God it must be fun being Nouriel Roubini. Once dismissed as a bit of a crackpot by the Davos elite, Dr Doom is now the star of the show – billed as “the man who got it right”. At dinners, seminars and parties, everybody now wants to hear from the great Roubini. What is going to happen next? Nothing very good, apparently - he thinks the US banking system is basically insolvent, and the same goes for Europe.

The great thing about being Roubini is that not only is he now widely hailed as cleverer than everybody else – he is also able to imply that he is morally superior and more courageous as well. Part of the current Roubini patter is that many other analysts got it wrong because their judgement was clouded by conflicts of interest. Others, he thinks, lacked the intellectual courage to consistently stand out from the crowd. This makes him sound like an arrogant sod. Maybe so – but he is also appealingly dishevelled and quite funny.

Those are not words I would apply to Vladimir Putin. I went to an off-the-record thing with him yesterday so – apologies – I cannot reveal the not-very-startling things he said. But watching him at close quarters is rather fascinating. He is small, extremely fit-looking, with piercing blue eyes and a nice line in mirthless laughter. As a colleague put it to me later, “I wouldn’t want to be in a room with just him and a bare light-bulb.”

There has always been a certain tension between the World Economic Forum’s slogan – “Dedicated to improving the state of the world” – and the fact that many of the delegates are in Davos to network and go to parties. That is particularly awkward in a year when many of the people here have arguably done quite a lot to mess up the state of the world – by, for example, flogging toxic debt.

Davos has reacted by toning down the parties this year. The closing gala, which usually features dancing and loud music, has been re-branded as a “cultural event” – which sounds really dismal. The tasting of fine wines is not taking place. The investment banks are keeping a low profile.

I was expounding my theory that this is the party-free Davos to a colleague from The Economist, who then dismayed me by producing a vast folder of party invitations. So it appears there are lots of parties – I just haven’t been invited. My former colleague rather grandly picked out some of the B-list invitations, he wouldn’t be using, and tossed them my way – a German bank, an Indian newspaper, that kind of thing. Then he spotted a functionary from the Clinton Global Initiative, called him over and suggested that he invite the FT’s foreign-affairs columnist (me) to the CGI party in the Davos museum. The functionary looked at me for a moment and then said – “I’m afraid it’s a very restricted space.” Oh well, I’m going to a South African jazz party instead – and I won’t even have to gatecrash.

Davos is full of these minor social humiliations. I bumped into the historian Niall Ferguson today, who was a star of the most sought-after dinner this year – on what happened to the investment banks last September. But despite his elevated status, Ferguson is facing the ultimate ignominy – the forum have put him in a hotel room in Klosters, a long drive away from Davos. “I’m a gloomy Scot”, he remarked cheerfully, “I thrive on these sorts of setbacks.

I am now in Davos and preparing to play my part in “shaping the post-crisis world”, which is the official title of this year’s forum. I must say this strikes me as over-optimistic. The words “shaping” and “post-crisis” seem misplaced. (I will grudgingly accept “world”.)

But what would be a better title for this year’s Davos? “Sinking in quicksand” is closer to the spirit of the times; “Buried under an avalanche of debt” acknowledges our Alpine surroundings; “Up shit creek without a paddle” has an appealing directness and shares the same length and meter as “Shaping the post-crisis world” – so that is my favourite for the moment. But I am open to suggestions.

I wonder whether Davos itself might not become the next victim of the globalisation crisis. The streets are still full of important-looking people, falling over in the snow. But two rather crucial groups are notable by their absence: bankers and official Americans.