The G20 governments that meet this weekend in Toronto are all over the world map, literally, and in their responses to the world's economic challenges.
That G20 governments are divided should not be surprising. Some are authoritarian; others democratic. Some countries enjoy huge current account and trade surpluses (China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea); others are in the red (the United States, Britain).
Some, such as Canada, Germany and Britain, have made deficit-reduction a short- to medium term priority; others such as the United States and France plead for ongoing stimulus. Some have excellent growth prospects - Brazil's GDP just jumped 8.4 per cent in the last quarter - whereas others face sluggish prospects.
Some worry about inflation - China's decision to let the yuan move somewhat more freely responds in part to inflation challenges at home - whereas others have such weak economies that short-term inflation is the least of their worries.
Some countries' banks collapsed in the recession and were bailed out by taxpayers, so countries such as Britain, France and Germany want a tax on financial institutions, whereas others, such as Canada, India, Brazil, China, Japan and Australia see no point in taxing their banks that withstood the recessionary storm.
Most fundamental of all, the G20 groups countries with huge disparities in income and size, and often quite different foreign policy agendas.
The wonder, given these divergences, is that they have agreed on at least several important questions.
The most obvious is protectionism. Countries did apparently learn the lessons of history that a rush to protection is the worst possible antidote to recession and financial turbulence. That G20 countries, by and large, resisted domestic pressures for protection during the recession speaks well for absorbing past mistakes.
They also agreed at the first G20 summits during the recession to co-ordinate their responses by taking on stimulus targets reflecting a share of their respective gross domestic products. This was done - although countries went about injecting stimulus into their economies in different ways. South Korea invested heavily in a green economy; China in infrastructure and health care; Canada in a potpourri of projects, few of them green.
Co-ordinating responses for the recession was easier than agreeing on how and when to leave those responses behind; in part, because countries remain in dramatically different economic and fiscal shape.
The big developing countries (China, India, Brazil) are in good-to-excellent fiscal shape. Their economies are growing fast, although their per capita incomes remain far behind those of North America, Europe and Australia. The big developed countries are experiencing some recovery from the recession, but their anticipated growth rates are still much lower than those in Asia, and unemployment remains high: 9.7 per cent in the United States, 10 per cent in France, 8.1 per cent in Canada.
The United States, most notably, is a fiscal wreck, with deficits of more than $1-trillion this year and next - and a long-term debt explosion starting later this decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (Things would get worse if the U.S. federal government had to bail out the country's largest state, California.) There is absolutely no sign that the U.S. political system, a rough reflection of U.S. public opinion, can deal with the monumental challenges these deficits and debts present.
Therefore, when President Barack Obama pleads for a continuation of stimulus at home and abroad, to be followed by an assault on deficits in the "medium-term," not many outside his country believe him, or at least believe his country's ability to grapple with fiscal problems any time soon, including the "medium term."
Americans fear that tightening up spending, at home and abroad, might tip their country and the world economy back into slow growth or maybe a double-dip recession. It's the same argument the French are making in Europe, with their arguments specifically directed at Germany.
The U.S./French plea, however, is falling on deaf ears. Having seen the Greek bailout, and knowing of the huge debt loads being carried by other European Union members, Germany and Britain are slashing spending and raising taxes. Germany, in particular, has a justified fear of becoming the country on which more profligate Europeans will rely when their debts become unsustainable.
Canada, which entered the recession with the strongest economy and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of the industrialized countries, sides with the Germans and Brits. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants G20 countries to commit to specific deficit-reduction targets, as his government has done. Mr. Harper, however, will not get what he wants - at least not from the U.S., where the president proposes but Congress disposes. And Congress is certainly not disposed to do anything as constructive as setting a deficit target and sticking to it.
It's easier for Congress to beat up on China for manipulating its currency, which China has been systematically doing. Knowing that this manipulation would be criticized at the G20, China announced earlier this week it would let the yuan slowly rise against other currencies.
So the G20 event, with all the hoopla and media involved, can enjoin countries to do things to avoid criticism. Even Canada, the developed world's worst climate-change performer, announced this week that it would phase out coal-fired plants, obviously worried that, having had climate change inserted into the agenda against its will, the host country would again be embarrassed by its poor record.