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Newsweek
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Jan 23, 2008 05:41 PM
Virginia Mayo / AP
By Stefan Theil
One of the headaches in planning a big annual conference is assembling topics and panelists without knowing what's going to be preoccupying the world that very week. So amid the high economic anxiety surrounding today's start of the World Economic Forum, the opening session with Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai and Condoleezza Rice almost seemed like a blast from the past, when the world was worrying about things other than massive market mayhem. Business leaders listened to their talks about fighting terrorism and promoting democracy, but it's a safe bet that most of them had other troubles on their minds.
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Rana Foroohar
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Jan 23, 2008 12:29 PM
Tech geeks are some of the only upbeat types this year at Davos. Sure,
tech stocks are tanking and corporate R and D budgets are shrinking,
but that's the best time to start a new business -- at least according
to some of the entrepreneurs and VCs at a technology cocktail reception
held this afternoon in Davos. One high profile venture capitalist noted
that many of today's biggest tech businesses, like Microsoft and
Oracle, were started in a downturn. Why?
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Daniel Gross
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Jan 23, 2008 12:04 PM
About 30 journalists joined legendary hedge fund manager George Soros
for lunch at the Sheraton Waldhuus Hotel, down the hill and across the
train tracks from the main hub of
activity. Over a fine lunch (the translation of the menu doesn’t do it
justice: goat cheese rolls and air-dried meat, veal steak with
shallots, burned cream with passion fruit), Soros, a fierce critic of
the imbalances in the world’s financial system, largely resisted the
temptation to beat his chest and say “I told you so.”
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Daniel Gross
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Jan 23, 2008 10:59 AM
One of the parlor games among journalists here has been to guess which
heavy financial heavy-hitters won’t be showing up in Davos due to the
continuing financial crises at home. After all, nobody wants to be the
next Jimmy Cayne, the Bear, Stearns chief executive officer who was
sent packing in part because he spent a chunk of the summer at a bridge
tournament while his firm was coping with the subprime crisis. The
consensus seems to be that James Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase
who is one of the co-chairs of this year’s forum, will show up come hell or
high water. But several of the rest – including Blackstone Group CEO
Steve Schwartzman and Merrill, Lynch CEO John Thain – seem to
be up in the air. NEWSWEEK has learned that one of America’s most
prominent business bigwigs—Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—will not be
attending.
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Arlene Getz
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Jan 23, 2008 09:39 AM
Photo: Arlene Getz
Nigeria's President Yar'Adua
Kenya might be the most recent--and surprising--African nation to have descended into chaos, but some of the world's most influential people are still optimistic about the continent. That, at least, was what a show of hands indicated during a panel today called Africa's Governance Dividend. "Africa is moving on and coming up," Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua told delegates.
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Daniel Gross
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Jan 23, 2008 08:23 AM
Carbon neutrality is a big theme at Davos this year. Barclays, the British bank, offered to buy offsets to compensate for the carbon emitted by people traveling to Switzerland. (They didn't offer to do anything about all the hot air emitted once summiteers are in Davos.) But CNBC, whose parent company, General Electric, is reaping huge gains from the global demand for energy efficiency, seems to be taking carbon neutrality to extremes.
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Rana Foroohar
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Jan 23, 2008 09:16 AM
VIPs pushed and shoved this morning for a place at an oversubscribed economic panel in Davos asking the question on everyone's mind: "Who's in charge?" The
verdict was clearly, "not central bankers," as big names like George Soros, Larry Summers, and Joe Stiglitz railed against the Fed and its foreign peers for not doing a better job managing the current market troubles. A poll of the audience showed that nearly 60 percent believed that central bankers had lost control of the global financial system. "They've dropped the ball," said Soros.
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Daniel Gross
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Jan 23, 2008 08:12 AM
John Snow, former Treasury Secretary and current chairman of private
equity firm Cerberus, walking into the meeting room clutching a cloth
bag--the type organic food co-op shoppers carry--printed with the words
"EARTH SAVER"
A private equity executive I was chatting with said: "If he had brought that to the White House, Karl Rove would have shot him."
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Rana Foroohar
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Jan 23, 2008 08:04 AM
Environmentalists must be grinding their teeth. Climate change would surely have been the hot topic this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos had global markets not plunged so precipitiously yesterday. Now, Davos Man is torn between looking over his shoulder for the next VIP, and checking his Blackberry to see how far the company stock has fallen. At PriceWaterhouseCoopers' annual CEO confidence survey a few hours ago, PWC head Samuel DiPiazza found himself apologizing for the champagne. "It's to celebrate the Fed's 75 basis point reduction," he joked.
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