In these times, the Financial Times is providing excellent views on what has been described as a financial crime committed against the investment community, and, by extension, against the world's poor people.

A prominent article, abutting on an article by Irwin Stezler, the famous American economic contributor to London's The Sunday Times, detailed unambiguously the nature of the financial wrongdoing which caused the credit crunch. For the first time, we come across the term 'financial crime' in the FT. This is far stronger than 'malfeasance' which has often appeared in this column when referring to the present troubles.

'Malfeasance' is wrongdoing in a position of trust. It is bad enough, but it is by no means equal to the criminality to be found on the margins of any society. For the first time, crime is being reported as having invaded the realms of high finance on Wall Street. We have also heard about the suicide of the head of a world famous Swiss wealth management bank. We should be glad that a searchlight of daring academic research has focused on the nefarious metaphoric night bomber attempting to blow up our peace and prosperity.

Now that truth is out about the financial crime which has destabilised the world, we can rest assured that, at least, the process of repair has started. It will be some time before ordinary investors will come to trust their bankers again. The heavily depressed 1930s were succeeded by decades when the UK bank rate languished at two per cent. We are again in a similar situation.

The stock exchanges of the US and Europe were largely unproductive in the 1970s after being plagued by the five-fold oil price rises of the Yom Kippur War, and later in 1979 by the mayhem caused by the fall of the Shah of Iran.

This time round, it is a professor of risk engineering at New York University Polytechnic Institute by the name Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and his associate Pablo Triana, a derivatives consultant, who are exposing the world's financial criminal predicament. They are also attempting to provide a solution. It is not however a solution with which I agree totally. There is no denying the integrity of the accusation of financial crime which Taleb and Triana are making, and which the FT has deemed worthy of prominence.

I will mention just one statistic which is an illustration of the extent of the financial crime which has engulfed the US.

A recent report by US consultancy firm United for a Fair Economy has predicted that the subprime mortgage crisis will cause ethnic minorities to lose up to $213 billion.

According to Taleb and Triana, the major cause of these financial crimes is the parlous bank economic forecasting system. They state explicitly: "when you see a quantitative 'expert', shout for help, call for his disgrace, make him accountable." They openly state, as has been said before on the causes of the Enron debacle, that University MBA courses, especially the Harvard ones, are massively to blame.

It is beyond doubt that financial crimes have been committed against society by bankers and their advisers who should have known better. I would like to ask Taleb and Triana if they know all there is to know about the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. What has been the role of outgoing President Bush and his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in all this? Do they dare speak about it? Or will it be like the Cuban missile crisis which gave up its secrets only years later.

I still believe this time of financial turbulence caused by crime holds great profit-taking opportunities, not only to great financial institutions but also to ordinary people, who care to keep themselves informed.

Kazakhmys, as I have often pointed out, is offering great sport with its predictable, but by no means easily predictable, share price movements. Investors should not test their luck - a 15 per cent gain in a few days should make them happy. A market exhibiting volatility is a trader's paradise.

The greatest opportunities lie in shares in commodities like the oil and copper of BHP Billiton. Money-making promotes market recovery. There are ample signs from the behaviour of the Nymex oil futures curve that the optimistic forecasts of the World Bank of oil at $75 will materialise. The present financial crime trauma through highly objectionable will be probably drowned in a sea of prosperity, or rather of more affordable oil and certainly not of oil at $150. He who dares will win.

johnazzopardivella@hotmail.com