Whenever a major economic conference takes place (G8, G20, whatever) it always seems that civil liberties go right out the damn door, regardless of what nation is hosting the conference. It's a field day for the cops. And how much gets done about the police abuses after the fact?

Apparently, the big theme for the meetings is Debt Reduction. Whaddya think?

What do you think the G8/G20 leaders should be focusing on? How would you go about solving the world's problems?

I think the Debt Reduction part of it is crazy stupid. I'm glad the US delegation is arguing for more fiscal stimulus, though I'm sad to say we seem to be the only ones.

What should they be focusing on? Fiscal stimulus, environmental regulation, and making the Chinese stop manipulating their currency.

Human rights would be nice too, but they're an economic group, they don't do the human rights thing. That's the UN's impotent jurisdiction.

How do you see the protests that have been taking place? Is violence ever justified? Pics.

Do the minority of the protesters who vandalize and attack security folks have just cause? Are they ruining it for the peaceful demonstrators? Do they only serve to tarnish the many causes of other protesters and groups?

I think the protests are totally ineffective. The G20 members don't give a shit, and regular joes don't ever hear what they have to say. Hell, even political junkies like me would be hard pressed to say who's doing the protesting, beyond the anarchists who seem to only exist to protest G8/G20 meetings.

There's no point in violence committed against security forces at the G20. People who do it tarnish the reputation of the protesters, and give any jackbooted statists (real or imagined) good propaganda to use to dismiss the protests.

At least he's playing with a chance to win it all, which he most definitely deserves.
I'm more pissed that they moved the Phillies series out of town due to the damn G8/G20.

In reply to this comment by Shepppard:


Painful reminder that my favourite jay is now gone

hearing Jon Stewart put it that way, I kinda think the human race probably wants some blood from the G8 countries. I mean if we live in a hierarchical capitalist global economy, and if the top of that hierarchy is to blame for most of its current problems... then the bulk of the human race is gonna be pissed and looking upwards. You gotta wonder how this whole mess is going to influence global politics in the decades to come. Probably nothing big will happen... but hmmm

I disagree that free markets are highly prevalent in modern economies.

One tenant of a completely free market is the lack of asymmetrical information, that both the buyer and seller are aware of all other buyers and sellers.

In your example, the parent would know of all other kids competing for money to mow the lawn, the kid is aware of all parents seeking his services and at what price point.

This is just a small local example, this can be taken further on international levels, where it gets even more complicated as we factor in protectionist trade policy, trade agreements, trade restrictions, trade quotas and so on.

For example in the 70s, the Japanese auto industry was decimating the local auto industry in the US, the Big 3 lobbied the government to do something about it. Through negotiations the Japanese agreed to a voluntary quota system, they would import only a limited amount of their more efficient cars, this drove up their price artificially in the market, allowing them to gain alot of profit by re-branding their cars for a luxury car market known today as the Lexus.

The Big 3 gained via continued dominion of the US auto market, the Japanese gained through a new luxury auto market, while the consumer lost because market efficiency was not there, the cheapest model cars made in Japan were not available to the US consumer.

International trade fails free market ideals in many ways, since a lot of first world nations do not allow third world nations into their markets especially in terms of agriculture. In the 1920s to 1950s, there was highly restrictive trade as various international economics locked off their markets to rebuild their economics, this took over 70 years to slowly unravel via the GATT and the emergence of the WTO. However there are a lot of barriers, the G8 also have larger influence and bargaining strength over third world nations, they also understand WTO legalese better.

Now think of something that holds a large control of the market like Wallmart in the retail industry, in some areas they are the sole superstore thus this is already not a free market, everyone is forced to purchase their products at one place. This doesn't stop the seller to change their price because the consumer is dependent. This is where we can say no free market exists due to regional monopoly.

The closest we come to a free market is the stock market but only on price, all sellers and buyers know the price however not everyone knows profit forecasts, insider information, business conditions, corporate structure and so on.

>> ^Mark_D:
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.


Fuck! I thought they were going to give us all ponies!

When I got to know Bush got elected for his second term, I kinda laughed it off, "Ha ha, that's so dumb." (not American so I thought it didn't affect me that much - yeah, I know better now).

Now though I have the feeling that if McCain really is elected, I'll start weeping for the future of the world. It's almost like the McCain/Palin ticket is THE worst choice - even another 4 years of Bush might be better than this, because Bush at least doesn't want a Cold War with Russia, whereas this fella (with his good friend Lieberman) already tried to pass a Congress resolution excluding Russia from G8 back in 2003, which is a one-way ticket to Cold War 2.0. So yeah, fellow American citizens of the world, your decision affects me and others a great deal - please, please don't let your compatriots fuck this one up again.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

It sounds like we agree more than we disagree.

