Barack Obama and his entourage of 500 have made their way to London for this G-20 summit. Basically what we have here is a little grin and grip with leaders of 20 nations, which represent 85% of the world's economy. Their goal is to figure out how to stabilize the global financial markets and re-start economic growth.

But the difference lies in how they want to do it.

France leads a group of nations who want to create some sort of a global financial regulator. Nobody, particularly the US and Great Britain, seems to be biting on that one. Do you fully understand what this would mean? Well don't feel pregnant. Not many of us do grasp this idea fully. Here's one option. Many high-tax nations, and that would include France, aren't happy with the international economic competition they get from lower-tax nations. They tend to get their berets in a bunch when private businesses chose to do business, create jobs and boost the economies of nations with lower taxes. So ... the solution? You create a global financial regulator and give him the power to dictate tax policy. That way when Ireland, for instance, decides to lower its corporate tax rate in order to lure businesses, jobs and investments France's global financial regulator could step in and put a halt to that nonsense. When nations cannot compete against each other with tax policy the road is cleared for ever-increasing tax increases and big all-powerful government.

Then we have President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. These two are leading the "tax and spend" contingent. Clearly we know how Barack Obama plans to stimulate the economy - government "investment." This, as you know, is the word that has replaced "spending." Governments don't spend any more. They invest. Anyways .... Obama would like to see other nations match his stimulus package. And Great Britain's Gordon Brown was willing to go along with that plan. Remember his proposed $2 trillion plan called the "global new deal"? That one got shot down by European leaders before they even made their way to London. Particularly Germany's Angela Merkel who said, "I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money." That seemed to be the resounding response from European leaders - they don't want to spend more money to stimulate the global economy. Merkel, by the way, is absolutely on board with Sarkozy with this global economic regulator idea. Get this ... she wants the global regulator to be able to regulate executive bonuses. Oh man ... where do we start?

By the way, you really need to know why Merkel isn't hyped up on the spend-till-you-choke-on-it plan for economic revival. She knows something about German history. She knows that Germany experienced hyperinflation during the so-called "Great Depression," and that people were hauling wheelbarrows of money to the store to buy schnitzel. The voters really got their lederhosen in a wad over this and elected some twerp name Hitler to fix things.

So now that Gordon's global new deal has been shot to hell, what can we really expect from this summit? Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute says,

1. Leaders will promise to avoid protectionism (which they won't do)
2. They will promise to help developing countries by increasing contributions to the IMF. That's international welfare that enriches tyrants.
3. They will discuss the need for financial regulators to cooperate. Share information, maybe .. but this cooperation idea sounds dangerous.
4. They will shake hands and take pictures
5. Joke with one another about the asinine know-it-all anarchist demonstrators who are, for now at least, providing untold entertainment to Londoners.
6. Make endless comparisons between Michelle Obama and Carla Sarkozy

But then there is China. China is asking the G-20 to replace the dollar as the world's currency with a global currency managed by the IMF. Considering that China is currently sitting on more than $1 trillion of our IOUs ... this doesn't bode as a very comforting move for the United States. For right now this idea isn't going anywhere. If we manage to screw up our economy any more it might gain some followers.