Each year at Davos the degree of optimism on the world economy is almost always a perfect reflection of the present while also a poor predictor of the future. Hope ruled in 2007; fears of inflation were evident last year.
This year, optimists might therefore seek comfort in the prevailing fashion at the 2009 World Economic Forum for participants to eclipse the previous speaker with an ever more doom-laden prognosis. But those looking for cheer amid the gloom should take a moment to cast their minds back to one recent Davos prediction that has undoubtedly come true. In January 2006 Tim Adams, then the US Treasury’s top international affairs official, spent his time defending the US from its detractors.
