Shrink Rap: Dear Abby, It's Time to Apologize

That's why they pay you so much every year, right? To analyze everything you can get your hands on, interpret it, and then make judgments for your employer. Abby, while you may have done well for your employer, you failed in your duty to investors.

You could have used your stature to alert investors. At the very least, you could have told us to be careful, that the market was too frothy, that we were being set up for a major bursting of the bubble. But you didn't do it. You were just one more analyst who was part of the problem, when you could have been part of the early-warning radar.

Why not at least admit that you and other analysts exacerbated the problem? I don't have to tell you how much your profession has suffered a deserved disrepute and how poor the image of brokerage analysts has become.

In the last three years, I've never heard you say you may have been mistaken. I've never heard you say your analysis may have been overly influenced by the circumstance of the times. Why not, Abby? Why no apology?

Abby, show the investing public that at least one influential analyst has the integrity to admit that she was wrong. Then maybe some others will take your lead and follow.

I will never again take your analysis seriously. You have lost your credibility with me and with millions of other investors. Whatever analytic skills or insights you possess will never again be appreciated by those who can now see that back then, you were simply a cog in the market complex, who wouldn't speak up for the small investor.

You owe us an apology, Abby. And we're still waiting for it.