Bold prediction based on nothing more than gut instinct and maybe wishful thinking: the WEF has reached peak insanity and will be weaker and less influential by the end of this week.
These clowns have made hay operating in the shadows, but people are starting to wake up and see what the WEF really is – a malignant cancer that will kill democracy if allowed to grow unchecked.
Like the author, I don’t consider it a secret cabal plotting to take over the world. It’s nothing more than a group of wealthy, entitled upper level bureaucrats so convinced of their superiority they actually believe they can plan the future utopia.
No doubt they have power and influence now. Despite this wealth and power, bureaucrats will always fail. They’re not smart enough, creative enough or humble enough to build anything – let alone take over the world. Their malignant role was exposed during Covid, but ESG will be their ultimate demise.
State governors are wise to this garbage. Many are pulling out pension funds with investment firms that support ESG. In Canada, the federal Conservative Party, and some of its provincial counterparts, have forbidden its members from joining the WEF.
The hubris of the WEF is staggering. To think for even a moment they can remake the world is mind blowing. It can only end in failure. Like every planned economy before this, bureaucrats have proved utterly inept at implementing their grandiose ideas.
But having said all this, bureaucrats are good at wrecking things and the WEF could inflict substantial damage before it is burned to the ground. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I just don’t see this happening.
“the WEF has reached peak insanity”
That seems rather hyperbolic.
In what way(s) is the WEF “insane”?
Please list, with supporting evidence, corroboration of your position.
ESG. This policy doesn’t help anyone and will only drag down the govts and businesses that support it. Adding an entire new level of regulation and bureaucracy will reduce profits and make business less competitive.
You are mistaken. It helps the professional managerial class, by giving them an excuse to pay each other fat bonuses for things easier to accomplish than delivering value to their shareholders. They don’t care about profits. They care about their own pay-packets, and finding a way to decouple those from actually doing the job that in theory the shareholders hired them to do, to wit turn a profit, is something they very much want (I said in theory, because in practice, they were hired by other professional managers, since most controlling shares in companies are no longer voted by the actual capitalists, but by fund managers).
Capitalism, aside from privately held firms, is quite dead, replaced by what James Burnham called “managerialism”, and the Davos set represent not capital, but the managerial class, in finance, commerce, government and the non-profit sector.
The managerial class extends into things like universities (where, at least in the U.S. the number and pay packets of administrators grow faster than inflation even as professorial salaries lag inflation), quangos, proper NGOs, charitable foundations and the like.
The managerial class extends into things like universities (where, at least in the U.S. the number and pay packets of administrators grow faster than inflation even as professorial salaries lag inflation), quangos, proper NGOs, charitable foundations and the like.
You are mistaken. It helps the professional managerial class, by giving them an excuse to pay each other fat bonuses for things easier to accomplish than delivering value to their shareholders. They don’t care about profits. They care about their own pay-packets, and finding a way to decouple those from actually doing the job that in theory the shareholders hired them to do, to wit turn a profit, is something they very much want (I said in theory, because in practice, they were hired by other professional managers, since most controlling shares in companies are no longer voted by the actual capitalists, but by fund managers).
Capitalism, aside from privately held firms, is quite dead, replaced by what James Burnham called “managerialism”, and the Davos set represent not capital, but the managerial class, in finance, commerce, government and the non-profit sector.
ESG. This policy doesn’t help anyone and will only drag down the govts and businesses that support it. Adding an entire new level of regulation and bureaucracy will reduce profits and make business less competitive.
I would certainly agree with your general thrust, that these hubristic sociopaths are not nearly clever (or rather, wise) enough to create a utopia of any kind.
Having said that, the idea that they’ve reached the peak of their insane policy pushing, or that they’re about to unravel, sadly I don’t see any evidence of that at all.
As the article notes, they’ve become massively empowered by their formalising of a ‘partnership’ with the UN and it’s satellite organisations. The bankrupting grift called Net Zero has been signed into law, and policy is flowing in this direction no matter the public pushback or consequences. Laws (clearly cut/paste ones handed down from above) are making their way thru Parliaments from Britain to Canada stripping back basic rights, reordering policing powers, restricting speech and expression, and setting up the frameworks for CBDCs and digital enslavement. They had a major hand in the Covid response (evidenced by almost every world leader suddenly chanting Klaus’ slogan “Build Back Better” in unison), and that facilitated the largest upward transfer of wealth ever recorded.
Flush with success [and cash] they have hired a bumper 5,000 troops to protect them as they meet this week. They know the public are angry, but for psychopaths that is simply a practical issue to be resolved by fortifying the palace with more guards until all the desired laws and systems are in place, at which point the state has been fully weaponised and will subdue their populations by force if necessary, to protect and advance the WEF’s agenda (which is now the state’s agenda, by law).
If that isn’t smashing success in the realm of global coups, I don’t know what is!
Maybe I’m being a bit optimistic, maybe the WEF will become even stronger. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.
I think net zero is the type of drivel that will drive this group to extinction. It might be all the rage in the west, but countries like India and China simply don’t buy into this garbage.
I’m hopeful politicians and people will push back before serious damage is done. Maybe I’m wrong, but we see it already with Republican governors in the US. And while the Trudeau govt is the poster boy for the WEF, there is some serious opposition developing in Canada as well.
It’s already happening. They are dropping the ‘new boiler’ agenda. People know that as we produce but 2% of the planet’s carbon footprint if we reach net zero it will have zero impact. So they will be asking themselves why the enforced regulations?
It’s already happening. They are dropping the ‘new boiler’ agenda. People know that as we produce but 2% of the planet’s carbon footprint if we reach net zero it will have zero impact. So they will be asking themselves why the enforced regulations?
Orwell’s big Brother could not have succeeded any better! But max insanity is still a ways off, North Korean Jang Jin-Sung’s Dear Leader shows where we’re headed
I fear you are right. It’s going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better. Mainly because the constant cycles of chaos (that the media generate and amplify) keep the public distracted from the quiet and thorough infiltration and reordering of the political, legal and financial systems.
Just at the point that people seemed to be surfacing from the shell-shock state of the Covid years, beginning to ask questions, then they hit us with the next proxy war and it seemed to just suck all that angst, fear and emotion into a new distraction. No time left for questioning what the hell just happened for the past 2 years, and where all our money and rights went …there’s a war going on, don’t you know! …and there’s a climate crisis, and it’s an EMERGENCY!
The power brokers long ago worked out that emergencies are very handing for scooping up power and money, so now they specialise in creating emergencies, for exactly this purpose. The public as a whole need to get much savvier about this very fast. We are on the fast track to dystopia right now and it would be nice to stop this bullet train before it drops us all off in North Korea.
I fear you are right. It’s going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better. Mainly because the constant cycles of chaos (that the media generate and amplify) keep the public distracted from the quiet and thorough infiltration and reordering of the political, legal and financial systems.
Just at the point that people seemed to be surfacing from the shell-shock state of the Covid years, beginning to ask questions, then they hit us with the next proxy war and it seemed to just suck all that angst, fear and emotion into a new distraction. No time left for questioning what the hell just happened for the past 2 years, and where all our money and rights went …there’s a war going on, don’t you know! …and there’s a climate crisis, and it’s an EMERGENCY!
The power brokers long ago worked out that emergencies are very handing for scooping up power and money, so now they specialise in creating emergencies, for exactly this purpose. The public as a whole need to get much savvier about this very fast. We are on the fast track to dystopia right now and it would be nice to stop this bullet train before it drops us all off in North Korea.
Fear always makes things seem larger than they are, and there is plenty of evidence that they aren’t just getting their way unopposed any longer. Populist movements in Europe, Orban and Meloni. A realigned populist Republican party in the US pushing out the old guard. Trump’s victory over Clinton. Sanders almost victory over Clinton and then Biden. China and India not playing this game but instead pursuing overtly nationalist agendas. The growing Cold War between the US and China. The divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd. Cracks before the flood, IMHO.
Good post, Steve, and I agree. Curious about your line on ‘the divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd’, though. How so? They seem to be to be aligned, at least to the extent that both benefit from the post-2001 Forever Wars, not only by impoverishing the western taxpayer and increasing US-Corporate world political dominance (at least in the short term) but also, most recently, in artificially raising the cost of energy.
Is there a divergence I’m missing?
Good post, Steve, and I agree. Curious about your line on ‘the divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd’, though. How so? They seem to be to be aligned, at least to the extent that both benefit from the post-2001 Forever Wars, not only by impoverishing the western taxpayer and increasing US-Corporate world political dominance (at least in the short term) but also, most recently, in artificially raising the cost of energy.
Is there a divergence I’m missing?
Maybe I’m being a bit optimistic, maybe the WEF will become even stronger. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.
I think net zero is the type of drivel that will drive this group to extinction. It might be all the rage in the west, but countries like India and China simply don’t buy into this garbage.
I’m hopeful politicians and people will push back before serious damage is done. Maybe I’m wrong, but we see it already with Republican governors in the US. And while the Trudeau govt is the poster boy for the WEF, there is some serious opposition developing in Canada as well.
Orwell’s big Brother could not have succeeded any better! But max insanity is still a ways off, North Korean Jang Jin-Sung’s Dear Leader shows where we’re headed
Fear always makes things seem larger than they are, and there is plenty of evidence that they aren’t just getting their way unopposed any longer. Populist movements in Europe, Orban and Meloni. A realigned populist Republican party in the US pushing out the old guard. Trump’s victory over Clinton. Sanders almost victory over Clinton and then Biden. China and India not playing this game but instead pursuing overtly nationalist agendas. The growing Cold War between the US and China. The divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd. Cracks before the flood, IMHO.
I agree – as i often point out only $100 trn of the worlds c £400 trn assets are traded on the stock markets.Of that $100 trn half is real money EG Shell, Diageo, QGPC, not the “debt as asset” stuff like Musk or Fakebook. To steal and control all these assets WEF will need a lot of guns, time and money. I can’t see them winning in the Yangtse water margins, Russian forests or the Mexican Altiplano. The only ppl they can really hurt are the worlds landless por in Bangla, Yemen and Africa plus the poorest 50% of the West. They are classic Bond villains whose reach way exceeds their grasp.
I agree with this. The cat’s out of the bag. The populist fever has already captured one of the American parties and it’s only a matter of time and enough election losses before it also captures the other. Anti-elite sentiment is at an all time high and I don’t think they can virtue signal enough to overcome the basic human trait that people don’t like being ruled by unaccountable overlords. If they managed to bring world governments far enough down this road, they’d end up triggering violent revolutions long before they succeeded and I doubt many of them have the stomach or the skills to win that sort of conflict. They’ve lost, and just haven’t realized it yet. They lost when Trump beat Clinton. They lost when Brexit passed. They lost when Xi turned China from corporate playground into aspiring global power. They lost when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off the gas to Europe. They’re losing elections left and right in Europe. Most of the powerful nations outside of Europe are led by fierce nationalists like Modi or Erdogan. The fact that they have to hire a small army to defend their summit should be a clue that things are not going their way, but they appear to be too thick to get the message.
Maybe they’re not quite as black as the WEF’s agenda-mongering stooge MSM media paint them, John. Have you considered that possibility?
But clearly you’re a fan of the likes of Turdeau, Arden and Rutte. Well, whoever they represent, it isn’t the people in the ‘local’ political entities they were elected and paid to.
Maybe they’re not quite as black as the WEF’s agenda-mongering stooge MSM media paint them, John. Have you considered that possibility?
But clearly you’re a fan of the likes of Turdeau, Arden and Rutte. Well, whoever they represent, it isn’t the people in the ‘local’ political entities they were elected and paid to.
They do not care who wins or looses an election as far as they can buy, blackmail or make the winners bleed after the elections.
They did not loose when Russia invaded Ukraine. That pushed interest rates up and increased profits for bankers, arm dealers and commodity traders. Inflation hits the low and middle classes harder than the upper ones.
