Finance for beginners
How to get excited about banking

Liars and hucksters
Latin America's early frauds.
CLOSE-UP ON: Finance to the Third World - who send it and how much

Lives in the balance
The weak get buffeted by the internationsl monetary system.
CLOSE-UP ON: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Sales Force
A raw deal for producers of raw materials.
CLOSE-UP ON: The human impact.

Finance - THE FACTS

The day of reckoning
Countries that tried to float on petrodollars start to sink. And the banks start to panic.
CLOSE-UP ON: Interest rates.

No Kidding
A basic guide to savings and investment.

Capital punishment
Poor families are squeezed to pay the debts that the banks should be writing off.

ACTION and Worth Reading on... Finance

The NI this month takes the whole world as its starting point. We can never be accused of a lack of ambition - though in this case the cluster of international coinage that makes up the globe on the front cover is actually the work of Argentinian artist Hector Cattolica.

Hector is an old friend of the NI and has produced some of our most striking illustrations over the years, including the portrait of Sandino which introduced last year's Nicaragua issue - and which is his contribution to the modern art gallery in Managua. His too is the collage on our centre pages, with the Indian figure 'defacing' (and refacing) the hundred dollar bill.

Hector, who lives in Paris, was a political exile from Argentina during the dismal years of the military dictatorship. At the end of last year he made his first return visit for 20 years, for emotional reunions with friends and family. He was fresh off the plane from Buenos Aires when we asked him to work on this issue. But he was keen to contribute for it is an issue close to his own heart.

Argentina's new democracy is up against horrendous odds. According to Hector, it's like trying to run a country with as many problems as Uganda - by using a Swiss form of government. One of the most severe problems it faces is its debt to the international banks: some $50 million worth. It remains to be seen whether democracy, not just in Argentina but all over Latin America, can surmount the obstacles which the international banking system will place in its way.

Debt is indeed the subject which Hector, and we, have been trying to illustrate this month. And not without some trepidation, from a writer's point of view. This is the sort of topic which can be more susceptible to visual treatment than plain text. It is easier to place emotional demands on the reader than rational ones; finance can be a very grey and difficult area.

So the approach I've taken has been fairly idiosyncratic. And this magazine, as a result, does not always have as serious a tone as it might. The topic is as gloomy and obscure as they come - but the treatment is lighter than you might expect. And the magazine, for our better-informed readers, may not add too much to their knowledge. It also asks for a level and style of participation in this debate which you might be unwilling to give.

If so, you can reassure yourself with the thought that, compared with the single sheet of paper on which the President of the United States receives his political briefings, the kind of stuff which follows is a multi-layered database of incredible complexity. And you can at least look at the pictures (I'm sure he would).

But for others I hope it does at least offer a starting point. Most newspapers, and most magazines if it comes to that, seem to assume that readers already know the debt story so far and that all they require is an update. In reality few of us have the time or the background to cope with the thousand and one issues that crowd in on us from airwaves and newsprint. And many stories which are already into their third week, or month, or decade, or even century, seem to have gone beyond the point where we can make any sense of them.

This treatment of debt tries to make it easier to approach. But in the end it is not that easy. For some of us it moves into alien territory and demands that we think in unfamiliar ways. But I think it is worth persevering. This is an area of which we should all have a least a little knowledge.

'Must we starve our children to pay our debts?', asks ex-President Nyerere of Tanzania. That's a question to which everyone needs to have some reply.

Letters
Readership Survey
Update
Briefly
Endpiece: by Carol Fewster
Reviews: including the NI Classic
Country profile: Cameroon

COVER ILLUSTRATION: Hector Cattolica
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER