Or an edge of Highway a plant or an understoryAt the time they are more likely to cooperate to make warAfter the first rush activity down a notchVeteran Hollywood former President of Warner BrosThe mass of les misérables would be upraisedPessimistic in the ValleyBut nothing is less sure300 after a reduction of 500 positions last yearThe Court of cassation does not share this point of viewNext performances on 5 7 and 10 FebruaryPension funds also grow in this directionHi artist! More than 1,000 CEOs from around the world, standing in the hall of the palais des congrès, applaud Bill Gates. Farewell to the scene, in Davos, which he is a regular, the founder of Microsoft is split a long speech on "creative capitalism", a call to the social responsibility of companies. It goes. The place is already taken. The new heroes, it was, this year, the Indian K.V. Kamath, CEO of Icici, a Bank including the number of customers rose from 500,000 five years ago to... 30 million today. It was the Chinese Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile boss, Announces 6 million additional subscribers each month!
America is tired, Asia is full of vitamins. In 2008, even more than previous years, the Davos Forum was the scene of the clash of two worlds.
North crying
and South who laughs
Blue shirt, open neck and thin glasses, John Thain, the new boss of the Merrill Lynch Merchant Bank, has an air of eternal student. It lists not less catastrophic news for the economy of the United States. Prices of real estate fell by 7 last year again declining this year, a number of personal bankruptcies jumped 40, an increase in unemployment, purchasing power clipped by skyrocketing prices... It is true that the architect of the merger between the American Stock Exchange Nyse and his colleague of the old Continent Euronext was appointed in disaster at the head of this venerable New York House after huge losses. Just to the left, the placid Minister of Finance of the India, Palaniappan Chidambaram, seems to come from another planet. His country is expected to grow in 2008 close to 10. Industry increased investments and Indians eat happily.
It is the great theme, this year, in the Swiss resort: decoupling. Between finance and industry, and especially between the countries of the North and South. Americans compete among themselves to find out if their production has already begun to decline. Europeans appear doomed to the slowdown, with activity who won barely more than 2.5 year last in the Union. But Latin Americans are looking forward to the return of the middle classes-rolled by the crises of the 1980s and 1990s, Middle Easterners are swimming in money of the black gold, Asians wonder if American cold blow does not timely to refresh economies threatened runaway and even Africans remain confident. Rest to appreciate links more and more complex in an increasingly globalized economy. "You cannot talk about both globalization and decoupling, you have to choose," says Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley Bank economist. Decoupling... or simple offset Response to Forum 2009. Or 2010.
One fund to another
"Finally, this year, it is concerned more of us!" David Rubenstein, one of the founders of Carlyle, could not hide his satisfaction: since five years, as its own investment funds became the bête noire of Davos. It denounced loose their voracity, taste of the gain in the short term, their indifference to the social and the environment. They have, this year, virtually disappeared from the discussion. Another peeve has replaced them advantageously: sovereign wealth funds. Created by the pétromonarchies and a few larger States such as China and the Russia, they now claim to invest in Western companies. With about 2.700 billion, they have already placed 90 billion in the past twelve months nothing to the United States, in prestigious homes that Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.
"Stop the trial of intent." Would us condemn not even before we have acted. "The discussion had so far remained courteous. But the tone monte. Mr. Bader Al Sa'ad, the stolid Director General of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA, the Kuwait Fund), explodes. Suspected sovereign wealth funds such as hers of political intentions, it does not support. That we want to impose a "code of good conduct", the Americans in particular, it does not include. This is years he place his Emirate economies in Western companies that this has posed problems. The debate takes a surreal dimension: it is which defend the better, with more or less in good faith, liberalism. Larry Summers, former Secretary to the Treasury of Bill Clinton, said that Western countries have privatized their businesses, that they don't want so their State-owned today by other States! Alexei Kudrin, Russian Finance Minister, strangles: Americans invest freely in Russia, why the Russians did in would not both in the United States Dialogue of the deaf. The Norwegian Finance Minister, Kristin Halvorsen, attempts conciliation with pension fund set up by his country, regarded as a model in many ways. In vain. A depoliticized Fund Summers in laughs again. "Remember, you had invested in a bank in Iceland that went bankrupt. It has inevitably become an affair of State. "An example to follow The Kuwaiti neither Russian nor are willing to accept the rules of ethics and transparency that the Norwegian Fund is imposed. Davos, are ultimately always funds lacking the least.
Thousand trails
the mobile
Here, the good old Internet where it SURFs since his computer is already relegated to oblivion. We are in the company of mobile, Swiss army knife of the 21st century. If it is not effective as a CAP, the phone is already watch, notebook, photo album, drive music, surf Internet, camera and television soon television manufacturers and advertisers seek the economic model of the "small screen". The patron of the International Telecommunication Union says that 3 billion people are already equipped. The bar of half of humanity should be crossed this year. Here also, emerging countries seem to be going now more quickly than the emerged long. In a debate on the future of the mobile, Eric Schmidt, Google pattern, seemed a little outdated it still is to worry about the technical platforms.
In the room, the public wants to know the future. "The phone is now part of the human functions, says Wang Jianzhou, the very disert pattern of China Mobile. It complements the mouth, ear, the eye. Without it, lack us something. "The Bank on mobile Westerners refer to regulatory problems. Wang, he explains that his mobile is already used electronic purses. A projector phone, so that the image is less small Howard Stringer, the American pattern of Sony, chuckles: "".
