Alan Friedman, a longtime Davos attendee, is chairman of FBC Media, a public relations and communications firm whose roster of clients includes foreign governments.
He has worked as an economics columnist for the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.*
Editor’s Note: This bio was amended to indicate the nature of FBC’s work.
DAVOS,
Switzerland - The World Economic Forum's 40th anniversary meeting
has ended with a collective whimper, lots of moaning, and a realization
that recovery may be underway but it will be uneven, with a real risk
that the U.S. will run out of steam once the stimulus spending ends.
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DAVOS,
Switzerland - The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum
hit its full and frenzied stride, with the ski resort's cement-block
convention center packed with throngs of still jittery business
leaders, bankers still crouching for cover, and India's high-powered
delegation of cabinet ministers and billionaire entrepreneurs still
winning the popularity contest among investors and economists here.
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The anti-corporate activist group The Yes Men have created an elaborate hoax World Economic Forum website, with videos of world leaders turning their backs to capitalism and apologizing for Haiti's faulty infrastructure, colonialism and the global economic crisis.
DAVOS,
Switzerland - Global events tend to move quickly in the superheated
atmosphere of the World Economic Forum meetings in this Swiss ski
resort, where 1,200 CEOs and corporate executives and a couple of
hundred cabinet ministers and government heads are spending the week
trying to get a handle on the world economy.
So it
should be no surprise that less than 24 hours after leading economists
here warned of the risk of defaults by sovereign debtors such as Greece
and Portugal, the Greek prime minister flew in as the Euro plunged thanks to market rumors of Greece turning variously to China
or the European Union for an emergency bailout.
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DAVOS, Switzerland - The U.S. and European economic recoveries could run out of steam later this year, and they could be faced with a prolonged period of low growth, high unemployment, a huge debt overhang on both governments and households, dangerous budget deficits, and a continuing loss of competitiveness.
That was the gloomy consensus taking shape among members of the world's business, financial and political elites attending the 40th anniversary meeting of the World Economic Forum here.
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DAVOS, Switzerland - The weather forecast this week calls for temperatures in the teens and a gloomy mix of dark clouds, snow and showers. That should match the sober mood of some 2,500 members of the world's power elite as they trudge up the mountain from Zurich airport to attend the 40th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Read More
- China Makes, the World Takes A consideration of the economic, environmental, political, and social impact of China's industrial rise.
-
Toward a Global Open Society In 1998, prominent financier George Soros warned that the development of a global society has lagged behind the growth of a global economy. Unless the gap is closed, he argued, the global capitalist system will not survive.
-
The Barefoot Bank With Cheek In 1995, David Bornstein profiled Bangladesh's Grameen Bank, which makes small loans to some of the poorest people on earth.
- The Idea of a League of Nations In the wake of World War I, a group of Englishmen calling themselves the League of Free Nations Association (headed by H.G. Wells) contended that efforts toward world unification would be necessary for preserving the peace.
- The World's Economic Outlook In the midst of the Great Depression, British economist John Maynard Keynes considered the prospects for capitalism’s survival.
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