Tone's been caught out again, hiding things! This time its $50,000 on luxury accommodation at the swanky five star Fairmont Marques Resort for business buddies during this G20 talk fest. Not accounted for in the costings, hidden from the taxpayer!

Dear Graham,

We can only hope that a consensus will be
achieved in Bribane. I guess we'll have to
wait and see. However, we should not knock
the attempt to try. Doing nothing, doesn't
seem like such a good idea. And world leaders
talking to each other surely can't be a bad
thing. The following link gives the G20
Priorities:

It tells us that "As G20 chair in 2014,
Australia has developed with members an agenda to
structure leaders' discussion of the Brisbane
Summit on practical outcomes around the key
themes of -

* Promoting stronger economic growth and
employment outcomes.

* Making the global economy more reilient to
deal with future shocks.

* Strengthening global institutions to ensure
they reflect the new realities of the global
economy.

You can download the strategies to be used from
the link:

http://www.g20.org/g20_priorities

And this link gives what has to be done for
the summit to be a success in Brisband:

http://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global_memos/p33705

Hi there GRAHAM...

Your question, '...will the G20 meeting in Brisbane achieve anything...' ? Probably not, though by hosting such an august event, at least the participants are not fighting each other. And the local Brisbane service industry will be making a lot of money by having them, and their enormous retinues there ?

The massive preparations that are made for President OBAMA alone, I find extraordinary. I realise all US leaders are targets, nevertheless, more is not necessarily better ? Some years ago I was involved with President BUSH (senior's) security, and there's no doubt the Secret Service know their stuff, but boy they don't like us locals suggesting or interfering with their strategic measures too much ! Still, individually they're great blokes and girls and very, very friendly.

Foxy I read the links you gave.
The paragraph on Financial had a reference;
>The G20 should focus on strengthening the governance
and operations of the Financial Stability Board (FSB).

I gather from other reports that the power of the board to
seize depositors funds is to be affirmed and legal position affirmed.
You will hear next to nothing about this, it will be buried in public
service gobble de gook.

They are going to discuss growth targets and there appears to be a
suggestion of an additional 2% growth.
No mention where they are going to get the energy to do this.
They still have not twigged why growth everywhere is either static
or falling. Note the fall in oil prices, volatile prices are a feature of
production decline and or demand failure.
Demand has fallen because people and industry could not afford the previous prices.
As the price continues a bit lower, the drilling rig count in the US will
fall a lot further before prices will rise again late next year ?
Then production will decline because of the fall in drilling rigs.
So we will see the continuing oscillation until around 2020 when decline will be permanent.

The point of the G20 is to get the decision makers in one place. The lower level flunkies can discuss but not make any decisions.

The forum is the place where top business men from all over the world meet along with those that make decisions. Often the greatest outcomes come from side meetings.

Where are men and women that believed in themselves and port forth a steadfast opinion. I'm tired of spandex salespeople (journalists and politicians alike)..