Watch the investment bankers when the asset sales start – they can screw us without our noticing

Alf recently posted an item on bonking bankers.

Today he draws his constituents’ attention to their flair for screwing their clients – in the US, at least – when they are not screwing their mistresses.

A particulary shabby case has been highlighted in The New York Times.

The item spotted by Alf kicks off with a proposition that is glaringly obvious:

If there’s one thing we’ve all learned in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it’s that stiffing your client is not a crime. Not if you’re an investment bank.

The writer illustrates this with a couple of examples.

Enough to drive an optimist to drink

It had seemed the American economy might be coming right, which meant the world economy could look forward to a recovery, which would be great news for the export-dependent New Zealand economy.

Ben Bernanke, at the Fed, was seeing green shoots; President Obama was seeing glimmers of hope; the stock market was exuding confidence – but Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winner who writes for the New York Times, isn’t ready to sound the all-clear.

Ordinarily, that would be enough for Alf to demand Krugman’s arrest, to be tossed into a tumbrel with other gloom-sayers, hauled through the streets of Wellington and be jeered by the populace, then thrown into the stocks for a couple of days.

In this case, extradition proceedings would be required.

More important, Alf concedes Krugman has given four reasons for caution. Maybe we should consider them.