The recent riots in London and other big cities were the product of an "out-of-control consumerist ethos" which will have profound impacts for the UK economy, a leading City broker has said.

The report by the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, Tim Morgan, is part of a series in which the brokerage analyses bigger issues for the UK. It details recommendations to resolve what it sees as a political and economic malaise: new role models, policies to encourage savings, the channelling of private investment into creating rather than inflating assets, and greater public investment.

It warns: "We conclude that the rioting reflects a deeply flawed economic and social ethos... recklessly borrowed consumption, the breakdown both of top-end accountability and of trust in institutions, and severe failings by governments over more than two decades."

The note pinpoints the philosophy behind the riots as consumerism.

A typical internet user sees a hundred adverts an hour, the report says, and the underlying message many receive is: "Here's the ideal. You can't have it." Accompanying this is an inflation of government and private debt, a key theme of Morgan's other work.

... all of which is bleedin' obvious. What I find interesting in this article is the mega-status accorded to stockbrokers. They are such experts in everything that they do social research, and we are expected to sit up and take notice...

... perhaps the Pet Groomers' Federation has something interesting to say about the riots?

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}