The G-8′s ‘Impotence’
Jul 11th, 2008 | 9 responses
It’s fair to say that at the just-concluded G-8 Summit in Japan, the world’s leading industrialized nations haven’t covered themselves in glory.
Pierre Rousselin writes for France’s Le Figaro newspaper:
“Confronted with skyrocketing oil prices, the rising cost of food, the financial crisis, chaos in the money markets and finally, global warming, the powerful have no convincing response to provide the world.
On all of these issues – and without forgetting the Iranian nuclear threat, the G-8 Summit in Japan has illustrated the impotence of the major industrialized nations which, until recently, were able to impose their views to the rest of the planet.”
And the culprit – especially in regard to climate change?:
“The absence of vision is largely the result of the now-concluding American administration, which only recently recognized the existence of the problem.”
By Pierre Rousselin
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
July 8, 2008
France – Le Figaro – Original Article (French)
Confronted with skyrocketing oil prices, the rising cost of food, the financial crisis, chaos in the money markets and finally, global warming, the powerful have no convincing response to provide the world.
On all of these issues – and without forgetting the Iranian nuclear threat, the G-8 Summit in Japan has illustrated the impotence of the major industrialized nations which, until recently, were able to impose their views to the rest of the planet.
It’s been nearly three decades since the global economy has been in a situation as critical as the one that began last summer with the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United-States.
After the euphoria that followed the economic take-off of Asian giants like China and India, the hour of gloom and anxiety arrived. What was expected to be only temporary, we continue to feel the effects of the financial crisis. A downward spiral has been set in motion which has been greatly reinforced by speculation: strong demand raises the cost of raw materials, while the decline in the dollar increases the price of oil. Confronted with such disorder, a vigorous response would seem a necessity. It hasn’t come.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of how the world perceives our nation.
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9 Responses to “The G-8′s ‘Impotence’”
Who cares what predictable US- and Bush-bashing losers have to say. Is it any surprise they would behave that way?
Dear DLS,
It might be worth noting that of all the French newspapers, Le Figaro is the most favorable toward the United States – and that the French center has moved significantly toward Washington over the past two years or so.
At least it makes things easier to tolerate, relatively speaking.
It's silly for anyone to expect or demand rapid, remarkably great changes to reduce the future effects of global warming. And it's not up to the G8 to make concessions to other nations, particularly China and India, who are hardly free of pollution themselves, nor are they in a trend toward reducing it.
And what kind of equally “vigorous response” would be expected to address any of the other problems the West is facing? Can governments really do much, and intervention, of any kind, itself is open to question as a policy and policy-rule issue.
Which is why Barak Obama and the democrats are going to lead us down the path of perdition. Not because Obama is a bad guy, but because the Democrats plan for energy is save the owl, change light bulbs and it will all be solved by the year 2030.
And there you go. Barak Obama today said “Drilling is not an answer.” If we open up ever square inch of our lands and drill wherever we want….we only have 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world while we use 25 percent of the worlds oil per day………………..:
Absolutely retarded. What does one have to do with the other. I swear this is exactly what he had to say. 3 percent of a really lot……is a really lot of oil. Secondly his figures are absolute talking points. The find in ND is estimated to have more oil then does Saudia Arabia. Their is an island in Alaska called Gull Island. Largest reserves in the world. Every major oil company is sitting on finds they are not developing because they must maintain long term solvency or in other words they need to insure they drill the same amount of oil today that they do next year and the year after.
Oil analysts and company executives said newly released test results from a well 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana indicate that the oil industry will be able to recover well more than 3 billion barrels, and perhaps as much as 15 billion barrels, of oil from a geological area known as the lower tertiary trend, making it the biggest addition to U.S. petroleum reserves in decades. The upper end of the estimate could boost U.S. reserves by 50 percent.
So once again we find the democrats with ZERO solutions to the energy crisis when there are very real solutions in drilling for more oil UNTIL Barak Obama's 2030 year arrives.
“Not because Obama is a bad guy”
Jimmy Carter wasn't, either. Nor was McGovern, the other model for Obama.
The problem is that well-meaning, naive, even conceited intentions to Do Good for people (or at least well-meaning, naive, even conceited voters who would be most likely to re-elect Obama, and Democratic Party entrenched interests, as opposed to, say, the Evil Corporattions [tm]) have been in fact harmful in the past and, to address something mentioned on another thread but which is the case time after time with liberal government policies at home and abroad, has unintended (they are not often unforeseen) consequences, even the opposite results of what was intended.
“No drilling” is lunacy as bad as the anti-nuclear idiot crowd and their irrationality.
“Barak Obama's 2030 year arrives”
Does anyone seriously believe that that year or whatever other year he or someone else pulls out of thin air later will arrive with the promised results?
“change light bulbs”
The conceited would compel us by law to change light bulbs if we weren't so hip and Socially Conscious to change them on our own. Social engineering and PC!
I know how to reduce power consumption and achieve a quality improvement on the Web at the same time: Take computers away from the worst play-pen lefties.
i think the real problem in here is that people are so dependent to leaders.
All of this catastrophic issues we are facing today are just a piece of a cake when all the people in the world take it seriously. Leaders shouldnt be the only one taking actions nor this group of leading nations called G8. All of us are responsible. The word impotence shouldnt just be addressed to G8, it should be addressed to all the citizens of the world especially to those who doesn't care about such issues.
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Excellent, I will make sure to check back….