The one question you are not allowed to ask is "Why are we supposed to be listening to these alleged business leaders in the first place".  You cannot question their self importance.  In any case - "a few bad eggs - e.g. Madoff" won't be invited, and those who are there will be preening themselves at having survived the crisis so far and regaling each other with stories of how brilliant they were to avoid its worst effects.

There will be lots of talk of "green shoots" of recovery, of Obama's energy policies as if he invented wind energy (much like Gore inventing the internets), of stimulus packages ushering in a new era (never mind that they are basically about turning private profligacy and debt into public debt).

Don't expect too much talk of income redistribution, of inequality = inefficiency, or even of much more effective global financial governance.  That is all for the anti-globalisation crowd, and globalisation can't be questioned.

So really, these conferences are more about the questions you can't ask rather than the ones you can:

Questions you can't ask

1. Don't mention the (Iraq) war - it was invented by someone else long gone into history

2. Should business leaders who got huge bonuses in the good times now be required to pay them back as they were demonstrably created by fraudulently inflated assets accounting

3. Should business taxes be increased in a coordinated global way to pay off public deficits?

4. Should carbon fuels be subjected to escalating taxes on a geometric scale to price them progressively out of the energy market?

5. Should Globalisation only be permitted within a globalised political governance structure to prevent tax competition/avoidance/evasion, and a regulatory race to the bottom?

6. Should international law mandate the progressive reduction of Gini indices worldwide to ensure a more sustainable and equitable allocation of scarce resources?

notes from no w here