If you were left off the invite list for Davos this year, I can empathize with you. I was invited, but, alas, I had to babysit my three granddaughters and my jet was in the shop. Again.
Not to fret, Taylor Swift wasn’t invited and she was the Time Person of the Year 2023. So, you’re in good company, mate. BTW, did you know Swiftie was also the Time POY in 2017? Why?
Davos is a ski and spa town in Switzerland (in the German speaking part of Switzerland, “die Deutschschweiz”) where the World Economic Forum (founded in 1971 by German economist Klaus Schwab) meets to discuss the status of the world.
This is a meeting of 3,000 global elites (350 heads of state or ministers, 28% women at 800) from business, billionairehood, a few royals, government, media, academia, and activists (climate, race, immigration hustlers) who believe they can foresee and plan for the future of the entire world — all 8,000,000,000.
Let me be clear, this is not a democratic gathering. This is the elites deciding how they want you to live and they really do not care what you think. Not even a little bit.
Another way to look at the WEF is as the International Never Trump Confederacy.
This is the same bunch of clowns who in 2020 announced that capitalism is no longer guided solely by shareholder interests, but is now guided by “stakeholder” capitalism that makes the owners of the companies just some jerkoffs who wandered into the annual company meeting rather than the owners.
They are the same bunch of folks who regularly attend similar confabs like the COP.
COP means “Conference of the Parties” which is really the UNFCCC which means: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The organizers of these things want to keep you confused as to what they are doing on your behalf.
This is where the Americans, with no joinder from the US Senate constitutionally charged with ratifying American treaties by a 2/3s majority, agree to ridiculous things like the Paris Climate Accord.
The last COP, COP28, was held in Dubai in November. Love how the climate folks like to meet in the cold months in the warm places?
The elites were mostly fixated on Trump and, interestingly enough, they seem to think the old boy is going to run the table. Even Never Trumpers like Jamie Dimon, who runs some shady financial institution named JP Morgan Chase had nice things to say about The Donald.
JD made $36MM in total comp last year, not huge money, but very nice. He’s held the job for 18 years.
Jamie didn’t become a billionaire in the financial services racket by missing who was making the rules and giving that gent’s ass a thorough and skillful kissing.
Yes, I can and, yes, I will.
Middle East — Palestinians deserve a separate state of their own even if they have rejected that idea since 1948 and Israel should step back even if they were the victim. So, yeah, ceasefire.
The Israelis showed up with some former hostages to personalize the discussions, but the Palestinians just kept playing the victim card.
Houthis and Middle East supply routes — the ministers of Yemen, Houthi spokesmen, and Iran said the whole interdiction of shipping was . . . . . wait for it . . . . . the fault of Israel and would continue until the Israelis stopped their unprovoked attack on the innocents of Hamas
China — in the midst of a contracting economy and whilst supporting the Russians in their invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese minister said, “China is open for business.”
This indicates the re-shoring and friend-shoring efforts of companies bailing on China are starting to extract a price as foreign investment in China is cratering. [Imagine how Trump says, “Chiiiinah!” Yeah, China, baby.]
After a China-hosted lunch (wonder if they served egg rolls) Jamie Dimon offered this brilliant insight, “I’m glad that people are all talking.” Dimon is thinking of moving to Beijing and learning Mandarin. He loves China and China loves him.
Artificial intelligence — yeah, well until someone can figure out how to monetize it big time, everybody is interested, but has that look on their face like they smelled a toddler’s diaper and it isn’t pristine.
The Economy — inflation is not licked, oil prices may will continue to rise with this Houthi business, shipping prices also Houthi related — blah, blah, blah — the US election is pretty damn important and it looks like it could be a President Trump II who will sort out all this madness.
Lots of pinched faces, but the consensus is this bunch of elites liked the Trump Economy a lot more than the Biden Economy. Hate Trump, but hate the Biden economy more and don’t give Biden a chance of winning.
Who doesn’t like cheap money and low inflation? Apparently, nobody.
Banking — tough to get cross border bank deals done in Europe, but the Austrian bank, Raiffeisen Bank, can continue to do half its business in Russia.
Come on guys, the whole Russian sanctions regime is a head fake.
Energy — the consensus is that peak oil has not yet arrived, there is a lot of oil out there, and the oil company CEOs were getting their heads together to figure out how to get into the lithium business.
Somebody whispered, “The market hasn’t exactly embraced EVs, am I missing something?”
Gender — can you believe this bunch of chaps meet to discuss gender? Haha, they didn’t.
They spent a lot of time patting themselves on the back that they had 28% women in attendance.
Those ladies had a chance to meet some powerful men at the ratio of 3:1 which is pretty solid odds. No explanation why Greta Thornberg did not make the cut.
Ukraine — Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed up and the Swiss hosted a chat amongst some seven dozen national security advisers who came away with the brilliant utterance, “Yeah, Ukraine could win this thing if the West supports them.”
Meanwhile American and European Union funding is held up by politics.
Switzerland offered to hold peace talks, but with no Russians there — great idea in my opinion — don’t count on any progress.
There is one more story I have not yet told you and it has to do with digital currency. That will have to wait for next time.
In the meantime, know this — 3,000 elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland under the banner of the World Economic Forum and those well groomed men and women didn’t think about any of your real problems. Not once. Never.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just an elite Big Red Car.
