors who entirely failed to see the crisis coming.