Is there anybody out there?

Wanted. A leader. For a world that can see economic disaster looming but seems unable to do what is necessary to avoid it.

These past few weeks there has been no shortage of summits - the IMF in Washington, the G20 in Cannes, the EU in Brussels to name but three. There's been no shortage of calls for action. There's been no absence of financial wheezes with complex acronyms for tired hacks like me to try to explain. Did I tell you about the plan for the EU's SDRs to be packaged up to boost the EFSF? No? Perhaps it's best left to another day...

What has been missing is a sense from anyone or, even, any institution that this is their mess to resolve. The EU did agree that there should be a euro bail out fund but then they also agreed that someone else should be approached to foot the bill.

At the G20 China and America and even, I'm told, Indonesia made it clear that they saw no reason to pay if the Eurozone itself was not prepared to first. Meantime the Germans - under pressure as the richest country in Europe - explained that their history and their electorate made the idea of printing money to prop up Greece or Italy simply unsellable at home.

Into the vacuum has emerged a new group - which began as the guest list at the leaving party for the head of the European Central Bank. The Frankfurt Group - named after the ECB's home city - brings together the leaders of the EU, IMF and France and Germany.

It has proved to have the power to dictate to both Athens and to Rome and even indirectly to change governments there but even now with so much at stake it seems it is the markets and not politicians who are in charge.