My colleague Suzanne Pratt reminded me of the times when we used to chase down G7 finance ministers to get their comments on the dollar and other financial issues. The Group of Seven is made up the finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and Canada.

In the 1990’s, it seemed important for us to cover the group’s meetings. Even though the meetings happened over the weekend, the news flow was such that it was still “news” by Monday night and often into the week. Times have changed. The immediacy of financial information has wiped out some of the “news” value in a G7 meeting, but the G7 has also become less relevant in world financial markets. The fastest growing countries -- China, Brazil, and India -- are not part of the group.

In the 80’s and 90’s, the G7 focused on how to handle emerging market debt. It was relatively easy for the world’s richest nation’s to agree on how to address the issue. But as Michael Monderer of the G7 Group points out, “it’s much more difficult to reach agreement when we’re talking about our own economies.”