Davos 2010 started out with a very interesting panel on day 1 titled “What is the New Normal for Global Growth?  How to strengthen economic and social welfare – debate.

The speakers were Michael J. Elliott, Editor of Time Magazine, Arif Naqvi, CEO of Abraaj Capital, Nouriel Roubini, Chairman Roubini Economics, Heizo Takenaka, Director Global Research Institute, Dennis Nally, Chairman PwC, Reghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance, University of Chicago School of Business, and David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Carlyle Group.

The most amazing thing about this wide-ranging and informative panel was how extremely smart people can have such strong, intelligent, and opposite opinions about where things are headed.

Some notable comments from Roubini were that consumers were spending more than they were earning, producers were spending less than they were earning ,and now the overspending countries are cutting on their consumption and imports.  He also suggested that regulation is a good thing if it’s regulation that aligns markets with regulators, but that populism is ruling the game right now, and that it’s populism that’s being addressed, not actual sentiment from businesses and consumers.  He feels that many people are concerned about over-regulation, but he is more concerned about going back to business as usual.