Another year, another G-8 summit.  Last year heads of state partook of beer in Germany, this year, it's sake in Japan.  However, other than a chance for leaders to gather to schmooze after meetings, the G-8 appears, like Bush,  to be cocooned in a bubble, not residing in the world the rest of us inhabit..

Climate change, the global financial crisis, skyrocketing oil prices, and the cost of food staples like rice and wheat becoming unaffordable don't seem to be seriously on the G-8 radar.

An article by the economics editor of The Guardian paints the picture of a completely out of touch G-8 with a few exceptions. 

"It's been 13 long months since the leaders of the G8 gathered for their annual talkfest. I'm sure the details of last year's communique are etched into your brain but just in case you've forgotten what was agreed in Heiligendamm, here's a reminder. "We noted," the G8 said, "that the world economy is in good condition and growth is more evenly distributed across regions." This was June 8 2007, two months to the day before the entire global financial system came to a shuddering halt. If you like your humour black, it's rather funny isn't it?

"But wait, because it gets better. The communique expressed confidence that there would be "a smooth adjustment of global imbalances which should take place in the context of sustained and robust economic growth". Glad to see, then, that there was no risk that the US sub-prime mortgage crisis would prompt what the International Monetary Fund has called the biggest shock to the global financial system since the Great Depression.

Regular citizens of the G-8 countries could have given a more realistic economic report than these so called leaders and their advisers.

"In fact, the G8 had nothing to say about housing bubbles at all, though it did find time to discuss the need for a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. And so it goes on. The G8 managed a cursory glance at what hedge funds were up to and decided that - on balance - there was nothing really to worry about. "While noting the positive contribution [sic] of hedge funds to financial-market stability, we also want to minimise systemic risks by increasing transparency and market discipline on the part of all parties involved."

"These are the same cuddly hedge funds, presumably, that have been in large part responsible for driving up the price of oil and food on commodity markets, to the point where the "good condition" of the global economy is threatened by stagflation and hunger?

As one hedge fund manager, Michael Masters, told a Congressional hearing in May, speculation in commodity futures has increased 20 times in the past five years - from $13bn (£6.5bn) to $260bn - and during that time the price of a basket of commodities has risen by 183%. The increase in demand from speculators, Masters said, had been almost equal to the increase in demand from China.

"The prime minister [Gordon Brown] is also correct when he argues that the big issues on the agenda this week have to be dealt with together rather than individually, since it is quite clear that there is no lasting solution to the world's macro economic problems that does not include a solution to where we are going to get our energy from, and how we marry strategies for growth with strategies for environmental sustainability.

"If the G8 was doing its job properly, this week's communique would be rather shorter than usual. It would say the world is about to be battered by a triple crunch of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, galloping climate change and - even in the absence of speculation - a long-term increase in energy prices caused by the imminence of peak oil.

"All this requires more than just the tired old business as usual nostrums. On the last two occasions the global economy reached crisis point - in the 1930s and 1970s - there was radical change. It is worrying and depressing that there is an intellectual vacuum when there ought to be a plethora of ideas about how to dig ourselves out of this hole."

The taxpayers of the respective G-8 countries should feel cheated paying for these achieve nothing substantive trips and their electorates should also be dismayed by the cluelessness of some of their heads of state.