Tag: G20

The G20 Con Job

Biden made his appearance at the G20 in Rome…..a meeting of the minds and corporate influence to outline the direction the US will take in the remaining years of the Biden admin.

What can I say?

I found little actual progress on any level.

Same lies different year.

A few points from the meetings and the ceremonies…..

President Biden wrapped up his time at the Group of 20 summit on Sunday trying to convince Americans and the wider world that he’s got things under control—and taking Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia to task for not doing enough to deal with the existential threat of climate change, the AP reports. Biden’s overall take on his efforts: On climate change, he’s got $900 billion planned for renewable energy, and Congress will vote this coming week. On supply chains, he has plans to make the ports run better and tamp down inflation. For workers, he’s building an economy with pay raises. On diplomacy, world leaders trust him. But he also acknowledged at the Sunday press conference—the first one he’s held solo since mid-June, per CNN—what he can’t yet achieve: bringing Russia, China and Saudi Arabia to the table with the broader international community to limit carbon emissions and move to renewable energy.

(All marvelous promises and wishes….but none will be achieved)

  • Relationships: Biden spelled out his belief that all politics is personal and that what progress was achieved at the Rome summit came from direct interactions with other leaders. “They know me. I know them,” Biden said of his fellow G20 leaders. “We get things done together.” He also dismissed fears his allies at the summit might not be ready to embrace his administration after Trump: “They listened. Everyone sought me out. They wanted to know what our views were, and we helped lead what happened here. … The United States of America is the most critical part of this entire agenda.”
  • Manchin and Sinema: For all the challenges confronting him, the president attempted to stay optimistic. As Biden departed the news conference, he offered a thumbs up when asked if West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema—key Democratic votes—were on board with his $1.75 trillion spending package for families, health care, and renewable energy. As for what that meant, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, said, “As the President said during the press conference, he is confident we are going to get this done and the thumbs up was simply a visual restatement of that.”

(These two spineless corporate stooges are on a sugar high for they can dictate whatever their donors want to be embraced)

  • More optimism: The president also shrugged off his recent decline in the polls, saying that numbers go up and down, the same thing has happened to all other presidents, and “that’s not why I ran.”
  • Pope: The policy issues seemed to fade for Biden when asked about his time Friday with Pope Francis. The president became deeply emotional, his hands appearing to fiddle with the mask he wore as a precaution because of COVID-19. He spoke of how the pope comforted the Biden family in a Philadelphia airport hangar after the death of his son, Beau, in 2015. “He is everything I learned about Catholicism from the time I was a kid going from grade school to high school.”
  • Supply chain: Earlier Sunday, the president signed an executive order that aims to help with supply chain shortages; he also announced increased funding to help the US and international partners with supply chain resilience and will hold a summit next year centered on the issue. “I urge all of you … to consider bolstering your stockpiles critical to national security in your countries,” he told G20 leaders

(I covered this subject yesterday……https://lobotero.com/2021/11/01/closing-thought-01nov21/

Do not take my word for it…..

“G20 leaders could have taken urgent action to dramatically scale up manufacturing and access to Covid-19 vaccines around the world, promote a fair economic recovery, lower dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, and help the poorest countries adapt to the climate change already happening,” Jörn Kalinski, senior adviser at Oxfam International, said in a statement. “The bottom line is that this summit failed to deliver much of anything for people, planet, or prosperity.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/01/g20-summit-deemed-abysmal-and-total-failure-vaccine-equity-climate-action

Great photo ops but as far as getting anything done it will be proven to be a waste of time and effort.

My friend Doug over at the Independent Knight made his thoughts on the G20 meeting….. https://www.theindependentknight.com/the-white-house/biden-i-do-apologize-for-the-last-administration-no-you-do-not/

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G20–G Two Zero–Bingo!

We just lived through the latest meeting of the 19 most economically powerful countries plus the EU or more commonly known as the G20.

That’s right these entities get together once a year and schmooze.

But what is this group really?

The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for international cooperation on the most important issues of the global economic and financial agenda.

The objectives of the G20 refer to:

1. Policy coordination between its members in order to achieve global economic stability, sustainable growth;
2. Promoting financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises;
3. Modernizing international financial architecture.

The G20 brings together finance ministers and central bank governors from 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America plus the European Union, which is represented by the President of the European Council and by Head of the European Central Bank.

G20 members represent almost:

1. 90% of global GDP.
2. 80% of international global-trade.
3. 2/3 of the world’s population lives in G20 member countries.
4. 84% of all fossil fuel emissions are produced by G20 countries.

If you would like a simpler definition then……it is about the control of what we get to do with what little money we have…..while bankers and financial institutions rake in the profits.

This time was no different than the last couple of meetings…..violence, protests, goon squads, etc, etc…….and there is the actual meetings…..(pause here for thought)……not much was accomplished except for a couple of “feel good” photo ops and everyone goes home……

The the next question would be…..was the meeting worth the effort?

Unfettered violence. Unbridled brutality. Outside our democratic community. When Angela Merkel held her closing address on Saturday afternoon at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, she used clear words to denounce what had taken place on the streets of Hamburg during the preceding day and night.

Cars and barricades ablaze, shops plundered, water cannons in constant operation, injuries, devastated city quarters, heavily armed special police units: The images of the violence in Hamburg have circled the globe. And they stood in stark contrast to those of the 20 heads of state and government who, at the same time, were listening to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in Hamburg’s chic new Elbphilharmonie concert hall. Classical music inside, clashes outside.

