Who is Dan Loeb, the rich guy who flew NonSociety egobloggers Julia Allison and Meghan Asha home from Davos in his private jet? He's a widely hated surfer, yoga enthusiast, and hedge-fund manager!

Here's comforting news for investors in Dan Loeb's hedge fund, especially those who may have been under the assumption the hedgie's been hard at work to make up for his disastrous performance in 2008: Loeb spent time at the World Economic Forum in Davos hanging out with fameseekers Julia Allison and Meghan Asha, and…

Oh, World Economic Forum. You were even more of a grotesque than we'd imagined. We don't know whether to laugh or cry. Especially when we hear stories like these:

"One of the unofficial Davos events is the 'Refugee Run,' a simulation of life as a refugee, complete with hostile, armed rebels, power outages, and barbed wire." [Slate]

Gloomy economic party-haver and enthusiastic Facebook user Nouriel Roubini is in Davos, working hard to bring our own fameball Photoshop works to life. [His panel was aptly named "What Went Wrong"]

Jamie Dimon is falling apart! Okay, not really, but the Wall Street Journal's Heidi Moore was rightfully concerned by the sight of the JPMorgan CEO when he sat down with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo in Davos today. Dimon turned up "unshaven, with mussed hair and clad in a spare black pullover sweater," and sported a…

Corporations, Tending to a Tattered Image, Clip Wings of Private Jets [NYT]

Dude, Russia's not getting a Dell. That's a polite version of what Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia's testy KGB agent turned autocrat, told Michael Dell in Davos. Dell's sin? After Putin delivered a fiery 40-minute sermon about the doom of the West, Dell asked if there was any way his company could help Russia…

Michael Dell conferring with Nestlé board chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe at the World Economic Forum in Davos today. [Photo: Swiss Image]

Fame has always had its downsides. But Internet fame, like the kind TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has accumulated, provides all the downsides and very few advantages. Now he wants to go into hiding.

How a conference dies: The savvy crowd stays away, while eager second-raters fill their seats. Google cofounder Sergey Brin is skipping Davos. Meanwhile, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe fought with a colleague to go amid layoffs.

Related: Gloomy Days in Davos [Cityfile]

Add Gov. David Paterson to the list of people skipping the World Economic Forum in Davos. Paterson, who said he planned to attend the mogulfest to drum up business for the state, and who reiterated just yesterday that he planned to go ahead with the trip, changed course today: "Perhaps it would be a better idea to go…

No Bono, no Angelina. Fancy banker parties cancelled. Davos is set to be a sober, star-lite affair. But Nouriel Roubini and Julia Allison will attend. Is there a better indicator of the Great Recession?

The World Economic Forum kicks off tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland, but it won't be nearly as exciting as in years past: The financial crisis has led many CEOs and politicians to abandon plans to attend the conference of heavy-hitters. Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein won't be there, although he's reportedly…

Davos, baby! The partying at the World Economic Forum, the annual conference held in a Swiss resort town that has become synonymous with the event, was "out of control," organizer Klaus Schwab now admits. The Wall Street bosses and Beltway bandits were too busy having a ball to keep their eye on it, even as the…

Jimmy Wales, the so-called founder of Wikipedia, is in Egypt's Red Sea resort hobnobbing with heads of state as chairman of the World Economic Forum's Middle East summit, popularly known as "Davos in the Desert." The message he delivered in a press event: "Too often when people around the world reflect on the…