January 24th, 2008

- The list of "Young Global Leaders" at Davos, keep the dream of Davos alive.
- In the Clinton radio ad, which uses a clip from his recent interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board, Obama is heard saying: "The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years." Obama's comment about Republicans came as he discussed elections that represented shifts in political direction. The full quote is: "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."
- Last year, Obama's campaign circulated a memo describing Hillary Clinton as "D-Punjab," a reference to her Indian-American donors. Obama has said that was a mistake.
- Italian PM Romano Prodi lost the confidence vote, will resign less than 2yrs in to President Giogio Napolitano
- Kenya's Kibaki and Odinga agreed to negotiate end to Kenyan crisis sparked by last month's disputed elections

- AUD appears to be the leading currency of '08 out of the G7 as its strong trade relationship with Asia should protect from the US slowdown; strong levels of growth; high inflation of 3.4% in Q4 means low risk of cut on Feb 5th
- after surprise Fed rate cut, EM hasn't correlate with G3 monetary policy like last summer; if VIX comes down then this relationship will resume itself
- a Rogue Trader at Socgen caused a 4.9bn EUR ($7.2bn USD) loss. This guy was only 31 and limited to equity index hedging and paid about E100,000 a year yet managed to create this disaster. It wiped out 2 years or pretax profits at the bank.
- Home sales dropped again 2.2m. It's the biggest annual slump and first decline in prices since the Graet Depression, down 1.8%
- up until now at Bear Stearns, Merrill, and Morgan Stanley head of risk would always report to head of trading. Now they'll be reporting to CFO's.
- Davos leaders told SWF's to be more transparent. First time in 37yr history of Davos has there been a meeting on this. Muhammed Al-Jasser from SAMBA said "it's putting the cart before the horse", like saying they're "proven guilty until being proven innocent". SWFs could quadruple from 2.5trn today to 12tn in 2015, and 28trn by 2022. Double the size of the US economy
- US govt passed emergency legislation that distributed rebate checks up to $600 and couples $1200, plus $300 per child. Will also allow Fannie and Freddie to temporarily buy mortgages up to $625,000, exceeding federal limit of $417,000. Business incentives added related to how they purchase equipment and related deductions