Picking Winners & Losers: Davos 2024
As we finish up this year’s World Economic Forum confab and the security barriers start coming down, it’s worth reflecting on the main takeaways. The vibe was unbridled optimism in every corner of finance and business. Bankers from Stifel Financial Corp. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered grand dreams for a rebound after a drought of initial public offerings, mergers and riskier debt sales.
- Bad News Behind Davos Optimism Is That It’s Usually Wrong, Bloomberg
By Gregg Wall (1-20-2024)
Another billionaire, masters of the universe confab has come and gone, hosted by Ubermensch, Klaus Schwab. The winners of a planet in flames, a world choking on private jet exhaust were all here, in Davos, Switzerland. Having entirely bought out Western governments in Europe, Great Britain, and North America… and having reduced democracy to ash… the banker and business leaders of the world had all come together this week (along with second class, managerial class politicians, many of whom are absurdly & mysteriously wealthy in their own right) to give themselves a big, fat pat on the back.
This year’s theme: Rebuilding Trust. Which is an interesting enough theme, given that billionaires are all gods among us mere mortals. What could have given these rarified creatures, these unicorns of wealth & privilege, pause, given their infallible status?
Surely, it couldn’t be a burning planet, a flooding Earth, as a direct result of the fossil fuels the Davos grandees absolutely refuse to stop pumping from the ground.
Perhaps it’s the division and distrust surrounding corporate media outlets they own. You know. Corporate media more noted for disinformation, selling the elite narrative, selling wars & propaganda, spawning fear & loathing, fear of missing out, and dread… and keeping the world & societies conspicuously divided…. than imparting accurate news and information about our epically failed Davos gods and goddesses.
Maybe it’s the failed neoliberal paradigm, the greed-based international order, which have caused Western workers to organize and go on strike (with broad public approval). Price gouging, corporate greed, and monopoly formation have taken a catastrophic toll upon global economies, as has Davos man.
Who knows… maybe it’s the gutting of public services, like the NHS in Great Britain or Medicare for All in Canada, to pay for tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, and privatization schemes that has caused the public to lose trust in the billionaire class and the politicians & judges they own?
It couldn’t be endless, for-profit wars and record arms sales… the masters of evil at Davos are all cashing in on. Genocide, land grabs, colonialism, mangled children’s bodies in Gaza and blatant Israeli white supremacy are altogether common… the public couldn’t possibly be upset about this? Surely, the public understands, if the private sector and neoliberalism no longer can hit the GDP mark, best to pivot to more catastrophic spending and that great socialist endeavor: endless, for-profit war?
Austerity? Is austerity a threat to trust and the oligarchy's stewardship? Endless war and catastrophic private & public debt…. a/k/a the great transfer of wealth to the Davos elite… provides an outstanding excuse for endless austerity. Peace dividend? Not a chance, the Davos gang and their errand runners, the political class, have another for-profit war to fund. Endless austerity for the poor, endless socialism for the rich couldn’t have set the public on edge?
Rebuilding trust? Please. Davos man and the multinational utilities have destroyed all trust, burned the bridges of trust, lay torches to the ships of trust in the harbor: the fraud that is the Western political duopoly; corporate MSM’ unremitting support for the slaughter in Gaza, the Ukraine, and parts of Africa; endless socialism and welfare for billionaires & corporations… all of it exposed.
So, in the end, it should come as no surprise, given the merry band of psychopaths that attend Davos every year, that they all decided to shrug it off, sip champagne, and declare victory. And embrace eternal optimism. No need to modify a thing. Let the polycrisis roll.
After all, when you commodify & monetize every catastrophe on the planet, when humanity is your chew toy… life is sweet for the monsters of Davos.
The fact that the masters of the universe, the Ubermensch, have created headwinds of catastrophic debt, entirely corrupt governments, financial engineering & speculation, top heavy oligarchy, banker thieves, monopolies, a burning, flooding planet, endless wars, endless austerity… is just a means for further profit taking at humanity' expense. And if fiat currencies become abused, debased, mauled… no problem. The wealthy have already arbitraged that risk by purchasing the planet.
On a final note, academics, business leaders, even Davos man… sometimes become upset when governments pick winners and losers, showering businesses and billionaires with vast sums of public money (say for a new sports stadium, free land, or tax concessions).
But these same critics & individuals do not wince, when billionaires… many grown catastrophically wealthy by means of the state & socialism… pick winners and losers. When these Davos gods select governments to place an ever-shrinking pool of businesses, jobs, monopolies, and utilities with (say Alberta, Florida, or Texas). Invariably, not only does the oligarchy extract socialism and welfare from a government, but they also demand ideological & neoliberal purity.
Creatures of the state, billionaires & multinationals are the state. Products of the state, made obscenely wealthy by the state, Davos man has distorted & mauled: democracy, free will, free speech, our news and information systems, the economy, social media, and universities to serve their own ends. Oligarchy/Kleptocracy has contaminated and polluted everything… not just the air, water, and the planet… in the name of greed.
If only citizens throughout the West… the public, labor… could pull it together long enough (stop attacking one another) to address the ultimate threat to humanity: Davos man and their cult of greed.
It’s time for the public to stop worshipping wealth and the wealthy… and pick their own winner. That would be themselves.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
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