What's on their minds and what's not.

so it is a little after midnight on the first day and I have just returned from a long dinner that Alice Waters and Michael Pollan staged at the Schatzalp...but more on that later.

For me one of the interesting things I get out of Davos is to see what's on people's mind and what's not. The two big things so far are the global economy no surprise, with the financial events of recent days and weeks. The second big thing is climate change, especially energy...again no surprise, given all the attention it gets in the world these days. But what's not is more interesting. The middle east/Iraq/Iran is not. The US election is not. Technology is not (I must have killed that with my WEB 2.0 panel last year.) Africa is not.

So it happens that I was sitting here writing Dave Gergen and Gene Sperling sat down nearby. Gene is Hilary's chief economist and formerly Clinton chief economist. So I decided to check out my judgments. And I got a very clear answer. No one here cares anymore. There is no session on where the US is headed and no discussion of it...the US has become marginal on the world stage. We discussed various speeches including the entirely banal content free speech by Condi Rice...not even taking any credit for the surge in Iraq that seems to be having some effect or the middle east initiatives. In fact Gene had helped write Clinton's great speech here in 2000. I even praised Dick Cheney's speech as exceeding my expectations and Gene responded that the VP never has a problem exceeding his expectations.

Back to the economy...a conversation with Martin Wolf of the FT and a long time friend captured much of the sense of the room. There is a feeling that this not a major crisis but it will be a long lasting one. A recession of a couple of years...well into 2009. It is the result of poor financial regulation and incompetence and malfeasance in the financial sector. And there is a great deal of blood to be spilled there. While the US gets much of the blame there is also not much honor to go around to any of the major countries. To which you can sustained high energy and food prices. So there is on the whole a darkish color to the economic outlook...not catastrophic.

On climate change not much new. There is on the whole consensus on the need to do something, but also a feeling that current measures (e.g.Kyoto) don't go far enough. Most people seem to agree on what actually needs to happen, but there is little agreement on whether we will actually do it.
Karzai the President of Afghanistan spoke this evening and once again renewed his appeal to not abandon him. He got very polite applause but he did not seem at the center of things in the way he did a few years ago. it will be interesting to see what Musharraf has to say tomorrow.

Before the Alice Waters dinner there was an event for Environmental Defense Fund to launch the new book Earth; The sequel by its President Fred Krupp...a very pragmatic look at what we need to do on climate change and energy.

Alice Waters and Michael Pollan staged a locavores dinner...at a restaurant high up on the mountain ( actually the sanitarium in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain) with food all acquired locally. A spectacular a completely unique dinner especially at Davos where the food is ordinary at best. Michael, who is a neighbor back in Berkeley gave a terrific talk/appeal to preserve the local opportunities all over the world and not succumb to a globalization of the diet. Ran into Nick Negroponte at the dinner and talked about the launch of his low cost computer for the worlds kids...an amazing accomplishment. By the way the dinner will be on BBC World on Friday and you might find it on their website for a download.

And for any of you who think it is the life of luxury up here in Davos. It is a town for austere Swiss skiers. When I actually got into my hotel room tonight...the one that was not available when we arrived I looked around the room and noticed something that seems to be missing. And then I figured it out. It was the bed. So I will be heading up there soon...have to do this in the lobby where there is wi-fi and pulling down my murphy and sleeping until 6 when I go off to do an early CNBC event.