Dear Dinosaurs...

[bridgit]

At this weekend's G8 meetings, discussions between finance ministers of industrialized or developed nations will likely ignore the actual issues confronting these countries over the next few years. The following is a letter to the collective group of G8 finance ministers, which we hope does not prove too taxing for their intellects. The grouping includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Dear Dinosaurs,

It is not often that your good selves manage to meet in a nice waterhole like Washington, so allow me to congratulate you on your choice of venue for this year's conclave. You have made the correct environmental choice by going to Washington, for where else in the world can such a large and important meeting benefit from the ready availability of hot air from a proximate source (Capitol Hill, just behind on your left). Indeed, a friend of mine tells me that hot air emissions from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would have been sufficient to heat all your hotel rooms, but for the unfortunate departure of the former prematurely which has left you all overly reliant on the latter both for heat and comic relief. Still, it could have been worse - for example. Hillary Clinton as President would have likely melted many a libido before it lands in the United States.

Before we delve into the topics likely to confront you, may I ask each of you to look to your left and right, and ask whether the countries at your table actually mean anything for the global economy any more? Besides the obvious point that three countries that actually make up a bulk of global economic growth - China, Brazil and India if you were not paying attention when your economic consultant was talking - are conspicuously absent at the table, the countries around you by and large represent the most significant economic drag the world has seen in the last few decades. If indeed your idea was to cobble together a group of the world's largest losers, then please discard the previous comment and congratulate yourselves on the stupendous success of the initiative.'

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IJ20Dj01.html