From what I've read it's been pretty consistent that Georgia fired first. Where it gets muddy is that they fired on South Ossetia, which is a separatist region within their own border that's strongly in favor of reuniting with North Ossetia...in Russia. Russia then "invaded" by moving into South Ossetia to "defend" it against the Georgian troops. However, they used a wildly disproportionate force that routed the Georgians, and there was an iffy period there where people weren't sure if the Russians were going to charge to the Georgian capital or not (and they didn't).

Not too many accounts include all those pieces of information, but that's the picture I've gotten from what I read.

This certainly isn't Russia randomly attacking a small neighbor for no reason, with Georgia being an innocent victim -- they just made a bad gamble counting on US/NATO support to stay Russia's hand, and Russia called that bluff.

We're already appearing weak, because we fluffed up Georgia into thinking we'd come riding to their rescue if Russia responded militarily. Instead, Bush stayed in China for the weekend, sent a low-level emissary to Georgia only, and let French President Sarkozy do all the real diplomatic work.

As for military help? They got our permission to bring home their troop contingent from Iraq. Russia knew that we couldn't respond in any meaningful way when they went in. Georgia, on the other hand, expected more.

Sounding blustery and bellicose just adds to the "all bark and no bite" image we just earned, at least in my opinion. Obama's comments by contrast get the same message across without making it sound like an ultimatum and certainly seem more likely to entice diplomatic engagement, which should be our goal here.

As for the bit about NATO, I'm ambivalent about whether we should be pushing that in the first place. All I'm saying is that for right now it's probably best not to make too much noise about that, since we want to cool things down, not stir them up. The article I linked above was mostly saying "see, Obama's mentioning NATO too" though it has a different connotation than McCain's comments (note the title of the release).

My ultra-cynical side sees a motive for Bush/McCain to stir it up (at least in public), because they think it might help McCain in the election.

This also reminds me that McCain has been recommending a long line of belligerent policies with regard to Russia (like "kicking them out" of the G8). Now he's very gung-ho about Georgia being admitted into NATO now so we can get on with a war with Russia over Georgia. It's like he misses the Cold War, and wants it back.

>> ^Constitutional_Patriot:
Could they be more specific?

Yes we can.

Since it's Al Gore, we're probably talking energy policy.

He's got plenty of domestic energy plan specifics, but not much on international plans, beyond a commitment to talking with the major carbon emitters (G8+5) around the world, and trying to dovetail agreements into the framework the UN is working on to replace Kyoto.

That's a healthy bit of wiggle room, but I think he's kinda gotta save specific decisions about environmental agreements with other nations until after he has formal conversations with those nations.

He doesn't rule out joining Kyoto, nor does he commit to it.

What, if any, sovereignty concerns does that raise to you? Would signing Kyoto be a violation of sovereignty?

WTF is McCain doing?! Pandaing to the Christian community - way to go fucktard - and now every other faith is going to be *very* comfortable with you in charge...

You can have any religion, worship any god, but this is not a criteria from running a country...

I can't believe an American running for President doesn't know basic fucking history of his own country.

The rest of the world is laughing at McCain, Dont forget his http://www.videosift.com/video/McCain-knows-his-presidents "meeting with germanys leader"

Oh, and this guy also wants to start a new Cold War with Russia, by kicking them out of G8

Way to Go McCain - isolate America from the world - Thats change...no, wait thats the bush administrations policy...

Also, George W Bush said "God wants everyone to be free...in fact,...erm...its part of my foreign policy"

McBush for 2008! hehe, de doesn't like that either much eh?

There is a severe misconception when it comes to discussing the World Trade Organization. Very briefly I will try to clear some things about what the WTO does...

The WTO negotiates trade agreements on the global level between governments for trade standards, it succeeded the General Agreement on Trades and Tarrifs (GATT).

Trade is one of the most important factors of economic development, if one country is good at producing one specific item it would trade with another nation that is good at producing something else, both parties benefit in a fruitful trade environment. This is important because trade creates what is called comparative advantages, e.g. Germany is good at producing beer, Russia is good at producing vodka, the both trade to gain benefits. Basically some countries are better at producing goods A and others at goods B, both trade and both expand and benefit as such.

