Monday, February 8, 2010

G7 Finance Ministers Quietly Jet To the Arctic Last Weekend

YOU GOTTA HAND IT TO THOSE UNAMUSED G7 FINANCE ministers for finding a brand new location for last weekend's winter meeting after tiring of trendy venues around the world. Venues that had become increasingly laborious and boisterous. Sure they could get good lattes in Rome, Washington and Madrid, but the protesters, police and the press became overbearing and distracting to say the least. And loud. And expensive. So they decided to take a break from the circus atmospheres of old and go where the sun doesn't shine---in winter at least---to a far away place called IQALUIT, Nunavut, Canada near the Arctic Circle. Brilliant, I'd say. So far away and expensive to get to that not one protester and only a handfull of the MSM could be found for hundreds of miles in every icy direction.

So while our attention in the lower 48 was riveted on epic snowstorms, Tea Party conventions and the Super Bowl, our publicity averse global finance ministers were quietly sipping brandy and smoking stogies in their wool socks and mufflers in the Very Far Northern reaches of Canada. In peace. And quiet, perhaps with a few Arctic seals clapping far off in the distance. There were some hurt feelings however. Still they're my kind of guys, really. I loath big flesh-piles of people where you can't hear yourself think or have a civilized conversation. Where people are grandstanding for the press, other grand standers and the fashion police. There was none of this last weekend. No coats and ties either. Just good old fashioned chats about difficult stuff that matters to all of us like defaults, currencies, interest rates, bailouts, solvency, bankruptcies and the financial meltdown in Greece. Here are some rudimentary highlights and failed assurances from the meeting in case you might want to know. But with all that's going on in the global financial markets, I for one am glad these men have taken a quieter tact so they can do their work out of the limelight. They couldn't have found a more remote location.

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