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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John McCarthy who wrote (93540)	1/29/2009 11:02:34 PM
From: John McCarthy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Rallying Cry to Claw Back Bonuses The wisdom of crowds? That was the thought behind an early-afternoon session Wednesday labeled “2009 World Economic Brainstorming: What Happened to the Global Economy?” Chaired by Maria Bartiromo of CNBC, it brought together roughly 200 people to discuss in small groups what policy, regulatory and market failures led to the current economic downturn. Unlike most of the discussions here in Davos, which tend to call on only a few experts on background, this event was on the record, with cameras and microphones recording the comments as they were presented to the larger group. Which may be why it turned into a bit of a lynch mob, Davos-style. After a lot of high-minded talk about a failure to take account of systemic risk and the like, the group finally cheered and clapped when Nassim Nicholas Taleb of New York University, best known for his book “The Black Swan,” and a couple of other individuals said the biggest problem was that nobody was willing to pay the price for failure. It is time for some punishment, it was suggested. Indeed, the crowd only really came alive — other than to reject the way Bartiromo posed the follow-up questions — in response to the idea of forcing those financiers who benefited from the boom to disgorge some of the money they “earned” in bonuses based on profits that have since vanished. Who is Target No. 1, in Taleb’s view? Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary and Citigroup board member who took home about $110 million in his years at Citi. Mr. Rubin, not surprisingly, is nowhere to be seen in Davos this year. dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com