Ahhhh, It's Time For The G-8.

I love the G-8 conference, I really do.  I like it especially when things are going horribly wrong..like now. When times are good, we get a bunch of pompous asses standing around in photo session circle jerks talking about fabulous new world orders and listening to Bono's plan to end global poverty.  

That's pretty funny, but not like now where no one trusts each other, everyone is blaming each other and all of our great celebrities are in Los Angeles deifying Michael Jackson.  Now you get something like this, from Bloomberg News;

“Once a recovery is assured, we have agreed on the need to prepare appropriate strategies to reduce the extraordinary measures taken in response to the crisis,” said the draft, which was read to reporters by a G-8 official as the leaders gathered in L’Aquila, Italy. The exit strategies “will vary from country to country, depending on domestic economic conditions and public finances and to assure a sustainable recovery in the long term.”

That was a nice way of saying, "I don't care if we are the G-8 or the Jackson - 5 (had to throw that in there), we are going to do what's good for ourselves.  If it meshes with what you are doing, God bless, if not....well, we'll see you at the World Cup."

What I find interesting is this line, "Once a recovery is assured."  Hah!  Who makes that decision?  In the United States we have a supposedly independent Federal Reserve.  The art of central banking is to get ahead of the game. What the central banker sees as the beginnings of a solid recovery usually do not mesh with what the politicians see.  Right now the Fed is sitting on a keg of dynamite in the form of hundreds of billions of excess reserves.  As soon as the Fed sees a return to normalcy, which might be sometime around 2010, they will be playing a frantic game of 52-card pick up to keep that keg of dynamite from exploding. That time will be right around the mid-term elections.  You think politics won't come into play here as the Fed tries to slow the recovery down and control inflation?

Anyway, when things start turning it's going to be every man for himself.  The G-8 summit in 2010 will look something like this;