The nutshell on the 2009 World Economic Forum held in Davos? It was a conference where nearly everyone agreed that the financial crisis started in and is primarily the result of U.S. policy errors, but agreed on little else after that.

Further, the Davos gathering produced almost no new insights regarding the nature of the crisis beyond what is already known: that excessive leverage throughout the system, arcane and in some cases Frankenstein-like derivatives, inadequate national-level financial regulation, and the collapse of demand, set in motion first the U.S. recession, then the credit crunch, then the global recession.

When they had the capacity to do so, they refused to increase production, preferring instead to reap ever higher revenue - - essentially extracting as much money for energy as possible out of the U.S. and global economies.

The result: Oil Shock III - - aided by the leverage financing boom - - which sapped disposable income, helping trigger the current U.S. and global recessions.

OPEC miscalculated and simultaneously choked-off oil demand - - and, once again, 'killed the goose that lays the golden egg.'

Now global oil demand is falling - - including real consumption declines in the United States, and, incredibly, flat demand in emerging markets. And the price of oil? Despite a record $100 plunge in one year, it continues to fall - - currently trading around $41 per barrel.

Every year, the world's elite converge on Davos, a Swiss mountain village, to discuss the world and what they want to do to it. We're not invited but we end up paying the price for the mistakes that Davos Man makes. This year, Davos Man is feeling weepy. Let's hope that doesn't lead to a year of inaction on the world's pressing problems.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which is now famous for not catching a fraud of epic proportions at Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY), has done a survey of Davos attendees which gives a flavor for just how pessimistic they are. It found that only 20% of 1,124 CEOs in 50 nations said they were very confident about prospects for revenue growth in 2009, down from half last year, and 25% said they were pessimistic -- this is the most gloomy result since PWC began tracking the CEO outlook in 2003.

I am reaching the limits of my ability to stand more waste of our money. Today, I learned that Citigroup (NYSE: C) is taking delivery of a $50 million corporate jet from French manufacturer, Dassault. (For that kind of money, it could have at least bought from an American manufacturer).

I know the U.S. invested $45 billion worth of taxpayer money with no strings attached -- but is it really possible that Citi does not get that buying a corporate jet with that money is blazingly stupid?

There is some irony on this front. This evening Maria Bartiromo conducted an interview with John Thain who was deposed last week for various sins. Bartiromo was in Davos, but Thain was not -- although one of his sins was that he had accepted an invitation to attend Davos. But back in 2007 -- almost exactly two years ago -- it was Bartiromo who got in some hot water for taking Citi's corporate jet with then Citi-executive Todd Thomson.

While the rich and famous hobnob in Davos at the World Economic Forum, gloom and doom seem to rule the day. On tap is a bleak view for global economies as concerns surface that the world may slip into a severe recession following the bursting of the housing bubble.

It takes some good old American muscle to brighten up the somber mood.

In an article today on Marketwatch, James Owens, CEO of global construction equipment giant Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), cited growth in emerging economies and confidence that the U.S. will suffer no more than a mild downturn as the reasons behind his upbeat attitude.

"I think I'm considerably more optimistic than the mood here in Davos," said Owens.

CAT has reason to be optimistic. According to Marketwatch, Caterpillar reported a fourth-quarter profit of $975 million, or $1.50 a share, up from $882 million, or $1.32 a share, earned in the final three months of 2006. Revenue rose 10% to $12.14 billion.

While numerous talking heads duke it out in Davos, I'll put my chips on the CAT.

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com, a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author does not own CAT.

Billionaire investor George Soros said a major casualty from the U.S. subprime crisis will be the 60-year reign of the dollar-based credit boom, which he says will come to an end, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

"The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency,'' Soros said in a debate today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bloomberg reported. "Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.''

However, Soros was careful to point out that he believes the dollar is still the most important reserve currency in the world and will remain so, according to Bloomberg.

We've heard this all before -- the 'death of the TV' is coming, mostly due to the internet. While the physical television set is not going anywhere for a long, long time, the distribution of content and the way we use that television screen -- err, HDTV screen -- is probably changing beneath our feet. Current Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT) executive Bill Gates agreedwith this position at the Davos World Economic forum last week in Switzerland.

The Download Squad posted a piece on what Bill Gates had to say last week, and the detail was interesting. When Gates said "Certain things like elections or the Olympics really point out how TV is terrible. You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about or you miss the event and want to go back and see it," I had to chuckle.

That scenario is already changing due to digital video recorders like TiVo. Content producers are slowly losing control over when the content is watched, how advertisements are watched (or not) and where consumers are watching content (think Slingbox). So, while Bill thinks that the TV is dead within five years, I say that the material coming into those TVs is what's changing -- not the TV itself.

The CEO of the NYSE Group (BTSE:NYX), John Thain, gave a very interesting presentation at World Economic conference in Davos.

Of course, he wants the NYSE to remain the world's mega exchange. He says the exchange will return to the corporate bond business. After all, with the surge in buyouts, this market has certainly been red hot (Bloomberg.com has an excellent article on this topic).

And, speaking of private equity, Thain believes that this is a good trend for the NYSE. How?

True, NYSE listed companies are going private. However, private equity firms need to get a return on their investment. And this usually means eventually having an IPO.

According to Thain, about half of the IPOs on the NYSE in 2006 came from companies backed by private equity.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.