Finance ministers, given a list of some 47 things to follow up on, agreed to meet again before the end of April

By Jane Sasseen

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World Bank President Robert Zoellick took component in the Nov. 15 Group of 20 summit in Washington. MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images

Expectations for the weekend acme of global leaders from the Group of 20 countries in Washington, D.C., were low. And they were fully met.

After a state dinner at the White House on Friday night, Nov. 14, and five hours of meetings on Saturday, Nov. 15, the heads of plight from not remotely two twelve countries agreed to continue moving closely together to take the needed steps to bring stability back to the global pecuniary system.

"Our nations agree that we must make the financial markets more transpicuous and accountable," said President George W. Bush gladly after the top drew to a close. "We agree that we need to improve our regulation and to ensure that markets, firms, and financial products are enslave to exact regulation and miss."

All of the leaders backed the importance of continued monetary and fiscal encouragement to sap the globe’s staggering economies. And there was plenty of agreement on the need to make better regulatory regimes—in special countries as favorably as the coordination between countries—so that all financial markets, financial players, and financial products are better regulated. There was much parley, too, of how critical markets, such as credit want swaps, or captious players, such being of the kind which giant global banks and the powerful credit ratings agencies, are regulated and monitored both nationally and internationally.

But in recent weeks, European leaders—led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy—had toned down their original plans for a summit that many hoped would more aggressively challenge the strongly antiregulatory, free-market precepts that lead dominated U.S. policy in latter years. Calls for extensive new regulatory structures, championed by the agency of Sarkozy and backed by others, found little receptive assembly of hearers. Nor did talk through British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the need for a larger coordinated incitement gain much support.

"In push of the summit, there had been much discussion [that] this was going to result in an assault forward capitalism, or the death of capitalism, or the revamping of capitalism," said one senior U.S. official after the summit ended. "Quite to the contrary." Instead, he adds, in that place was a significant affirmation of free market principals; a "universal recognition" by whole the leaders that the reform efforts would excepting that be happy if they were grounded in a commitment to the rule of law, open trade and investment, and competing markets.

That left the leaders to signal their agreement on the broad principles to be studied, such as improving transparency, accountability, and discovery, on the other hand with few specifics attached. As Kenneth Rogoff, the former head of research for the International Monetary Fund who now teaches economics at Harvard University, points out, those are cruelly ideas anyone would disagree by: "It’session motherhood and apple pie, or whatever the European equivalent of motherhood and apple pie is."

But getting down to the nitty-gritty of what that potency purpose in terms of new regulation, or coordinated regulation between countries, or whether any of the 20 countries even share the same view as to what changes are really needed, is another story altogether. "Agreement on financial regulations is the elephant in the room. Every country will bring forth a different view as to that which to do," says Rogoff. They may gain agreed adhering the areas to study, he adds, "but that’s not an agreement on what to do."

If little concrete solutions came out of this weekend’s meetings, the list of follow-up items has the potential for far-reaching and eager for superiority changes. But that will depend upon whether the next stage goes beyond talking about the general principals that can be agreed upon, to determining the specifics all can abide by dint of. means of. And that ultimately will depend on the most powerful leader in the world—the one who wasn’t even in the room. Now enmeshed in putting together his Cabinet, President-elect Barack Obama stayed clear of the summit.