Papering over the cracks or a 'violent agreement'?
Toronto
Toronto doesn't quite know what hit it over the weekend. This city prides itself on its diversity and laid-back charm. Tear gas, baton rounds and burning police cars are always upsetting if they happen in your city, but Toronto's natives were particularly hurt and angry that it happened here. It followed hard on the heels of an earthquake, another freakishly alien event for locals. Was Toronto's pain worth it for the world?
The seismic activity can't be blamed on the twin peaks of this summit, the G8 and G20, but the attempt at riot was a direct reaction to the presence of all these world leaders.
Not all of Canada is happy with the bill - $1.1bn (£732m) it cost, to talk about the need for greater austerity. This includes $57,000 for a fake lake in the media centre. The G8 meeting was held in a lakeside resort some 100 miles north of Toronto, so to bring some spirit of place inside this vast aircraft hanger of an exhibition centre, they've build a deck flanked by racks of canoes, with spacious wooden chairs, overlooking a cinema-sized screen playing scenes of boating or tracking shots across forests and lakes. Huge speakers twitter bird song which unfortunately competes with the coarse shrieks and roars of "homo footballus" watching another big screen nearby.
Despite this, it is still more relaxing to sit and ponder a script line here, rather than hunched at the trestle tables that serve as desks in the work space. But I can understand the Canadian taxpayer baulking at the bill to reduce my stress levels.
But is the bill worth it for the world? It is easy to see this meeting as an attempt to paper over the cracks. We came to Toronto talking about the split between Europe and the US. Whether to stimulate, whether to cut. We end up with President Barack Obama praising a "courageous" British budget, and a communique that within the same paragraph talks of both the "need to follow through on delivering existing stimulus plans" and stating that "those countries with serious fiscal challenges need to accelerate the pace of consolidation".
Facing two ways at once, or adopting a sensible, flexible approach? Perhaps a bit of both. President Obama's real worry is that countries that don't have a big deficit, like Germany, aren't doing enough to encourage spending. Particularly spending on US exports. Maybe I am not enough of an economist to understand this argument. But it is culture and quality that means Germans buy German hi-fis and cars, not some fiscal measure.
At their separate news conferences both David Cameron and President Obama dismissed the idea of a split. The president, in a nice phrase, talked of a "violent agreement".
The truth surely is that getting 19 economies (the 20th seat is for the EU) to agree even a rough-and-ready broad direction of travel is very difficult. Presuming that it is a worthwhile endeavour in the first place, it has to be slow. The details are not the stuff of headlines and the headlines are not the stuff of drama. But not that long ago it would have seemed like the purest fiction to get Russia, the US, China, France and the UK agreeing economic policy, let alone them welcoming a say from the likes of Brazil, South Africa and India. Talking may not be enough. But it is a start.
I’m Mark Mardell, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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