WTF BRICS?

…from my communications, edited, in lieu of fresh ideas…

Accepting the notion that South Africa is a BRIC(S) turned the concept from an economic concept loosely defined (four countries with the largest economies from the Cold War socialist and third world excluding South Korea and Taiwan) into a political construct. Note that Mexico, Turkey, and Indonesia have significantly larger economies than South Africa, and that Mexico and Turkey also have significantly higher per capita GDP’s. Perhaps the larger point to be made is that the breakdown in policy coherence in the OECD member countries and regions in the face of the ongoing economic difficulties is revealing the reality that BRIC(S) was nothing more than a catchy but arbitrary sales gimmick for financial instruments grounded in non-OECD market risks that are sold with the help of investment bank analysts.