Riots detract from scrapping $70bn of debt

The financial markets made the front pages at the weekend. Not because, as is more usually the case, the Dow or the Footsie had hit new highs or new lows; or because the euro was, once again, floundering; or because some influential Central Banker said that inflation was not a threat, could be a threat or was the biggest danger to economic growth since - well, the last bout of inflation.

It was last Friday's riots in the City of London which made the news bulletins and left some of my friends over there feeling shaken not to say stirred at events.

I was flipping through a few charts when I received a message from a pal in Britain telling me that all the staff of her firm were stuck in their building and had been advised not to leave because there was serious rioting going on outside. At the time nobody was exactly sure what was happening but, she said, there were all sorts of rumours - one of which was that a cement mixer was depositing its load in, on or around the LIFFE exchange floor.

Since most of the excitement which goes on in the markets is of the disem bodied type - numbers running up and down screens rather than anything more physical happening - people in London were, at first anyway, amused rather than alarmed at events. But the news reports of absolute mayhem which followed were rather more disturbing.

My friend was initially more concerned about missing a hot date than getting thumped in the face, but - as she confided afterwards - getting thumped was beginning to look a more and more likely scenario. I originally thought that the protest was to do with recent attempts to have all Third World debt rescinded, but the news coverage said that it was just an "anti-capitalist" demonstration.

Apparently the protesters were targeting "morally and politically-incorrect" companies - which, let's face it, covers a multitude. Is a company morally incorrect for making money out of the labour of its workers in the first place? Is it politically-incorrect because its board consists solely of white males over the age of 35? Does this mean that it's right to smash the windows with crowbars and terrorise the people inside? That's always the problem with peaceful protests that become violent - no matter how much sympathy you might have with the sentiments of the protesters, it's difficult to maintain an air of understanding when someone is lobbing a brick in your direction. And just because a company exists to provide a service and make money from it, this doesn't mean that it's morally or politically incorrect.

Somehow "anti-capitalist" smacks of a bygone age - of inefficient state ownerships and downtrodden workers with no rights whatsoever. I'm the last person in the world to say that things are perfect now; too much still depends on your age or your sex or whether or not you've got a decreasing golf handicap to make things as fair as they should be. There are far too many companies where people in management positions award themselves disproportionately to the efforts of their workers. And there will always be people for whom the words "ethical" and "moral" are nothing more than inconvenient double-entries in the dictionary. Equally, though, there is an increasing number of companies which try to promote good working practice and award all employees fairly. However, shareholders (and protesters are as likely to be shareholders in companies as anyone else) tend to see the worth of their company in the performance of the share price. Until we decide that we're prepared to sacrifice a certain amount of price performance for ethical trading, there will always be some just cause for complaint. Though not necessarily for spray painting London Wall and Trafalgar Square.

Of course, I was never much of an active protester myself, always preferring the maxim of trying to change things from within. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but at least that way the only person who got hurt was myself.

Mind you, the reports of traders repelling the rioters by pouring bottles of champagne over them and showering them with photocopied £50 notes would have been funny if the whole thing hadn't been so serious.

Sadly, it also detracted from the action of the G8 countries to wipe out $70 billion (€67.84 billion) of Third World debt at the G8 summit in Cologne which, as I said, was what I thought the protests were about in the first place. The deal also cuts the qualifying period for countries looking for debt relief to three years from the six years they had to wait previously.

The issue of cancelling debt is fraught with ideology and practicalities and, if I were able to come up with the radical solution, no doubt I'd be winging my way to Norway for a Nobel prize.

But I guess it's fair to say that, no matter how much debt the West wipes out it'll never be enough to satisfy those who want everything cancelled.

The problem, of course, has its roots in the despotic regimes in many of these countries which were so enthusiastically supported by the West in the past. If you prop up a dictator by lending him enough money to build vast armies and ornate palaces and buy a dozen or so armoured-plated Rolls, you can hardly expect the impoverished people of that country to be overly enthusiastic about paying back the money once the dictator has been booted out. And it does seem rather ridiculous that we're handing out aid to these countries on the one hand, while demanding loan repayments on the other.

I can understand them wanting the debt wiped out. But unless they're key business influencers, what are the chances?

Meantime, the market got its closest hint yet on the vexed question of US interest rates from Alan Greenspan when he spoke to Congress last Thursday. He commented on the tightness of the labour market and the difficulty of maintaining productivity gains and was altogether more hawkish than he's been in quite a while. And, in time honoured way, the market was so relieved that the Fed might just engage in a pre-emptive strike and hike rates at the end of the month that everything ended higher on the day and the capitalists went home a little richer. Even if they did have to sneak out of their buildings wearing T-shirts and jeans instead of Thomas Pink and tailored suits.

Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed-income specialist at NCB Stockbrokers