Money Talks is a business column from CBC radio.

By Michael Hlinka, CBC business columnist

The G8/G20 Summit is over, and all I can say is: "What a monumental waste of time. What a monumental waste of money." But that doesn't even get it quite right. 

The word "monumental" implies that something permanent was constructed ... a monument of some sort or another. Instead, we've got some meaningless words: a watery commitment by the G20 to halve deficits by 2013, which is three long years away, and to "stabilize or reduce" debt-to-output ratios by 2016. 

Are you kidding me? 2016?  2013? 

To provide a bit of perspective, think about how much has transpired from 2007 to 2010, a three-year period of time.  In 2007, George Bush was still the U.S. president. The economy and stock markets were chugging along nicely. U.S. housing prices were coming off, but only slightly, and few people were using the term "bubble." "Ninja" - which stands for no-income, no-job or asset - mortgages was a largely unknown phrase. In fiscal year 2007, Canada ran a record budget surplus of $14 billion (but somewhat ominously, we were the only G-8 country to do so). 

In 2007, the United States ran a deficit of $160 billion. This year it will be $1.6 trillion. That's an increase of 1,000 per cent. So even if I give the 2013 administration the benefit of the doubt and believe that it'll meet the 50 per cent reduction target, it still means that 2013's deficit will be five times - five times - what it was in 2007.  Incredible.

 

Closer to home, let's hope our deficit is halved to stand at $28 billion ... let's also hope that no-one else notices the difference between that and 2007's surplus.

 

A wonderful metaphor played itself out on the streets of Toronto over the weekend. Ensconced in a secured area, politicians from the developed countries - the architects of the current mess the world finds itself in - fashioned their meaningless communiqué. Meanwhile, businesses in Toronto that actually create goods and services of real value and wealth had to shut down to accommodate them. The nation of Canada spent close to $1 billion on security, which means $1 billion that can never go to the environment or health care or you-name-your-favourite spending program.

 

We don't need more G8 and/or G20 Summits. I'm not interested in telling anyone else how to run their affairs, and I'm not particularly interested in hearing leaders from countries that have run themselves into the ground pontificate on the collective action the Developed World should take. 

 

Our Federal Parliament and Provincial Parliaments should convene tomorrow and mandate that, by 2013, balanced budgets are a legal requirement and that, by 2016, debt at all levels of government is cut in half.  Now that would be something monumental!