They do not care who wins or looses an election as far as they can buy, blackmail or make the winners bleed after the elections.
They did not loose when Russia invaded Ukraine. That pushed interest rates up and increased profits for bankers, arm dealers and commodity traders. Inflation hits the low and middle classes harder than the upper ones.
I like Ferlinghetti’s poem about these awful people.
It ends like this
‘You’re all in the computer.We’ve got all
your numbers.Except one
Unidentified flying @@@hole.
On the radar screen.
Some dumb bird.
Every time I shoot it down
it rises’
To paraphrase a line from a famous film
‘2000 years of civilisation and what did the Swiss produce?
Davos man and Davos days.
“the WEF has reached peak insanity”
That seems rather hyperbolic.
In what way(s) is the WEF “insane”?
Please list, with supporting evidence, corroboration of your position.
I would certainly agree with your general thrust, that these hubristic sociopaths are not nearly clever (or rather, wise) enough to create a utopia of any kind.
Having said that, the idea that they’ve reached the peak of their insane policy pushing, or that they’re about to unravel, sadly I don’t see any evidence of that at all.
As the article notes, they’ve become massively empowered by their formalising of a ‘partnership’ with the UN and it’s satellite organisations. The bankrupting grift called Net Zero has been signed into law, and policy is flowing in this direction no matter the public pushback or consequences. Laws (clearly cut/paste ones handed down from above) are making their way thru Parliaments from Britain to Canada stripping back basic rights, reordering policing powers, restricting speech and expression, and setting up the frameworks for CBDCs and digital enslavement. They had a major hand in the Covid response (evidenced by almost every world leader suddenly chanting Klaus’ slogan “Build Back Better” in unison), and that facilitated the largest upward transfer of wealth ever recorded.
Flush with success [and cash] they have hired a bumper 5,000 troops to protect them as they meet this week. They know the public are angry, but for psychopaths that is simply a practical issue to be resolved by fortifying the palace with more guards until all the desired laws and systems are in place, at which point the state has been fully weaponised and will subdue their populations by force if necessary, to protect and advance the WEF’s agenda (which is now the state’s agenda, by law).
If that isn’t smashing success in the realm of global coups, I don’t know what is!
I agree – as i often point out only $100 trn of the worlds c £400 trn assets are traded on the stock markets.Of that $100 trn half is real money EG Shell, Diageo, QGPC, not the “debt as asset” stuff like Musk or Fakebook. To steal and control all these assets WEF will need a lot of guns, time and money. I can’t see them winning in the Yangtse water margins, Russian forests or the Mexican Altiplano. The only ppl they can really hurt are the worlds landless por in Bangla, Yemen and Africa plus the poorest 50% of the West. They are classic Bond villains whose reach way exceeds their grasp.
I agree with this. The cat’s out of the bag. The populist fever has already captured one of the American parties and it’s only a matter of time and enough election losses before it also captures the other. Anti-elite sentiment is at an all time high and I don’t think they can virtue signal enough to overcome the basic human trait that people don’t like being ruled by unaccountable overlords. If they managed to bring world governments far enough down this road, they’d end up triggering violent revolutions long before they succeeded and I doubt many of them have the stomach or the skills to win that sort of conflict. They’ve lost, and just haven’t realized it yet. They lost when Trump beat Clinton. They lost when Brexit passed. They lost when Xi turned China from corporate playground into aspiring global power. They lost when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off the gas to Europe. They’re losing elections left and right in Europe. Most of the powerful nations outside of Europe are led by fierce nationalists like Modi or Erdogan. The fact that they have to hire a small army to defend their summit should be a clue that things are not going their way, but they appear to be too thick to get the message.
I like Ferlinghetti’s poem about these awful people.
It ends like this
‘You’re all in the computer.We’ve got all
your numbers.Except one
Unidentified flying @@@hole.
On the radar screen.
Some dumb bird.
Every time I shoot it down
it rises’
To paraphrase a line from a famous film
‘2000 years of civilisation and what did the Swiss produce?
