Insiders at the Asian Financial Forum

The Asian Financial Forum, a two day event, begins tomorrow in Hong Kong.

As would be expected, the list of confirmed speakers are mostly Asian, including Norman T L Chan,CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and many Asian finance ministers. But, of particular note, are the very few non-Asian confirmed speakers.

They include:

Gerald Corrigan, the former president of the New York Fed (pre-Geithner) and current (surprise) managing director at Goldman Sachs.

Richard Sandor, Chairman and founder, of the Chicago Climate Exchange. The CCE trades all six greenhouse gasses. If you want to identify one man who is going to benefit the most from global warming regulations, this is the man. I saw him last at the 2007 Michael Milken Conference. He was on a panel with Milken that was attended by about 30 of us. The comment I recall most clearly from the panel discussion was made by Sandor: "In Chicago we say, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu."

Nouriel Roubini. Roubini really gets around. In many ways, I think he is probably one of the most connected guys globally. He's clearly connected in the states with Geithner, Summers (He had Summers on his payroll) and Bernanke. But he also seems to be pretty tight in China. And, it is not unusual for him to pop up in Europe.