While the only person on this planet naive enough to think a summit between the world’s two superpowers actually means anything might be Community Organizer in Chief (COC) Barack Obama, we must admit that trading words face-to-face is preferable to lobbing nuclear missiles over the horizon at one another. The spin doctor administration hacks can bray all they want, telling us what we’re supposed to think about this face-off. For strictly political points, it was a chance for Obama to look presidential for a change, opportunities which have numbered in the precious few since the election.

The meeting between Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao was declared a success why exactly? Because the leading worldwide mouthpieces for socialism – err – democracy and communism respectively managed to spend some quality time in a room alone together without resorting to fisticuffs? We even got word that presidential daughter, Sasha, was allowed to try out her budding Chinese language skills on Mr. Jintao. Isn’t that special?

But down to serious business. The summit concluded with the announcement of $45 billion dollars in new business deals (ho hum), and pledges of greater cooperation (boring). Once again, we should reiterate that talking is preferable to not talking but how long has it been since we had something of substance happen at one of these events? Where are the good old days of President George H.W. Bush ralphing into the lap of another world leader?

Summits like this are perfect examples of the term “bread and circuses,” coined by Roman poet, Juvenal, in reference to the politicians of the day who offered simple appeasements of food entertainment to a populace steadfastly tuned out of the important political developments, due to frivolous pursuits of pop culture. Pop culture. Hmm…seems like there is more than a passing similarity between the Roman Empire in its final days and the current state of decline in America.

In conclusion, we’d like to thank COC Obama and Mr. Jintao for a fine serving of bread and circuses. It tasted quite good – quite good indeed. And, hey, if you say everything between the two countries is hunky dory, who are we to disbelieve? We can ignore those nagging little issues of massive human rights violations by the Chinese government since they are the largest holder of our debt and, legitimately could crash our dollar if they wanted to.

Welcome to the show, folks, welcome to the show.

The American Monetary Association Team

Flickr / laszlo-photo