Davos man and Davos days.
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Bold prediction based on nothing more than gut instinct and maybe wishful thinking: the WEF has reached peak insanity and will be weaker and less influential by the end of this week.
These clowns have made hay operating in the shadows, but people are starting to wake up and see what the WEF really is – a malignant cancer that will kill democracy if allowed to grow unchecked.
Like the author, I don’t consider it a secret cabal plotting to take over the world. It’s nothing more than a group of wealthy, entitled upper level bureaucrats so convinced of their superiority they actually believe they can plan the future utopia.
No doubt they have power and influence now. Despite this wealth and power, bureaucrats will always fail. They’re not smart enough, creative enough or humble enough to build anything – let alone take over the world. Their malignant role was exposed during Covid, but ESG will be their ultimate demise.
State governors are wise to this garbage. Many are pulling out pension funds with investment firms that support ESG. In Canada, the federal Conservative Party, and some of its provincial counterparts, have forbidden its members from joining the WEF.
The hubris of the WEF is staggering. To think for even a moment they can remake the world is mind blowing. It can only end in failure. Like every planned economy before this, bureaucrats have proved utterly inept at implementing their grandiose ideas.
But having said all this, bureaucrats are good at wrecking things and the WEF could inflict substantial damage before it is burned to the ground. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I just don’t see this happening.
Last edited 1 year ago by Jim Veenbaas
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a WEF Board Member which helps explain why Canada is now starting an attack on our farming industry similar to the Netherlands. It also explains the seizing of bank accounts of supporters of the convoy – which is clearly a blueprint for future control of the population. Our government is, of course pushing for digital money, seizing firearms and has legislation in process to censor the internet. Of course I am a mouth breathing conspiracy theorist for making these connections – even though as the author points out all this creepy authoritarian policy is right out there on the WEF website.
Oh ya, the Liberals are true believers. Trudeau was in the global leaders program, along with a bunch of MPs. They are the elitist, upper level bureaucrats who think they have it all figured out.
The Conservative Party was the same too, until they elected what might be a populist leader. He has a very negative opinion of the WEF.
Are you talking about Boris Johnson? I’m pretty sure he was in the WEF-youth. More to the point, he’s the most nakedly self-interested ligger I can think of. You can almost smell his desperation to get into the purplest of circles, where everything is free & no one is accountable.
I think he means the Canadian one. As to Boris, maybe he showed signs of going rogue, as, of course, did Truss. In any case, “they” went all out, with the collusion of the media, civil service, etc., etc. to get rid of Boris and Truss and install the reliable DAVOS clone that is Sunak to ensure that Britain, at least, would not fall back into the hands of its people.
Starmer is now being lined up to replace him, apparently with the intention of altering the electoral system in the UK to preclude any possibility of a restored democratic process “taking back control” here.
I do wonder, with the Evil Emperor Swab’s open boasts about how many governments he has successfully “penetrated” (shudder), how this power grab can be reversed. It’s amazing what money can buy.
Kier and a number of Labour party folks are headed to Davos this year, but Kier has been a globalist for a long time, evidenced by his membership of the Trilateral Commission.
They’re absolutely as rotten as the WEF, just more covert about their activities.
This article is odd. I really do not see any threat from a talking shop involving corporations and global poseurs. All of greatest threats to the stability of our society – all part of the Blairite progressive revoution – lie in the dogmas and governing structures he bequeathed. It is our own unelected national technocracy or NMIs who threaten our prosperity – not Diageo or BP who employ real workers and actually fund the ever expanding Blob (thats right – your magic money tree theory WAS bollox). Corporations do not threaten us. It is the nihilistic insanity of Skidamore and Net Zero fanatics within our Government who do; how casual he is in wishing away the livelihoods of hundreds of workers in that new coal mine today. We are threatened by a dark growing pol potty cult of degrowth; high tax gigh benefits no mobility massive regulation naked hostility to enterprise – all woven into the warped dogmas of our media and governing class. Who cares about Davos and globalists! Look what these pygmies are doing to us here!!
