World Economic Forum @ Davos Discussion Thread

[M. Montaigne]

Several years ago, I was at Davos for the first time. I remember it being a whirlwind of egos, and just a horribly overpriced town with a lot of arrogant, judgmental jerks.

I also had a great time meeting some brilliant policymakers and corporate giants, and surprisingly, the self-effacing wives of the Davos elites seemed to be a stark (and interesting) contrast.

I haven't attended Davos since, but every year, I am curious to see what the media has to say on the subject. So, with that, what are your thoughts on Davos?

Is it economic leadership? Or is it a meeting place for the elites? Is it a bit of both? Discuss.

[Chronopolitano]

A lot of rumors abounds.
Be that as it may, dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
This much, I think, is possible, if not at Davos per se, then somewhere else.

A room full of people who can more or less guide or even alter the course of history and the future of humanity and what's left of the planet:

I think they would seriously consider the question of population reduction. Economic policy would be a means to an end, maybe THAT end.

Increased food production and better distribution? That too. But more reduction of mouths and unemployable bodies.

We are running out of time, and cannot rely on people to be rational for the greater good, which would include the wealthy being less greedy, and much more charitable.

Yet, we now have the technology to guarantee, more or less, a near-utopian world for say, 500 million.
More, better kind of technology may be stored elsewhere too, I imagine. Black Projects, etc.
(I rather think 90% of unidentified "flying saucers" are our own. But who would want to divulge that kind of technology when it is so much more useful when it is cloaked in secrecy?)

Georgia Guide Stones? What?

I know I would, if I were among them, even if I may think twice about acting on the available options.
Just sayin.

[M. Montaigne]

So, Tom, let me boil your comment into themes, and please correct me if I misinterpreted your statements:

A lot of rumors abounds.
Be that as it may, dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
This much, I think, is possible, if not at Davos per se, then somewhere else.

The inevitability of the group you mention below (this or another):

A room full of people who can more or less guide or even alter the course of history and the future of humanity and what's left of the planet:

I think they would seriously consider the question of population reduction. Economic policy would be a means to an end, maybe THAT end.

Increased food production and better distribution? That too. But more reduction of mouths and unemployable bodies.

We are running out of time, and cannot rely on people to be rational for the greater good, which would include the wealthy being less greedy, and much more charitable.

Is your concern the sustainability of resources given our current consumption levels?

Yet, we now have the technology to guarantee, more or less, a near-utopian world for say, 500 million.
More, better kind of technology may be stored elsewhere too, I imagine. Black Projects, etc.
(I rather think 90% of unidentified "flying saucers" are our own. But who would want to divulge that kind of technology when it is so much more useful when it is cloaked in secrecy?)

Georgia Guide Stones? What?

I know I would, if I were among them, even if I may think twice about acting on the available options.
Just sayin.

So, your third theme would be leveraging technology to address a lot of the world's problems. Yes?

But I think this ties into the sustainability question, which I would think more, i.e., ~2 billion. On the other hand, increasing population also may provide us with the impetus to seek resources elsewhere (e.g., space).

On some level, I think populations do tend to plateau -- this is inevitable as societies get more progressive. The challenge would be getting them there.

[Chronopolitano]

So, Tom, let me boil your comment into themes, and please correct me if I misinterpreted your statements:



The inevitability of the group you mention below (this or another):

Is your concern the sustainability of resources given our current consumption levels?

So, your third theme would be leveraging technology to address a lot of the world's problems. Yes?

But I think this ties into the sustainability question, which I would think more, i.e., ~2 billion. On the other hand, increasing population also may provide us with the impetus to seek resources elsewhere (e.g., space).

On some level, I think populations do tend to plateau -- this is inevitable as societies get more progressive. The challenge would be getting them there.

1. Isn't sustainability THE question? Isn't everything else subordinate to that Q?
I mean, unless the super rich have a Plan B that doesn't include this planet, and all its wondrous beauty.
Do they intend to inherit the earth no matter in what condition? And enslave everyone if necessary?


2. I don't see how people in their purported sanity can keep speaking of "sustainability" on the one hand, and "economic growth" on the other. I keep seeing trying to fly by raising one foot, and then before it drops and hits the ground, raising the other, and repeat.
And these two words they love to chant: 'growth' and 'sustainability': Very nice, but for WHOM? In the sense that these words are used by corporations, do we not already have a bit too much of both as is?

