A post-Davos debrief on the state of the world economy
As US growth shrinks and fears of a catastrophic collapse in the eurozone recede, Gideon Rachman, FT editor Lionel Barber and economic editor Chris Giles discuss the strength of world economy in this week’s podcast (also available on video) Read more
By Gideon Rachman
The “reasonable person” is usually to be found in legal textbooks. If you want to meet the “reasonable person” in the flesh, however, I would suggest a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Read more
By Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children
There are two sessions on the future of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals beyond 2015 at Davos this year – the same number of sessions given to meditation and art walks. The word ‘growth’ features in 11 of the agenda’s headings, ‘human’ in four, but ‘poverty’ gets no airtime at all. Yet, if the World Economic Forum is ‘committed to improving the state of the world’, what happens after 2015 is a critical debate for every government that signed up to the MDGs in the first place, and for every business with supply chains or future customers in emerging and developing countries. Read more
(AP)
Friday’s events from the World Economic Forum feature an address by Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, and sessions looking at the challenges faced by, and presented by, the fast-changing Arab world. Reports from FT writers in Davos and by Ben Fenton, Lina Saigol and Lindsay Whipp in London
17.03: The Davos Live Blog is closing down now but for more reading and insight on today’s events, please visit the FT’s in depth page on the World Economic Forum.
16.41: Gideon Rachman, titular proprietor of this blog, has written his surmise from the earlier session on Syria.
16.16: Asked by the Amercian moderator of his panel session about corruption and banking regulation, Nigeria’s central bank governor Sanusi displays a little frustration:
He said: “We are the only country which has taken people out of banks and put them in jail. No bankers in your countries have gone to jail.”
16.12: Martin Wolf has recorded his view on the politics and economics at play in a “low-intensity” Davos this year:
Lord Paul Boateng, former chief secretary to the treasury and the former UK high commissioner to South Africa, answers questions about his first trip to Davos.
1. Is this your first trip to Davos?
I have to confess that it is. I’ve reached a fairly advanced age without ever having felt Davos was for me. I have been an active participant, however, both as a cabinet minister and a diplomat at the spin offs in Mumbai and Cape Town where the WEF reaches out to the rest of the world.
2. What’s the best thing about going to Davos?
If you’ve got an idea or a product to sell then this is a quite unique market place. There are lots of serious people on the lookout for the next big idea or opportunity. A voracious media circus with the promise of global coverage also helps. Read more
Two days is apparently not enough for all the talking that needs to be done, so here we are entering Davos Day Three. But as our morning reading shows, there are some worries that delegates are not ready yet to discuss.
Gillian Tett in her column this week highlights cyber attacks. She compares the “whispers in the corridors” with that of 2007, when there was a similar fear of articulating the credit bubble.
Here’s more from the WEF (you can find the FT stories on our in-depth page and many blog posts, including our live coverage on our World blog):
David Cameron, UK prime minister, had more to say on the country’s relationship with the EU and sought common ground with German chancellor Angela Merkel among others.
The FT’s Martin Wolf takes Cameron to task when he blogs that the prime minister may have set the UK on the path to an exit although he really wants to remain within the EU. Read more
Fish and folly in Cameron’s European project
(AP)
The future of the UK in the EU is, of course, already a subject of fierce debate. Everybody can see that the chances of a British departure have increased. The question is by how much.
I was interested to discover from a private conversation with a very senior continental official that his worry is that the rest of the EU really does not need this diversion of attention from its immediate concern, which is the reform of the eurozone.
He referred to two specific risks.
First, he is worried that the very fact that the UK may be on the way out will shake confidence in the future of the eurozone. As he noted, people in Asia or the Americas do not understand the details. They will just regard this British decision as calling into question the vitality of the European project, partly, no doubt, because the UK has deep relations with these parts of the world. Read more
The world can stop panicking – for the moment
The financial panics are over. Now we must deal with the longer-term aftermath.
I advanced this thesis at a private dinner last night and, to my surprise, Nouriel Roubini agreed with me. More precisely, he agreed that “tail risk” had been sharply reduced.
The big change of the last 12 months has, of course, been in the eurozone. This has something to do with policy improvements in vulnerable countries, particularly Italy and Spain. It has even more to do with the willingness of the European Central Bank, under the redoubtable Mario Draghi, to use its power to reduce break-up risk and offer potentially unlimited liquidity to banks and sovereigns under stress. Read more
By Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children
David Cameron’s speech yesterday was a source of much speculation, interpretation and voicing of opinions here at Davos, even though delivered in London. This is hardly surprising when so much hangs in the balance, not just for the future of the UK but for Europe too.
A lot is also at stake in the UK prime minister’s next speech, starting soon here. Some 2.3 million children’s lives each year, 20 percent of earning power and up to 3 percent of countries’ GDPs. This is the impact of global malnutrition on today’s children and tomorrow’s workforce.
During the height of Olympic fever last year, Cameron hosted a Hunger Summit where global leaders pledged to reduce the number of children left stunted by malnutrition by 25 million by the next Olympics in 2016. I’m hoping Cameron will keep the momentum going by announcing today a follow-up meeting in advance of the G8. This hidden issue needs the attention of the G8 and G20. Read more
How much do all these delegates really talk to each other? (AP)
By Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children
The funny thing about the whole concept of the World Economic Forum bringing together all these different people from different countries and sectors, is that I’m not sure they actually talk to each other.
At a lunch on East vs (sic) West the packed room looked pretty thin on non-anglos, while a series of men offered mono focal views of just Europe, just China and just the US (and at the end a prominent FT journalist pronounced that he had never heard such outrageous claims).
I noticed today (prompted by a trek out of town to meet the Ethiopians) that different continents hang out in different hotels. An exception would be my hotel where there are fellow Brits plus Koreans – but we never talk and breakfast is conducted in earie silence. Read more
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