WASHINGTON (October 8): WHAT has happened to the yearly meetings of the world's financial leaders gathered together under the banner of the International Monetary Fund? Either they are buried under an avalanche of caviar, swamped in a flood of gin, or have simply outlived their usefulness.
Exactly 12 months ago in Nairobi we were promised a solution to monetary chaos by July 31, 1974 - a suggestion which, even then, was greeted with unseemly hoots of derision.
The latest gathering in Washington broke up without any such predictions being made. The Canadian Finance Minister found himself chief of an interim committee to study re-distributing oil wealth - and the rest of us left wondering how long was 'interim'.
All of this went way over the head of the average American who is fighting inflation ranging from 12 to 16 per cent, and unemployment of between six per cent and 20 per cent depending on your colour and the particular strata of society you fall into.
The old newspaperman's standby to get a potted version about what ordinary people are actually thinking is the taxi-driver. On the first morning, I struck gold in the shape of a driver who talked almost as fast as his meter clocked over.
The solution he said, was 'higher taxes - take the money away from the spenders who splash it around just like the crazy Government did in the [expletive deleted] war.' Our friend was justified in his comment.
An unscheduled and dramatic exit from his B-52 bomber plane over Vietnam left him minus one eye, part of a lung, and one kidney.