Deficits: You can go your own way
It is always easier to get unity in the early days of a crisis. Fear concentrates the minds of leaders.
After the great dividing argument over whether cutting deficits now risks damaging the recovery remains unsettled. President Obama at one point spoke of "violent agreement". In the end the world's 20 biggest economies agreed to take their own paths, at their own pace.
"You have the sense things are going back to the national level now," said Andrew Cooper of the .
If a final communique uses tortuous language it is usually a sure sign that cracks are being papered over. The G20 in Toronto promised to implement "credible, properly phased and growth-friendly plans to deliver fiscal sustainability, differentiated from and tailored to national circumstances".
The deal was to halve budget deficits by 2013 without stunting growth. In the end what has become the European view that debt must be faced and faced now emerged the winner. David Cameron said that the summit had backed his view that "confidence and growth would spring from fiscal consolidation".
That is the belief of those who favour big cuts now - that it will restore confidence and so spur growth. It is a belief, however, not a certainty. Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank summed it up: "We are in a position where a lack of confidence is operating against recovery."
The final communique did say that "strengthening the recovery is the key" and the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said economic stimulus measures would still be needed in the short term to sustain growth. That may be the case but President Obama, who had been sounding warnings of the dangers of slashing public spending, will have to wield the axe next year. "I hope some of the folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up," he said, referring to his domestic critics, "because I'm calling their bluff".
For the moment the deficit-cutters are in the ascendant. But if US growth falters, or if growth sputters elsewhere, the critics will be out in force, saying that slashing spending and raising taxes is choking off the recovery and tipping economies back into recession.
The idea of a global bank levy - so favoured by many of Europe's leaders - was a non-starter for now. "Some countries are pursuing a financial levy, other countries are pursuing a different approach," was the verdict.
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