Things like Net Zero and the Online Harms BS Bill did not emanate from our government. These are ‘above’ policies.
The way to tell if something is an ‘above policy’ is: Can you vote against it?
…if not, very strong chance it’s an above policy, decided way above the pay grade of our government, by a consortium much more powerful. Net Zero is a really obvious one. The global power players and banking class are heavily invested in renewables, and in shifting the economy towards a carbon-based monetary system, which would give them ultimate control over wealth creation (strangling competition with Net Zero regulation), as well as a direct connection to the fire hose of public tax money (use govts to extort huge carbon taxes on the populous; act as contractors to the govt to mop up that money, all brokered in secret at gatherings like WEF). There is currently no party in government that you could vote for to divert this agenda, all 3 are all in. Above policy.
Global minimum tax rates (and higher taxes in general) is another one. Truss was elected on a platform of cutting taxes. Setting aside how she handled the delivery of the budget, the IMF and BoE gave strong signals that she was out on her own, and someone was clearly sent to forcibly reshuffle her cabinet, replacing her Chancellor with obedient Davos-man, Hunt. The traders received the signal and shorted the heck out of various markets, until she was flattened, and Davos-man Rishi could be manoeuvred back in, where they wanted him before. He immediately reverses the policies. Within weeks, he goes to G20 and the agenda summary reveals that he committed us to global minimum tax rates, among a number of other evils. So that global level agenda had been in motion for months, and there was no way Truss would be allowed to go in another direction, because that’s above policy — above her pay grade. Rishi got things back onto the above track, and the G20 revealed a bit about why the Truss situation happened, and happened so swiftly and brutally. It had to be done before G20.
I agree there is an above politics. I just see it WITHIN our hopeless corrupted UK elite. I do not see net zero as an idea imposed by globalist/corporatists. It is a virtue signalling cult like Lomdon groupthink credo which our vain weak and hoplessly ignorant Blob & politicians have bowed to without any Davos push. It is utterly shambolic, all emanating from a Latvian ex commie schoolteacher nutcase who naturally was asked by the EU to frame the continents war on fossil fuels. Thanks to idiots like Milliband and the German Norstream appeasers, this has has led to an energy crisis which will last for 2 decades. The rogues and fools are the popularity seeking Johnsons amd Mays and this deranged twit Skidamore (Tories???) who could not effect a global conspiracy if they tried. They are failed charlatans, riding the tide of a dangerous degrowth cult they do not even recognise, running us off a cliff – not conspiring cleverly to bring about some Rollerball Great Reset.
I take your point, but I don’t think Net Zero has anything to do with the climate, it is the vehicle chosen by the Club of Rome types (who themselves cribbed off the ideas of folks like Huxley and Russell), and it’s about control and money …mainly control.
The front end presentation of this agenda certainly resembles a religion/cult, and has all the necessary elements (shibboleths and dogmas, articles of faith, a child saint, much rending of garments and public performance of virtue and sacrifice, burning/shaming/casting out of heretics, etc). These people are just useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda they do not understand, at all.
Net Zero is about creating a world where 1 group of people (self appointed) control the division and use of all resources. It’s a central administration project for one world govt by ‘experts’. The people who want this to happen have been building this framework (and making the investments) for decades, it’s a long game. Larry Fink and David Rockefeller don’t give a shit about the polar bears. There may be some genuine tree-huggers among this ‘elite’ cast, but the ones that actual hold power are not hippies, they’re technocrats and psychopaths who are implementing a very detailed, very lucrative, plan. The Swedish Doom Goblin is mere window dressing and diversion, and the Ed Milibands are similarly useful idiots.
Well explained (and I would have multiple up-ticked both your posts were it permitted). One of the other “above” policies that is being enforced against the express wishes of the electorate is unlimited and indiscriminate immigration, without integration, with its concomitant parallel societies, laws and cultures, leading to distressing outcomes for all.
As with most failing, and failed, states, the UK now seems to have a black economy that thrives whilst the official one disintegrates and an underclass with completely different societal norms and laws, policed by private armies.