Yes, it exists, but probably not in my lifetime. "Kim Shin-Bae, Chairman of SK, the Korean rival of Sony, said for his part:"We are the size of a paperback, 100 $ projector." "Hard to imagine more beautiful illustration of the gap between the old and the modern... But the mobile knows not yet everything. It is a thirty-year in flowery shirt and hair to the Iroquois who finds fault. Christophe Laudamiel, a Frenchman in the US as the nose of a creator of perfumes, asked if manufacturers work on a device can emit odours, the most powerful to arouse emotion. This time, even the Korean has nothing to answer."It is the".
Champions!
"How to adapt to the new champions." To address this subject, the organizers of the Forum brought together a nice skewer of entrepreneurs from the new world which, each in its way, faced in recent years protectionism of the old world. There were Mohammad Al Gergawi, the patron of Dubai Holding, rejected by the Americans to be be interested too close to their ports. Russian Alexander V. Izosimov, CEO of VimpelCom, a side of telecoms giant ten years on Wall Street and the Western suppliers are always for one "deal technology", son Mittal, which still has the throat cold coffee and without Crescent that it offered him its first morning visit to Bercy. The debate turns short or, rather, it moves away from its purpose. Sign of their new insurance, the conquistadors come to ask... "how to become the new champions".
In the room, a few reckless CEO Western present are cold in the back! They keep silent. At the rostrum, there may be their future bosses. New entrants list their strengths. Much lower costs. "Our people represent a tenth away from those of our foreign competitors," said the Indian banker Kamath, of Icici. "A technology level", says the father of the renovation of Dubai, Mohammad Al Gergawi. A will of iron, to also. A habit of fighting against opposing elements. And then a capacity to adapt. The clash of cultures! It is one of their major concerns. "We must avoid imposing our values on others, to our partners," argues and Aditya Mittal he replaces his father, advantage shake hands with Nicolas Sarkozy in India. To give an example: "In Mittal, alcohol was prohibited at lunch." Since the marriage with Arcelor, we took into account French culture, there are now on the table of wine, white and red, at the choice. "This adaptive capacity, they are convinced, missing their Western competitors, and to include their competitive advantages. See, actually, how, very soon, they have adopted codes of Davos.
McWorld myth
"Winds of globalisation are in different directions." That night, during a dinner typically davosien, we talk about culture. Are we going to a McWorld, a world unified with everywhere identical cities and to succumb to McDonald's and Coca-Cola papillae Shashi Tharoor, author of the wind metaphor, an Indian writer in the United States, did not believe there. More and more, each composed its à la carte menu. This is particularly true in the food. John Chidsey, the young skipper of Burger King, said that one third of which is sold in restaurants corresponds to local tastes. Another example: the first activity in London in terms of employment is not the Bank, but the Indian restoration! Globalization makes sense with Americanization or homogenization. The film is no longer the preserve of Hollywood. Some Indian movies are a misfortune in Senegal and Egypt!
But suddenly, the anguish: how to preserve its identity in this great mix Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, which runs the world of concert in concert for more than twenty years, in a whirling disease: "the world is changing so fast that we are in cultural insecurity." Jean Charest, Premier of Quebec, explains that his Belle Province fought four centuries to preserve the basis of its identity, its language. Mixed, many couples in Davos, tell the distress of some of their children, who no longer know who they are. Shashi Tharoor quotes that said Gandhi, a day where he was asked his opinion on the Western civilization: "It would be a good idea."
France, no luck
"Finally, our country is heard." The speech made Thursday by François Fillon, in the great hall, almost full, of the palais des congrès, delights Bernard Liautaud. The founder of Business Objects, a habitué of the place, knows that this is the first time that a French Prime Minister in exercise just plead the cause of the France. No luck! That day, the France is already at the centre of the conversations, but for another reason, a morning information screens, record "fraud" suffered by Société Générale. The next day, the international newspapers, in hotel lobbies, chose, unanimous, button (Daniel) rather than Fillon (François)! The short visit, historical, eclipsed by the great scandal, historic him also.
This year, but the France had made an effort. Everyone is there was developed. The Government with, alongside the Prime Minister, Bernard Kouchner and Christine Lagarde. Its large patterns a CAC 40 well represented. The Quartet also "directors of the world": Jean-Claude Trichet (ECB), Pascal Lamy (WTO), Dominique Strauss - Kahn (IMF) and Jean Lemierre (EBRD). The major present assayer at Davos have also bitten Sarkozy method: they ask stakeholders in financial markets to define new rules of the game, otherwise they to impose them. The France always: another Quartet, chiefs, relished the gallery. The country co-animait in effect, with... the Turkey, the traditional gala on Saturday evening. The theme: "do you want". They wanted. Champagne flowed afloat.
The economy Minister, Christine Lagarde, was also at the feast: a place on the podium for the most popular discussion Forum, the global environment; photo on the magazine "Institutional Investor" standard "Beautiful France"; Finally, the entrance to the prestigious Council of WEF (World Economic Forum), the organizer of Davos where the Minister will be two other Frenchmen, Maurice Lévy and Carlos Ghosn. The Minister at the party It can move without be questioned on the matter of the General. The France, no luck, what do you want!
