DeLong-Awaited Confession

Said a chastened Professor DeLong,
"This admission I cannot prolong:
When I held that the banks
Knew the risks in their ranks,
I was ruefully, woefully wrong."

From the American Economic Association 2011 annual meeting: UC Berkeley economics professor (and former Treasury official) Brad DeLong, leading off a panel on "What's Wrong (and Right) With Economics," offered a list of "The Things I Believed Before the Financial Crisis That Turned Out Not to be True." First among them: "That the Highly-Leveraged Banks Had Control Over Their Risks."