As you may know, on this next Thursday, 02 April, there will be a meeting of numerous heads of state, collectively known as the G20, in London, where the US will be represented by President Obama, as well. Now, this has nothing to do with the content of that meeting, so politics aside, but as I was reading a BBC News article, [u]President Obama’s security bubble[/u], I attempted to estimate the logistical costs involved for this one day meeting, including all of the various staff costs and all of the transportation costs, etc., and my calculator ran out of numbers. And, I didn’t even get to an estimate of the total costs involved, including those of all of the other heads of state.
So, for this one day meeting, could anybody guess as to what such costs could amount to?
Look at it this way: they’re all on salary, so you would have had to pay them whether they stayed home or went abroad … oh, gosh, did mention transvestites on the wrong forum?
I’d say you need a better calculator. Even the cheapest scientific calculator goes up to 10^99; unless you’re dealing in something like picoLira, I don’t think even the US will spend that kind of coin for the lifetime of the earth.
I am involved in a work group that teleconferences. Only because we have fun working relationships already and the scope of this project limited is this teleconferencing not truly lame. We would have never developed those fun working relationships over the years if we hadn’t met in person developed relationships, had lunch, had drinks after work, shared candy, smoked cigarettes outside (in the old days) saw the kids pictures in purses or keychains. Itimacy doesn’t teleconference well.
Not to reflect on you personally, please, but intimacy, schmintimacy!
Music might thrive on intimacy, but I need my elected governmental representatives to get their jobs done, plain and simple.
For instance, the various national representatives could present a list of things to do to each other, and then let their diplomats figure out the details. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the demands of any one nation will necessarily prevail, as perhaps a global democracy could call for compromise, but perhaps such an exchange could ultimately be for the better.
And, should a representative not follow the collective will of their constituents, then perhaps they could be replaced by someone more responsible.
BTW, perhaps there could be no direct media coverage of this event, that whatever outcome could then be as related by “spokespersons”, to then be as related to the public by media. So, while e-security could have its flaws, at least there’s a chance that the public could get direct coverage, and not a third party rendition.
Again, there seems to be a real potential to reduce expenses, in more ways than one.
Cork, what kind of work do you do? Unless you are some kind of monolith with all the necessary resources in your total control, how do you ever get everything done? I’m not an “elected governmental representative” but I am a state employee. To get things done in my field of work requires networking, collaboration, working outside of my direct job responsibiities because collegues have asked, and calling in and doing favors. Those things happen because pockets of us spend the time to develop and build these relationships. I’ve seen people do the same work that I do without the powers of networking. Every few years, even with all the extra assignments that I do, my caseload gets too big and a piece needs to be re-assigned to someone else. This is happening again next week. My work is social work and I would think that you can see the necessity of relationship building with the core functions of my work but it’s the relationship building with internal and external administrators of programs and private agencies, financial managers who authorize funding, and policy people that sometimes require the biggest networking and personal contact to cut through red tape and get things to happen.
If there is a job out that can’t be improved through intimacy and relationship building, bring it on.
My understanding of these things (shallow, at best) is that most of the details have been worked out long in advance by underlings. Everyone’s position is fairly well known, who is going to agree to what, which items will people bend on, what are the sticking points, what final decisions have already been made - this stuff is all mostly already done. The meetings are for show. No-one attending these shows wants any surprises. I expect none.
I agree that there should be close communication between representatives, yet, perhaps it’s time to inaugurate a more direct means of communication.
After all, it’s not so much the representatives who could need to be in close communication with each other, as it’s really the 6+ billion people of planet Earth who need to communicate, and this latest G20 summit appears to represent an antiquated means of communication.
Representatives are a good thing, but let them be observed, first hand.
