"As If" analysis

Yesterday I read on the comp.databases.olap newsgroup

"We've had a new requirement from our users where they would like toperform 'as-if' analysis on the data."

and in today's Independent

"To listen to what retailers are saying, it's amazing there haven't been more profit warnings."
Perhaps the two phenomena will combine.

We will see a rash of profits warnings and as usual these will be blamed on external events like:
The bad weather
The royal wedding (II)
The state of the housing market
....
We can all analyse the reasons given and say "as if!"