Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference

Over the past few days, the annual superconference hosted by Allen & Company, a pretty prestigious boutique investment bank in NYC, has taken place in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference hosts some of the most celebrated personalities in the Wall Street and Silicon Valley worlds: attendees this year include Mayors Bloomberg and Emanuel, Warren Buffet, Eric Schmidt, and Wilbur Ross.

I had briefly heard of this conference prior to reading more about it yesterday and this morning, and I've come across a few neat pieces of information throughout my research. Namely, the conference has, in recent years, been a bastion for Democratic politics, a trend that has shifted markedly this year.

So essentially what this conference boils down to, based on what I've read so far, is a massive networking and deal-making opportunity between the Street and its Northern California buddies. Also, throw politicians into the mix because, well, politicians seem to be pervasive anywhere high-net worth individuals meet up (I wonder why...).

Sounds like a pretty neat conference to attend, right? I certainly wouldn't mind going.

Anyway, one interesting piece of news from this conference comes from the Dealbook, and illuminates the fact that President Obama's strength at the conference has dwindled significantly vis-a-vis the years preceding the 2008 election. Check out the article here.

One thing that's shocking to me is the amount of support Obama received in the run-up to the 2008 election from attendees of this conference. Wilbur Ross was quoted as saying that "85 percent" of the people at the conference in 2008 were going to end up voting for Obama -- whether this is empirical or anecdotal is in question, but the fact remains that America's wealthiest have fallen out of love with our President in the past four years.

But what was more interesting to me was the fact that a lot of attendees supported the Simpson-Bowles Act of 2010. Don't worry, I didn't know what it was either, but after reading about it, the Dealbook article started to make a lot more sense (I mean, why are all these ultra-wealthy people supporting a big-government guy like Obama? I digress...).

In a nutshell, the Simpson-Bowles Act was a proposed budget from a bi-partisan group of advisors and politicians that did...

• Reduced discretionary spending by $200bn, including cuts in defense spending, elimination of earkmarks, and a cut in the size of the federal workforce
• $100bn in increased tax revenues
• Medicare cost controls
• Entitlements reductions (student loans, pensions, farm subsidies)
• Social Security program raises retirement age and payroll tax

Other provisions included a cut of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 26%, which is pretty major.

Anyway, I hadn't hear much about this proposal until, well, I started reading about this Sun Valley Conference, and just looking over its mandates (and the fact that even Greg Mankiw supported it, wowzers), it seems to make a lot of sense. According to my searches, this topic is also previous undiscussed on WSO, but I think this now-obsolete budgeting plan makes for a great discussion topic, especially in light of the state of the economy and the financial services industry.

What do you guys make of the falling out of love of these Sun Valley attendees with the President? Also, what of this Simpson-Bowles Act? Don't all of its provisions seem very prudent at this time (and certainly back in 2010)?

Love and peace.