The question that must now be asked, which the chancellor must also answer, is this: Was it all worth it? Or was the price too high?

Source: G-20 Violence: Questions Remain after Hamburg Riots – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Well?  Was it worth the effort?

What NO statement on the perceived “aggression” of North Korea?

The Anticipation Was Deafening

The world was on the edge of their seats waiting for the meeting between Putin and Trump…..how many shoes would drop in this head to head?

We have an agreement on SW Syria……(I did not know that this region was that important in the grand US plan…but as usual I do not know everything, huh?))…….

The extended meeting came as US officials announced the US and Russia reached an agreement for a ceasefire in southwest Syria set to take effect Sunday. The two leaders were expected to discuss Syria during the sit-down, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes the deal as the first indication of the Trump administration and Russia being able to work together in Syria.

Details are still scant on this, and it’s not clear how far east the ceasefire is intended to extend. US officials say the entire goal is to stop attacks against the rebels, while Russia clearly wants the US to stop attacking pro-government forces in the region. There has also been mention of humanitarian aid being allowed in, but past ceasefires have almost uniformly failed at that goal.

The ceasefire is to begin at noon on Sunday, and is open-ended. Tillerson said it could be a first step which, if successful, would be spread to other parts of the country. He also, however, added that the US still insists upon Syrian President Assad.

We all have our opinion on this meeting…..but how did the US media see it?

How did President Trump do at his first meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit, which the Wall Street Journal says was hyped by the media “into virtually the second coming of the Reykjavik Summit?” Though the Journal gives the prez a thumbs up, reaction in other quarters of editorial land was decidedly mixed.

  • Wall Street Journal: The editors said the sit-down had but one purpose from Putin’s end: “to discover if he will be able to press Russian interests forward without significant pushback” from Trump. How did Trump measure up in the Russian’s eyes? “We can’t guess, ” the paper says, but Trump’s pressing of Putin about hacking in the November election is a “new element in the Trump equation.” By raising the issue, the president “made clear to Vlad that he’ll be dealing with the President of all the American people. That sounds like a positive outcome.”
  • Politico: In a column, Molly K. McKew rapped Trump for signaling the US will “move on” from the hacking controversy “with no accountability or consequences for Russia” but with a pledge to work jointly on cybersecurity. She also takes issue with two points: an agreement to not meddle in the other’s doings on the homefront., and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s observation that the Russian strategy in Syria was maybe “more right” than the US approach. “Each of these points represents a significant victory for Putin,” she writes.
  • CNN: Commentator David Gergen praised Trump’s performance, saying he “seemed presidential” and calling it “big-league stuff.” He adds, “This seemed like we were back to normal life for the first time, one of the only times in the last few months. This is what we expect from our president.” He adds that “We may agree or disagree with the particulars, but we want our president to show leadership and be at a presidential level.

New York Times: In a column headlined, “Did Putin Have Trump for Lunch,” columnist Nicholas Kristof said he doesn’t “begrudge” Trump’s warm handshake with Putin but bristled at Trump “getting lovey-dovey” with a man involved in election hacking in two countries and the invasion of Ukraine, among other points. As for the deal with Syria, where Russia has “helped the slaughter civilians,” Kristof writes, “It’s great that Trump and Putin reached an agreement that may help Syria, but let’s see whether it translates to advances on the ground.” He says the “really important issue” is North Korea, and Trump “still doesn’t seem to have a strategy to deal with it.”

Slate says that Trump got through the meeting with no gaffes, but Putin was the winner: Even if Lavrov’s version of the election-meddling conversation is an exaggeration, both sides seem to agree that Trump and Putin agreed to “move forward” from the issue, which means “Putin did not, and apparently will not, pay any price for his information-warfare campaign against American democracy.”

After a glowing review from CNN maybe Trump should re-think his “fake news” thing about the network……

I would offer up my analysis but it would be disingenuous……mainly because I did not watch any of it….I had better things to do…..the dog needed a bath.

Tap Dance At The G20

Inkwell Institute

International Studies Group

Recently in Toronto there was a meeting of the mindless…a group called the G20……a meeting of the top leaders from 20 different countries that meet to plan the world economy and here is what they decided:

The communiqué called for governments to halve their budget deficits by 2013 and for the ratio of national debt to gross domestic product to be stabilised by 2016. This was seen as a win for Germany and other countries backing deficit reduction. But the document made clear that these targets were not binding and, in a concession to the US, expressed the hope that governments would follow “growth-friendly fiscal consolidation plans”.

In a further bid to walk both sides of the street at the same time, the communiqué declared: “There is a risk that synchronised fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery. There is also the risk that failure to implement consolidation where necessary would undermine confidence and hamper growth.”

The G20 resolution on fiscal consolidation allowed all sides to claim a victory even as the differences widen. German chancellor Angela Merkel said the outcome was “more than I expected”. She claimed that the views of continental Europe had prevailed. German officials noted that the US had learned its lesson about writing public letters that sought to change the position of others. In the lead up to the summit, Obama issued a letter to G20 participants warning that too rapid fiscal tightening could impede global recovery. He noted that earlier G20 agreements had pointed to the need for export surplus countries—a reference to Germany and China—to increase domestic demand.

As usual this meeting was nothing more than a photo op for the leaders to appear to be working on solutions when all they were doing is a slow tap dance.  The reality is that the world cannot solve these problems it is up to the individual countries to find the answers and to pretend any thing else is just absurd.