3. The world population at today's level is certainly not sustainable. I am not even sure about 2 billion, since the average person in the developed world consumes the equivalent of 30 persons during pre-industrial times.
Of course I accept that, although the US is only what, 5-6% of the total population, the average American consumes 10-20x what a rural person does in India or China, and elsewhere. So the problem of over-consumption starts at home, not in 3rd World. That said, "tribalism "(older, and more deeply recessed in our brains than "racism") still lives, and groups in power will tend to wish OTHER groups to diminish in number. Hence, the violent means we have to favor this sort of outcome.

PS: On a seemingly unrelated tangent: I find it rather odd that small-time hired professionals of mayhem (NYC, Paris, etc), whose job is to cause terror in the hearts of good law-abiding citizens, have a weird tendency to leave their IDs and passports behind... and intact too, when everything else has turn'd to cinder in their wake. Just sayin.

[Matt]

You know, when I was a kid, it was The Third World, then it was developing countries now it's LEDCs, but I don't see the progress. So while I'm not sure what globalisation stands for, I'm pretty sure it's not about a level playing field.

Some might point at China, or India or the like and assert that these are countries in which globalisation has improved things. However, I don't see it like that. In these places, local improvements have almost all occurred as a result of businesses moving the means of production from The West. Obviously, The West, with its inconvenient tradition of a balance between capital and labour which forces employers to treat their employees well is an expensive place to make things. By moving to wherever goods can be made as cheaply as possible, usually because labour has no rights and the employers few responsibilities, globalisation allows the poor of the world to be used as a lever for destroying social contracts that are at the heart of life in the West.

Governments are not great and democracy is flawed, but, with at least the mythology of responsibility to an electorate and so on, they have to be a better system than the competition towards 'Davos Man' autocracy that seems to be making a play at replacing them. Globalisation also seems to be about the erosion of national borders, national powers and indeed nations, with all the traditions, inconvenient restrictions on whatever the hell Davos Man wants to do and ideas of social contract, a contract that most at Davos would see as some sort of fossilised left wing fancy that it's nice to pay lip service to.

Somehow, wanting an economy that is optimifically balanced between the competing needs and wants of capital and labour has come to be seen as an extreme left wing position rather than middle ground common sense. I'm sure it has nothing to do with press barons like Rupert Murdoch being Davos men, but it is worrying that, once again, such a small number of people have such a disproportionate control of the world's media. A free press is the first bastion of freedom, but what use is a free press when it is freely controlled by such a small number of people, most of whom meet on their island lair to decide on what to freely print... It's the Sun wot won it.

Nor do I think it any coincidence that the shadowy revelations of a paedophile ring in the heart of government come shortly after The Leveson Enquiry and the apparently suddenly failed attempt to restrict Murdoch. In fact I find it hard to imagine that, Murdoch was blithely unaware of Saville, Cyril Smith and all as he controls a stable of papers that have been spying and buying tittle tattle for decades. The question is why he didn't blow the whistle then? Well he's blowing it now and it's hard not to see such impeccable timing as a shot across The Establishment's bows.

Then we get to banking. Fractional reserve banking is an effective licence to print money (or at least imagine money you can parlay into real money through debt or even now, the sale of debt) remains the preserve of private individuals rather than nation states. This is simply the greatest evil we have allowed to happen to us. Governments still underpin the process, but the calls for deregulation, barely muted since 2008, are not really calls for less regulation, merely less restriction of one side of the deal . The regulations on individuals and repayment are nice and tight as are the rules surrounding propping up what is in all but name a confidence trick when the Emperor's new clothes get a bit transparent. That's before we get to 'too big to fail' and the public responsibility for losses in a system that delivers private profits. The idea that you can lend imaginary money in exchange for a promise to repay that for many has become, to all intents and purposes, indentured labour is a shocking one, all the more so for being so poorly understood by the people on the wrong side of the deal. I'm not opposed to FRB, just the idea that Davos Man has his hands of the wheel and takes all the profits.

So to sum up, I see the summit as the annual meeting of the world's premier Bond Villains. They may throw sops our way and talk about the good of mankind, but they don't want to take over the world. They already have, now the argument is merely about how to divide up the spoils while keeping the hosts of these Cthonic parasites passive as they render us for profits. All this while very loudly ignoring or denying the inconvenient costs, ecological, human and social of a world dominated by a minuscule elite of value destroying, propaganda spewing financial black holes.

