It’s Time To Scrap The G8. It Simply Lost All Sense Of Purpose

July 14, 2009

It is always a good idea to wait a while after some event has taken place and then decide whether it was worthwhile or not.

Well, looking back at the last G8 summit in Italy it has become obvious that in pure and simple terms it was, once again, a total waste of time and money. Even the presence of U.S. President Barack Obama at the summit could not save it from turning into a disaster in terms of producing anything specific. We on this website have been pointing out for some time that the money spent on these gatherings could have been better used on feeding the hungry children somewhere in Africa. We also said that without China and India as official members the gatherings do not really make a lot of sense and tend to be just talking shops where the leaders of the eight nations bask in the glare of publicity and have some fun along the way.

But even we, with our low expectations, did not expect the summit in Italy to turn into a total farce. Considering that the world economy is in deep recession, with oil prices staying too high, we expected the leaders of the eight most powerful nations in the world to discuss urgent matters that could help solve the crisis. We even thought that they might be brave enough to invite Saudi Arabia to their meeting and put some pressure on it to increase its oil production.

But no, these economic issues were considered to be less important than the meaningless discussions about fighting climate change. Meaningless, because at a time of recession you do not talk about fancy measures to cut pollution. It’s best left to creeps like Al Gore and Bono. not to mention that without China’s participation all that climate change talk is just worthless. China is already emitting more CO2 than any other country in the world. So the eight leaders could talk about saving the climate as much as they want but it becomes totally irrelevant without China on board. And India too, for that matter.

The growing food shortage in the world, which already threatens stability in several countries, has not been addressed at the summit in Italy. In fact, the leaders of the eight nations were seen as totally out of touch with the real world when they all took part in a lavish dinner. What the hell was going through their heads when they were having all that fancy food?

The total uselessness of the gathering was demonstrated by the fact that the world leaders could not find an answer to a single pressing problem. Not one. No one questioned the way the United States and Britain have blown a fortune on bailing out the banks and no one said anything about plans by both Washington and London to waste more taxpayers’ money on propping up failed financial institutions. Not one leader objected to governments printing money in huge quantities across the world, endangering the future economic recovery. And no one said anything about the false statistics that are being provided by some nations, like China and Russia, for example, about the state of their economies that are crumbling fast and fuelling social unrest.

The strange thing about the G8 format is that for some bizarre reason it includes Canada and Russia in it. Why on earth would these two countries be invited to the table at all? What is it that they can contribute to the debate, especially as President Dmitry Medvedev does not even decide anything with Vladimir Putin calling all the shots. Why not stop this embarrassment and simply tell Russia and Canada to take a walk.

The point of the matter is that the G8 concept has outlived its purpose. It has become an expensive and absolutely irrelevant exercise which produces nothing specific. It is time for the curtain to fall. For everyone’s sake.

– End –

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