Ajay Banga is not entirely putting his cards on the table.

Ajay Banga is the CEO of Mastercard. As a consumer credit provider, he therefore has a vested interest is broadcasting the ‘eat shit, 20 billion flies can’t be wrong’ line. After all, the last thing Ajay wants is EU consumers hearing the clippety-clop of hooves, and realising it isn’t the Duke of Edinburgh at all, it’s the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. “See what these other fine people are doing” he says, “So it’s OK for you to do it too”.

Mr Banga gave out with the goforit message today, by telling the media that Eurozone consumers are so far weathering the debt crisis with sustained spending.

“It’s almost like a tale of two Europes,” he gushed, “there’s what we read in the newspapers about debt crises and sovereign debt issues. On the other hand, if you look at volumes on the ground, cross-border volumes in Europe, they’re being maintained”.

Well zoop-de-doop and dandy Ajay, but let the Slog just offer a note of caution here. This is precisely what the American homeowner/consumers did in 2007, and their UK equivalents in 2008. Because some folks will be make pension contributions as the approaching asteroid fills the sky.

As we’ve said here many times before, everyone has an agenda. Ajay Banga’s is pretty obvious, but there is a broader point to this piece, and it is as follows: never be impressed because lots of folks are doing something. Especially do not be impressed if lots of heroin addicts are shooting up, because the extrapolation here is ‘they’re addicted the stuff’, not ‘heroin is good for you’.