Any system that allows an individual to have so much more of anything than others is an bad system. Personally I'd go with Plato's suggestion that no one should be allowed to be more than twelve times richer than anyone else and that the target of life should be eudamonia rather than conspicuous consumption. However, pragmatically, I'll merely aim for a truly free press, restrictive, and universal, banking regulation (perhaps including the nationalisation of any FRB based lending or at least taxation that truly reflects the uneven distribution of risk and reward) and the break up of any multinational with a 'GDP' greater than, say, Malta.

Oh yes, and one final thing: education. It angers me more than I can rationally express that our children are, in general, being trained to be Friedman's tools rather than Ruskin's makers and to be debt laden passive consumers who define their worth by their debt fueled purchasing power, not by the content of their characters. Certainly in the UK the last twenty years have seen our education system incrementally improved from being the envy of the world all the way up to being the sixth finest in Europe. I don't think that's any accident either, not least because our elite Russell Group universities and top public schools remain largely unchanged and untouched by the apparent vagaries of education policy as do the Ivy League in the US. Davos man and his ilk learned from the error of broad meritocratic education and will not be making that mistake again in a hurry So it's top schools and universities for the privileged and an overpriced conveyor belt for those below the salt.

Yup, that's what I think.

[crownpuller]

So, with that, what are your thoughts on Davos?

I've always hated the Daleks !

[pepperami]

A shower of 'Me Feiners' , surrounded in luxury and lack of want with no motivation to change anything involving a decrease in profit for their backers.

The all holy 'growth' consuming the remaining resources exponentially.

Natural resources all being both and prices secured for multinationals.

I'm sure they will maximise the potential to further enslave the working. Secretly promote extreme right wing views and tag anyone who speaks out as extremists/terrorists. Troops on every street corner to 'protect' us.

I think we are in a serious time, with the world superpowers (together) slicing up the earth to secure resources before the inevitable division that will have enormous consequences for all but the super elite.

Kudos to Putin. .hes not hiding his intent, bad as it is!







Sent from my GT-I9505

[M. Montaigne]

A shower of 'Me Feiners' , surrounded in luxury and lack of want with no motivation to change anything involving a decrease in profit for their backers.

The all holy 'growth' consuming the remaining resources exponentially.

Natural resources all being both and prices secured for multinationals.

I'm sure they will maximise the potential to further enslave the working. Secretly promote extreme right wing views and tag anyone who speaks out as extremists/terrorists. Troops on every street corner to 'protect' us.

I think we are in a serious time, with the world superpowers (together) slicing up the earth to secure resources before the inevitable division that will have enormous consequences for all but the super elite.

Kudos to Putin. .hes not hiding his intent, bad as it is!

So, if I had to break your comment into themes, it would be that increased consumerism and motivation for profits is not sustainable from a natural resources perspective (except for the elites).

And that there is a disparity of classes (the very Marxist proletariat vs. bourgeoisie divide), but also media and propaganda that brings in increased state power.

Is that an accurate summary?

[pepperami]

So, if I had to break your comment into themes, it would be that increased consumerism and motivation for profits is not sustainable from a natural resources perspective (except for the elites).

And that there is a disparity of classes (the very Marxist proletariat vs. bourgeoisie divide), but also media and propaganda that brings in increased state power.

Is that an accurate summary?

Maybe and put far more elequently than I ever could.

The elites will climb into bunkers while the rest of battle for the last remaining resources. In fact it's happening already.

An 8 fold population increase since the discovery of oil, sea level rises arguably caused by burning that oil will eventually foul the fresh water supplies and destroy our weather systems.

Without fresh water we won't have food.

Without products made from oil, that treat, harvest and transport we won't have food.

The 'elites' at this economic forum only see the short term and the next election and are too self absorbed to care about anyone else.

The whole world is in debt but to whom?
The media feed us with diatribes that promote consumerism and ignore the real stories, unless it's to highlight that a few dying in one of out cities is an attack on our way of life and the free consumerism ,we in the west are entitled to.

History has allowed us in the west consume everything while half the world starves. This is going to bite us on the arse and will eventually mean that the elites will cosume everything left while most of the world starves.

So, if I had to break your comment into themes, it would be that increased consumerism and motivation for profits is not sustainable from a natural resources perspective (except for the elites).

And that there is a disparity of classes (the very Marxist proletariat vs. bourgeoisie divide), but also media and propaganda that brings in increased state power.

Is that an accurate summary?

Sent from my GT-I9505

[Bwana]

I liken them to the Masons, and anyone with a secret handshake.