But at least divided we stand together, in “broad agreement.”

It goes like this: Tim Geithner is all for imposing more conservative rules on financial institutions too, Germany, as long as they’re not too conservative. Germany’s Wolfgang Schäuble, on the other hand, wants kind-of-sort-of the same thing, he says, as long as it’s more conservative than not too conservative and, above all else, international. And as long as it’s German unilateral at the same time too, of course.

Other than that though, they couldn’t agree on much of anything.

“We have a lot in common. We are going to have slightly different approaches. I don’t think we’ll know what separates us until we get to the next stage.”