Besides, Europe is about deal-making, about fudge and smudge, about warm exhortations meaning nothing precise.

ECONOMIST: The European Union's constitution

Virtually everything that emanated publicly from their mouths directly contradicted their actions or their private exhortations.

FORBES: PR Rogue's Gallery

They may have decided, correctly, that exhortations to tighten belts or pay more taxes are no vote-getters.

CNN: The Economy, Stupid

It is not yet clear whether Mr Blair's exhortations will be enough to stave off that danger.

ECONOMIST: Blair’s defence offensive | The

Gone, it seems, are the days when penny-pinching consumers preferred to stash their hard-earned earnings whatever the exhortations to spend.

CNN: From Our Correspondent: Spend, Spend, Spend

Among many exhortations, the summit urged countries to ratify existing nuclear-security treaties.

ECONOMIST: Disarmament and counter-proliferation

Second, our dependence on energy imports, and oil in particular, has doubled over the past 30 years despite decades of serial exhortations and policies to do explicitly otherwise.

FORBES: Egypt fallout -- follow Exxon and T Boone Pickens; go long natural gas and frack-baby-frack

Mercifully, the banks ignored these exhortations: credit shrank last year.

ECONOMIST: Malaysia

First, there was the proliferation of the obligatory title vice president of strategy, strategic development or strategic alliances, then all the meetings filled with and elongated by hollow references and exhortations about strategy.

FORBES: Magazine Article

So it is here in Las Vegas, amid the buzz of Mandarin and Ms. Chen's exhortations about the value of making friends, when the jarring realization sets in: Of all things, of all places, perhaps the future of business looks like an Amway convention.

WSJ: Inside the Amway Sales Machine