Bread after the circus

The circus was just that while it lasted. A diversion of attention from the routine of daily life. The circus over, minds will turn back to bread, in a modern yet ancient version of the Romans' panem et circenses.

The intention was to hold more than a circus. A good intention, to add practicality to the entertainment by bringing together business brains in the hope that they would spark some big idea.

Heaven knows, big ideas are much required. By the whole global economy. By the Commonwealth. And most certainly by Malta.

The global economy is in a new cycle of historical proportions. The balance of economic influence has shifted, raising the twin but related issues of the future structure of economic as well as political power. The modern economic axis on which global economic activity tended to turn is rapidly becoming obsolete.

That axis was made up of the economies of the United States, Japan and Germany. The three countries retain great economic strength, even if Germany has yet to overcome the shake-up triggered through the unification of the two parts of post-war Germany. They are giants in their regions, even as they grapple with their particular problems.

The USA is undermined by a profligate Presidency which feeds the voracious American war machine with abandon, straddling over resurgent and surging internal (budgetary) and external (trade) deficits. The country depends on inflows of financial capital, through massive purchases of Treasury Bills, no longer so much by the main oil producers as, ironically and remarkably, by Communist China.

That financing helps the US to continue to strut on the world stage as the only super power, using its military might to yell at the rest of the world, Don't do as I do; do as I tell you!

Germany continues to bleed, with its unemployed millions grim living proof. It moves into a political era that is not really expected to last long. Christian and Social democrats have agreed to cohabit in a grand coalition out of sheer frustration with the stalemate imposed by a disgruntled electorate. The partners of necessity will be more concerned with positioning themselves against each other for the next election than truly to co-operate.

Japan is regaining economic strength, but its political framework remains frail.

Giants the three countries may still be, but there is a new, tough kid in town. China is the current shaker and mover of the global economy, with India moving on a parallel track, if not at the same speed.

China's seemingly insatiable thirst for commodities, symbolised by oil, is the main impulse to the upward price trend. Western investors arrow towards China like flies to a honey pot.

Chinese products flood Western markets, enabling consumers to enjoy prices that - even after the high mark-ups by importers, distributors and retailers who jump at the opportunity to protect and raise profit margins - are below those of products sourced from domestic and even other low-cost, good quality production locations.

The present cycle is new only in its timing. There have been other economic shake-ups as world trade expanded, the industrial revolution unleashed the dynamic of technological innovation that seems to know no pause, and forced (convicts), legal (British, Irish, Italian) and illegal (Mexican) immigration of human resources combined to bring about various shifts in economic and political power.

Globalisation is the current term for the dynamic smashing of national frontiers. Within that system the countries and economic blocs that are being so rapidly displaced from their past dominance scratch frantically for big ideas that will permit them to consolidate the standard of living their people have grown accustomed to, to contain unemployment, to retain sanity even as their world seems to be collapsing about them.

The upheaval comes in part (India) from within the Commonwealth of nations whose disparate and in some cases desperate heads of state met in Malta last week. Too many of those countries, though, live in near despair for reasons rooted much earlier.

Theirs is not a problem of lost competitiveness and low growth. They suffer from what used to be termed - and still is - underdevelopment. Whatever softer substitute terms are used, such as "less developed", the condition of far too many of their inhabitants remains one of stark poverty.

Past neglect, current corruption, and internal and external callous exploitation account for their state of affairs, which could not always be honestly articulated by the heads of states and their troupes who came to perform in the CHOGM circus. The people of many parts of the Commonwealth require big ideas and urgent implementation.

Such ideas in the context of concrete proposals how to implement them were not in clear evidence during the Malta meeting.

One did not really expect them to be there in practical terms. CHOGM is a forum for discussion. Issues were as always discussed, often - understandably enough - from the standpoint of the intervening individual representative.

Back in their individual countries, the 52 heads of states represented here will quickly forget about CHOGM and get on with whatever it was they were trying to do before they took a probably welcome break.

Some of them might even wryly reflect that whoever stayed away might have been wiser than they.

Malta certainly needs a few big ideas. Even one would be a godsend. Never mind the true size of the structural deficit, the extent of the public debt, next year's massively higher water and electricity bills. We have harrowing economic problems.

A chunk of our manufacturing sector is in rapid decline. All the understandably sorrowful protests in the world will not save a single job from relocating in lower cost centres. The North African countries, whose labour costs are around a third of those in Malta, are themselves under threat from China, with half their costs or less.

Tourism is stressed. Government hype and Opposition stances against hotels sold or otherwise destined for high-price residential development, socially and financially weird suggestions to slash VAT on restaurant meals, and parallel streams of bipartisan platitudes cannot be true and effective substitutes for the repositioning required if there is to be any chance of rebuilding this principal pillar of the economy.

The business forum that kicked off the week's CHOGM jamboree was interesting enough in itself. There were some heartening words, such as those of the CEO of HSBC Bank Malta about the possibility - still no more than that - that the bank's parent will relocate back-office work from Eire to Malta.

There was, as always, much stating of the obvious, together with wearying regurgitation of well known dos and don'ts, in addition to frenetic beating of self-promoting drums.

If there were one single big idea that can and will be taken up with some reasonable hope that it will hatch anything practical, it must have got lost in the excitement of the occasion.

That is not to say what was said was unuseful. Hopefully too, Maltese participants found it possible to intensify relationship building. Even had some path-breaking big idea been floated, the frames in the normal picture would require attention.

It is those frames which will now come into sharper focus once the distraction and excitement of Queen Elizabeth II's enduring attraction to a segment of the people are over. There will be fresh, completely home-rolled-and-baked distractions as leftovers from the CHOGM table.

The cost of organising the meeting to Malta, in monetary terms alone, will take on many versions. It may not be established with reasonable accuracy for months. It will become another political ball to kick about.

There has to be proper accounting in that regard. As a serious exercise, not as another act in the domestic circus that is totally unrelated to any big or small event and goes on without pause or break.

Above all, though there needs to be some serious attempt to step back both from confrontation as well as posturing, and to try to think of new ways out of the current economic situation.

Claiming that it is good when actual experience, popular perception and objective analysts say that there is much that is not right gets the government and the country nowhere.

Insisting that everything is rotten and collapsing may get the Opposition closer to winning office: it will not repair what is broken to improve the economy, both for the people's sake and also for when the opposition moves from being the alternative to the actual government.

Stepping back from old positions to search for ideas how best to move forward is one serious act that will not fit into any circus. It would merely be greeted with applause from all those who feel that to get bread for the national table is a very worthwhile business.