Love and money the talk of the town

“SO how is Gerry Adams,” asked Osama, the New York taxi driver, when he learned I was Irish.

He was surprised to hear the Sinn Féin president was, at that moment, in Manhattan explaining to a glittering gathering of leaders and tycoons how to defuse religious wars.

There was something of a celebrity auction atmosphere about the Clinton Global Initiative. Tycoons or their representatives were waltzed into the press room at regular intervals to announce they had donated a large sum of money and say what it was going towards.

Meanwhile poverty, conflict and the need for government and climate change were being debated at the sell-out event by the great and the good.

“Smells like conscience money to me,” commented a less-than-enthusiastic journalist when former US president Bill Clinton announced pledges worth over $1 billion.

But maybe it’s just a different way of looking at how money makes the world go round.

Charity hasn’t worked, argues Kurt Hoffman, head of the Shell Foundation, so it’s time for a more business-like approach.

“After all, everywhere you look in Africa are entrepreneurs or traders looking to turn a profit just to survive,” he said. “Across the world are two billion extremely discerning consumers that know how to live on $2 a day.”

The Bush administration likes this attitude.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was holding that line when she sat in on the discussion group to open the Clinton Initiative. Trade, not aid, she said.

And although Mr Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they agreed, they immediately proposed more aid - a special insurance to encourage people to invest in Gaza and adjustment money to help those whose jobs disappear to cheaper parts of the world.

The cheaper part of the world they refer to is mainly China. The US views it also as a contender for world domination.

Moving around New York it’s hard not to get the impression that a reverse takeover is already well underway.

And there is no doubt that New Yorkers at least are feeling a little depressed about the political situation.

The T-shirts say it all - the more polite feature pictures of Mr Bush and his father saying “dumb and dumber.” Or “stop mad cowboy disease” over a picture of the Texan president.

T-shirts saying “I love New York” are proving hard to move too.

The latest is an attempt to get closer to the truth - “I kinda love New York.”