The WEF's great strength is its ability to draw a good crowd to its eyrie. Alongside the usual captains of industry, there are nearly twice as many heads of state and government as there were last year. It is a sign of the times. Governments, after all, have been forced to make ever-deeper incursions in their economies to keep them afloat.

The US delegation is rather weak, but other significant players – notably Wen Jiabao, premier of China, and Vladimir Putin, prime minister of Russia – are attending. The WEF may only be a talking shop for this glittering cast, but during a worldwide economic crisis, good lines of communication between countries – and between states and businesses – are essential. Discussions, public and private, at Davos could help set the scene for the more important Group of 20 large nations summit in London in April.

As Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said in yesterday's Financial Times, politicians are not lacking good advice. Economists have been calling for co-ordinated fiscal stimuli, policies to draw the poison of toxic assets from bank balance sheets, support for credit markets and a united front against protectionism for some months. Governments have mostly agreed.