[kinkora]

"Every journey of a 1000 miles begins with 1 step"

Maybe we should laude and celebrate that at least loads of effort was put into getting all the G7 finance ministers in one place and actually have a discussion + agree to a next step?

Feels unnecessary negative and very arm chair criticism to just hand wave the whole endeavour and say "oh nothing was done and all they did was talk".

I sometimes think people in the last decade are to quick to find faults for every little thing that falls short of a 100% effort (and even that gets criticism) without even considering that they are not the men-in-the-arena [1] doing the hard work.

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[1] Whenever I think of criticizing something/someone, I always consider Theodore Roosevelt comment on this sort of behaviour where he once said:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

[CaptainSwing]

You saying all politicians, even the aweful ones, should get participation awards, while us plebs should just know our place and shut up?

[rufus_foreman]

> Feels unnecessary negative and very arm chair criticism to just hand wave the whole endeavour and say "oh nothing was done and all they did was talk"

They don't have the authority to negotiate the agreements that were described in the headlines as already being made.

That's called bullshit. Doesn't matter which side politically you are on, it's bullshit. Why is the BBC printing bullshit?

They don't have that authority, the BBC is lying to you, why are they doing that?

[wildfire]

No, as has been pointed out to you - multiple times - reaching a deal is not equivalent to a contract.

The fact that your experience tells you that "deal equals contract" is strange.

In my experience I have had plenty of "deals" not materialise for one reason or another.

To extrapolate that the BBC is printing bullshit is basically to say that if you have not experienced something, then it is worthless.

The BBC is not lying. You are being shrill for no good reason and are relying on and extrapolating from your limited experience of deals.