Davos opens with whimper

Davos opens with whimper

Davos opened with a whimper not a bang. Not a happy face anywhere, or at least that's what the forum's founding father Klaus Schwab has ordered.

In my experience, there's always a party somewhere here, but Schwab insists that this year " there is nothing to celebrate".

He even went further and, with I suspect no sense of irony, (academics tend not to get irony), said: "Some bankers have understood the seriousness of the situation."

I'm sure I will find one somewhere.

Inside the main conference chamber, the hand-picked panels, all chuffed to bits at being asked, went through the motions about bankers' bonuses and  greater regulation.

But the protagonists didn't find any consensus. Around the fringes though, amongst the aid workers, some of the righteous people were making it crystal clear that moneymen and women have lost the trust of the public.

They don't trust bankers, and do the bankers care? Not a jot.

They will go back to the office and back to "casino" banking, and if they bet on red and it comes up on black, well it's back to the government to ask for more money.

It's such a simple formula. And it works every time.

Not to President Sarkozy though. The French leader is the champion of regulation, who is worried about the lack of morals in capitalism.

He blames the whole crisis on the Anglo-Saxon model of banking. The politics of money.

Meanwhile, the forum is still trying to work out a model for restructuring the global financial architecture.

If I knew what that was I'd offer to give them a hand. But I'm sure they will have plenty of offers of help at the cocktail rounds tonight.