Before the great depression and both World Wars, trade between nations was fairly open, nations would freely allow the movement of goods from one point to another. However post these economic shocks protectionism entered, countries started to close borders and introducing tariffs, import restrictions, quotas and variable import restrictions. This is problematic, some countries would not say have the infrastructure for heavy industry so cannot efficiently produce cars, other countries don't have the labor for cost efficient agricultural development. So there is a economic opportunity cost when investment takes place in industries that the benefit has no basis or advantage in, for example in my country they opened a computer factory during soviet times even though we were so far behind in development and software. There is a waste of scare economic resources then.

With GATT and WTO afterwards it, many of the trade restrictions have fallen the world over, leading to the cases we see of economic development in areas like South East Asia (China, India and the Asian Tiger economies).

However there are problems.

- Both WTO and IMF represent private corporate interests, siding with larger economies over smaller ones, so private interests in Western Nations can dictate the terms to smaller ones.

- Larger players possess the legalese and knowledge to push charges against smaller players, e.g. in the form of dumping charges (country A is dumping goods at below cost of production to penetrate the market to country B). For example the South East Asian economies are commonly accused of dumping their goods to the western world, when in fact its simply comparative advantages such as larger labor poll and such.

- Since trade barriers were existent already, large areas were already protected via political interests, the biggest being agriculture between 1st world and the 3rd world or smaller ones like timber trade between US and Canada.

An organization like the WTO is needed in that its a common form for discussing trade on a global scale, but it does not represent the interests of all fairly or provide a platform for such, one glance of their website will show you how many nations the US accuses of unfair trade advantages because its protections local interests.

However this is illogical, no nation can possess all production assets, due to scarcity, and the global economy is tightening year on year and becoming interdependent, which is a good thing, its very hard to bomb someone if your and theirs economies are connected through trade, this is happening between the US and China.

Its also presentative of the different rearrangement of economies over the long term, take the case of the UK a country that has went from primary industry, secondary and now is almost purely a services economy. China is now the worlds producer of simple secondary goods, the US is now a bigger R&D developer. The third world if it was allowed could feed the whole world and so on and so forth.

The economies are now interdependent as well, take your average laptop, the technology was probably developed in the US and Japan, the semiconductors were made in Malaysia and South Korea, and it was all put together in China.

Its not a perfect system by a long shot, however looking over the ages, economics is far better at leveling the playing field and brining together nations then idealistic statements and or anarchy which is common seen at WTO/IMF/G8 meets.

Of course there is a million other issues to consider... but I said this was a *cough* very brief description.

Interesting fact: Herbert Grönemeyer (the guy that climbs into bed at the end) went on to become one of Germanys most famous singers. In 1994, Grönemeyer was the first non-English-speaking artist who was invited by MTV to do an unplugged concert

Here is the ballad "Der Weg" (The Way) that he wrote after his wife and brother died from cancer in 1998, both within 3 days of each other.

Here he is performing with Bono at last years G8 Summit at Heiligendamm (Bono sings german!!!)

This is the song he wrote for the Football WorldCup 2006

I can't agree more with you, I was thinking that when I posted this clip, that was 1992, this girl is almost in her 30's now.

The G8 is a joke, nothing but show. In 2050 you and me farhad, glacier kegger.

In reply to your comment:
“What an amazing speech, but it makes me so sad 1992 to 2007 and now to 2009 and then onwards till 2050.

Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to seek "substantial" cuts in emissions in an effort to tackle climate change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009. No mandatory target was set for the cuts, but Mrs Merkel's preference for a 50% emissions cut by the year 2050 was included in the agreed statement.

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6731045.stm

I guess we just have to wait till people start dying all across the planet before anything actually happens.

I think I will perish naturally before we ever see a 50% elimination point reached.”

rough translation:

"And now, I can't resist the desire to show you the beginning of the press conference by the new French president Nicholas Sarkozy at the G8 Summit. He's leaving his meeting with his Russian colleague, Vladimir Putin, and apparently he didn't drink a lot of water."

"Ladies and Gentleman, I would like to apologize for my tardiness which was caused by the length of my meeting with Mr. Putin. What would you prefer, that I respond to questions? Sooo...<shrug> Are there questions <snicker>? One here..."

What an amazing speech, but it makes me so sad 1992 to 2007 and now to 2009 and then onwards till 2050.

Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to seek "substantial" cuts in emissions in an effort to tackle climate change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009. No mandatory target was set for the cuts, but Mrs Merkel's preference for a 50% emissions cut by the year 2050 was included in the agreed statement.

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6731045.stm

I guess we just have to wait till people start dying all across the planet before anything actually happens.

I think I will perish naturally before we ever see a 50% elimination point reached.