26 January, 2010Sober Davos forum eyes banking reforms
Responsible banks and aid for Haiti — not invincible billionaires, high-charged diplomacy or rock stars — are the watchwords at this year’s World Economic Forum at Davos.
This rarefied Swiss resort will still host its share of bankers rich on post-meltdown bonuses and perhaps less of the humility that marked last year’s gathering of many of the world’s rich and powerful, then struggling through government bailouts and questioning their future.
Yet participants and organizers of this week’s five-day forum, opening Wednesday with more than 2,500 leading figures in business and politics on deck, suggest Davos is marking its 40th birthday by adapting to a more sober and dispersed modern economy, one where Beijing weighs increasingly on the market balance, and where poverty and public outrage demand the attention of the world’s moneymakers.
“The euphoria about globalization that marked Davos for years has in a sense been undermined by the global crisis,” Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and frequent participant at Davos, said in an interview, expressing hope that “going forward, there can be a more serious attempt to try to get a more balanced view, not only at the benefits but at some of the risks.”
While President Barack Obama’s administration will be only modestly represented at this year’s forum, his plan to clamp down on the size and activity of banks will be on many chief bankers’ minds.
The forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, said the event is opening in a “mood of reflection.” “There is nothing at the moment to be celebrating,” Schwab told The Associated Press.
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