Among the modest and and ill-defined suggestions from the meeting, members "urged governments to implement "appropriate" fiscal and monetary policies to shore up sagging economic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The meeting lasted less than six hours.

The document issued by the members suggested more oversight of hedge funds, more transparency for trading in the global default swaps mareket, and greater supervision of credit rating agencies. All of these steps have been urged by central banks and economists for months. In other words, there was nothing new here and the proposals were given no teeth. For the entire text of the summit declaration check here.

The document also called for a "colleges of supervisors" will be set up to monitor the world's biggest financial institutions.

The G20 plans another meeting for April 2009. The world ought to be in the grips of the worst recession in seven decades by then, and it will be too late for goverments to do much about it.