So much for the hoopla and highly publicized activities of this week’s G-20 economic summit.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Americans say the U.S. economy will be helped more by the decisions of U.S. business leaders to grow their own businesses than by the actions of world leaders on behalf of the global economy.

Thirty percent (30%) say decisions made by world leaders to help the global economy will benefit the U.S. economy more. Fifteen percent (15%) aren’t sure in the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party have more confidence in the private sector than do Democrats. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliateds say the decisions of U.S. business leaders will benefit the American economy more.

Democrats are closely divided.

Sixty percent (60%) of investors place more faith in U.S. business leaders. Confidence as measured by the Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes is down slightly after a week of gains.

“Adam Smith would be proud. While all the media attention is focused on the G-20, the American people are looking in a different direction for solutions to the global economic slowdown,” Scott Rasmussen, founder and publisher of Rasmussen Reports, explains. “By a nearly two-to-one margin, voters say decisions U.S. business owners make will do more for the economy than pronouncements by the world leaders gathered in London.”

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Americans, in fact, are closely divided over whether the Group of 20 summit of world leaders will produce anything of note. Forty-one percent (41%) say the participants are at least somewhat likely to agree on a significant plan to help the world’s economy, but just eight percent (8%) say that is Very Likely.

Forty-one percent (41%) believe the G-20 meeting in London is not very likely to produce a significant global economic plan, and an additional eight percent (8%) say it’s not at all likely.

Democrats are more optimistic than others. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Democrats say the G-20 is likely to produce an important economic plan, compared to 30% of Republicans and 32% of unaffiliated adults.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Americans say they have followed news of President Obama’s trip to the G-20 summit at least somewhat closely. Eight percent (8%) aren’t following the news at all.

The divide among nations going into the G-20 summit, which begins formally today, is a wide one. The United States and Great Britain are urging other nations to join them in large-scale stimulus spending to grow the global economy. France and Germany oppose such spending and blame much of the world economic crisis on unrestricted free-market capitalism in the United States. They hope to establish global financial regulations that would allow international oversight of some U.S. domestic economic activities.

The majority of Americans – by more than two-to-one – think it is better for the rest of the world to become more like the United States than for America to become more like them.

Eighty-eight percent (88%) also reject the call for a new global currency and say it is important for the dollar to remain the currency of the United States.

Not that Americans are big fans of the stimulus spending the president has proposed. Voters are evenly divided on the president’s $3.6 trillion budget and the massive stimulus bill he signed into law last month.

Interestingly, the numbers suggest that Americans are even more suspicious of global leaders than they are of U.S. business leaders who have hit a new low in recent months in terms of favorability.

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