Davos Notebook

Reuters has added an exciting new dimension to its Davos coverage this year. As well as Insider TV’s regular Davos Today morning show (streamed live on this website every morning at 7 a.m. CET during the annual meeting), there is now also an afternoon show to be broadcast at 2:30 p.m. on 26, 27 and 28 January.

Davos Today with Chrystia Freeland will feature many of the biggest names at Davos in discussion with Reuter’s Global Editor-at-Large. Topics range from China, India and the U.S. to Trust in Institutions, the Future of Finance and Failed States.

The guest list includes Larry Summers, Harvard professor and former U.S. Secretary, Bob Zoellick, President of the World Bank and Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University.

Chrystia will have her questions ready for these giants of the financial world — but what would you ask them? We would like you to send us your questions for Summers, Zoellick and Roubini on anything related to the themes being discussed at Davos 2011.

There are a number of ways you can send in your questions: make a comment on this article or over on our live coverage page; get it to us on Twitter replying to @reuters_davos; or via Chrystia’s official Facebook page.

The programme may strike a different  note — this year’s Davos is apparently all about Shared Norms for the New Reality — but much of the discussion at the 41st World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos this month will have a distinctly familiar ring to it.

Last January, the five-day talkfest in the Swiss Alps was dominated by Greece’s near-death experience at the hands of the bond market and recriminations over the role of bankers in the financial crisis, as well as worries about China’s rapid economic ascent and a lot of calls for a new trade deal.

Fast forward 12 months and not much has changed.

Ireland has joined Greece in the euro zone’s intensive care unit and Portugal and  Spain are getting round-the-clock monitoring. The annual round of bankers’ bonuses is once again stirring up trouble. China looms larger than ever on the global stage, after overtaking Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-biggest economy. And trade ministers who signally failed to make headway last year say they really must get down to business when they meet on the sidelines of Davos this time round.

The World Economic Forum is all about promoting debate and finding solutions to problems the world is facing.

One thing the world’s political and business leaders have been discussing is the role of the dollar in the global economy.

The world’s most wanted man Osama bin Laden has been offering his take on solving global imbalances. He urges the world to stop relying on the dollar in order to solve the global financial crisis.

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley, who pretty much called it at last year's Davos, when consensus was for no recession in the "real" economy and decoupling of emerging markets, is gloomy again. Speaking with him this morning after he did an interview with Reuters on Davos Today, Roach said that there was a real threat of protectionism as politicians come under pressure from rising unemployment. The U.S. and China relationship will be key, he said.

On U.S. real estate - a continuing issue for banks and the economy:

"The interplay between the property and financial sectors has been ground zero of this crisis.

The problem was the banks played the property bubble just like consumers did and so we are all in this together."

It is, no doubt, going to be the most gloomy World Economic Forum in years ever. Fewer parties, lower profiles for the masters of the universe TARP.

OK, don’t get too excited but is it just possible that Davos is meeting at the bottom point for the global economy, which means, for those of you keeping score at home, that things might actually get better from here? It’s not much to go on, but some of this morning’s German IFO numbers were encouraging, particularly the forward looking expectations bit. Further, US home sales were higher than expected yesterday, though that is likely just the beginning of a foreclosure sale boom that will wither values and bank balance sheets. Credit markets are a bit less clogged too.

Weeellll, probably not really. A bottom isn't a recovery after all and for one thing we've yet to get the inevitable multiplying effects fully from crashing demand in emerging markets. Still somewhere under that snow shoots must be forming, right?

So, back we go next week to Davos for the World Economic Forum 2009, titled this year "Shaping the post-crisis world."

Except the crisis ain't over yet and shaping the world while it is happening is proving to be about as easy as tying your shoes while riding a bicycle.

Let's dial back briefly to those more innocent days in 2008 and remember what was being discussed at Davos then.