'Davos man' feels it’s time to make money again

DAVOS: Davos Man is making a comeback. The symbolic figure of the nationless elite coined by the late American academic Samuel Huntington was at first humbled by the economic meltdown and then shamed by last year’s bailouts and bankruptcies.

But now the international business leader is bouncing back with the increased signs of global economy recovery. Rescued from the oblivion by the taxpayer, they are growing confident enough to show some disdain for national governments and their burdensome rules and regulations.

Davos Man says it’s time to make money again even if it’s too soon to help cut record unemployment.
“A few years ago, people were predicting the end of nations, the advent of nomadism,” French president Nicolas Sarkozy reminded the World Economic Forum in a keynote address Wednesday that passionately condemned reckless financial speculation, runaway executive bonuses and a lack of regulation.

“But in the crisis, even the most globalised companies and the most global banks rediscovered that they had a nationality,” Sarkozy noted.

But in discussions on the forum’s opening day, the world’s CEOs and business leaders appeared too safe and secure to show any commitment to the state, or to the taxpayers who have funded their return to modest growth.
Peter Sands, the CEO of Britain’s Standard Chartered Bank, said his industry already has been “fundamentally changed” by tighter regulations and supervision, while Deutsche Bank Chairman Josef Ackermann warned that “we will all be losers” if governments clamp down on markets too zealously.

“The pendulum might have swung too far,” Ackermann warned. For his part, Deutsche Bank was among those that refused the public purse.

The bankers’ views starkly contrast with the one proffered by Sarkozy and by President Barack Obama in his first State of the Union address on Wednesday evening. It also seemed increasingly out of touch with the public in the United States and elsewhere, who are dealing with soaring unemployment and angry over the rapid — and jobless — recovery of top financial institutions.

According to the UN labour agency, 27 million people around the world lost their jobs in 2009 and unemployment is expected to remain high through 2010. Obama said Wednesday that his reforms weren’t aimed at punishing banks.
“I’m interested in protecting our economy,” he said. On Congress’ financial reform package, he said the “lobbyists are trying to kill it. But we cannot let them win this fight.”

As for Wall Street’s take on Obama’s strategies for recouping the bailout billions, the president acknowledged there was opposition. “But if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need,” he said.

At Davos, when businessmen weren’t chafing at curbs on bonuses, new accounting rules or tighter controls on free trade, the issue of jobs also showed a distinct disconnect.

PricewaterhouseCoopers issued a report saying over 80% of global CEOs were confident about business prospects in 2010, even as less than half expected to hire new staff this year. Dennis Nally, the company’s global chairman, also declared himself “cautiously optimistic” about growth in 2010 even as he acknowledged that “robust recovery” was not happening from a job creation standpoint. Sarkozy might have been bristling at such assessments when he said we should “ask ourselves what our goals are”. “There are indecent behaviours that will no longer be tolerated by public opinion in any country of the world,” Sarkozy said.