At G20 Obama Emerges as World Leader

Today was President Obama's true entrance to the world.  Gone was the hope that he would win the election; the world leaders now had to deal with the leader of the free world.  And lead he did.  With the President's leadership, the world has pledged $1T to help fight the current recession, a lot of which will go to International Monetary Fund efforts to give money to struggling developing countries, countries in which the recession can be a truly life or death issues for the people that live there.

World cooperation is essential.  We have an EU that is at the verge of collapse.  Adding developing countries (the Baltics and other Eastern European countries) at too quick of a pace, and giving them the Euro, has taken the EU down a dangerous path.  Add to that the lack of a strong federal-style government, and you have EU members who are about to go completely bust.  Take for example Latvia, whose currency, the Lat, is tied to the Euro and has been for some time.  Most people have even taken out car loans denominated in Euros.  There has now been serious talk about devaluing the Lat to take pressure off the central bank, meaning that someone's car payments could literal double in real terms overnight.  The PM has said this won't happen, but one could conceivably see it happen.  Countries like France and Germany have been loathe to give money to these developing nations, further causing doubt within the bloc.

The reason that the President was able to broker agreements with skeptical countries like France and Germany was his willingness to be humble.  Unlike Bush before him, President Obama said that America is somewhat to blame for the current crisis, and it is this humility that we've been lacking for the past decade.