Queen Wears Same Dress Twice: Recession Proven

Yes, according to an article appearing in LeMonde.fr, a French newspaper website, "the Queen wore the same red coat that she wore for a ceremony at the Sandhurst military academy in the autumn of 2005. During a ball in Slovenia, she wore the same twenty-year-old evening gown.... The Duke of Edinborough had readjustments made to a pair of pants dating back to 1957. The well-published night club excursions of the Princes William and Harry have become more rare. 'The economic situation is atrocious': Her Majesty, who never comments on the news, lost her cool during a ceremony at the London School of Economics, asking her hosts, 'Why didn't anyone realize what was going on?'"


[Thanks to Martinaitchison.co.uk for the great artwork.]

Very good question, Your Highness.

The answer is that many people did realize what was going on. They just didn't have the guts and/or the power to stop it. See some of my previous blogs and links to the Bank of International Settlements' ruminations about the problem since the early 2000s.

We learn a number of interesting things in the French article. For example:

- The Queen is only 264th on the list of wealthy Brits.
- She has no checking account, no credit cards, no money on her person.
- Her fortune is worth about 320 million pounds (about $477 million).
- A new book by Jon Temple, Living Off the State, accuses the royal accountants of confusing the State's assets with their own private interests.

Ah, the English. The royal family can always bring us a smile, even in the direst of times.