Yes, very true. It’s like normal/existing Britain and shadow/new Britain are bifurcating and operating more and more independently from one another.
Shadow Britain is growing, and is a weird alliance of the captured institutions (the heights of power, right up to the monarchy), with the illegals and welfare class (the beneficiaries/clients). Normal Britain is still left as the slice in the middle, shrinking, sucked dry by parasitism from both sides.
Very true about immigration. Over decades, no matter who we vote for or what they promise, we get higher immigration, particularly 3rd world and illegal immigration. In one administration you could call that incompetence or mischief. In every single one, despite varying tie colours and manifesto promises …that’s institutional capture. Shadow governance at work, delivering on their above policy agenda.
I did upvote you, but someone else downvoted, so it’s cancelled out. I assume the “i” word has triggered the usual Pavlovian reaction from the usual quarters..
The crucial tipping point for uncontrolled immigration, as far as the UK is concerned was 2004-05. That was the point when Blair realised that the Conservstive Party was beyond saving following its electoral disaster of 1997and that Cameron would be the new leader, meaning that the two-party state kept in check by meaningful opposition was at an end
I did upvote you, but someone else downvoted, so it’s cancelled out. I assume the “i” word has triggered the usual Pavlovian reaction from the usual quarters..
The crucial tipping point for uncontrolled immigration, as far as the UK is concerned was 2004-05. That was the point when Blair realised that the Conservstive Party was beyond saving following its electoral disaster of 1997and that Cameron would be the new leader, meaning that the two-party state kept in check by meaningful opposition was at an end
Yes, very true. It’s like normal/existing Britain and shadow/new Britain are bifurcating and operating more and more independently from one another.
Shadow Britain is growing, and is a weird alliance of the captured institutions (the heights of power, right up to the monarchy), with the illegals and welfare class (the beneficiaries/clients). Normal Britain is still left as the slice in the middle, shrinking, sucked dry by parasitism from both sides.
Very true about immigration. Over decades, no matter who we vote for or what they promise, we get higher immigration, particularly 3rd world and illegal immigration. In one administration you could call that incompetence or mischief. In every single one, despite varying tie colours and manifesto promises …that’s institutional capture. Shadow governance at work, delivering on their above policy agenda.
Well explained (and I would have multiple up-ticked both your posts were it permitted). One of the other “above” policies that is being enforced against the express wishes of the electorate is unlimited and indiscriminate immigration, without integration, with its concomitant parallel societies, laws and cultures, leading to distressing outcomes for all.
As with most failing, and failed, states, the UK now seems to have a black economy that thrives whilst the official one disintegrates and an underclass with completely different societal norms and laws, policed by private armies.
Good comments Mr marvell.
Yes the biggest problem with this mega Corp conspiracy is it forgets that business generally, wants stability. It doesn’t want disruption, political chaos or lockdowns. (one of the old fringe type theories was centrist politics was maintained for that very reason, stop any extreme crazy kicking off) All of those things are very bad for business.
People I think need to come to terms with the fact the ‘pax Americana’ is probably over. All the benefits that came with that are under threat. Cheap goods, cheap energy, cheap food. The conflict between America and the East has been coming for a long time, they’ve all been gearing up for it. What we are living is not the result of a mega Corp conspiracy, we are living a big east west confrontation in my opinion.
Net zero may have something to do with decreasing our dependency on Russian energy. Just saying.
Good points. Tbh, there are deeper convulsions shaking our national body in ER that trouble me even more than the energy disaster and the Net Zero madness. Again, all stem from the Blair/Brown Revolution. Problem A – mass uncontrolled movement of peoples was buried by the media but eventually came to surface (though the media will never connect 8m unexpected new faces to the implosion of public services). Problem B – the hidden extension of welfarism via the madness of tax credits & the redistribution only tax policy. Still not unmasked. We were told it was sorted. It is not, locking the underclass in dependency. Problem C – their Soviet drive to free and mass feminize the new service workforce.
Numbers wise, a revolution and success- 1m of 1.2m NHS workers are women. But – hello – we have totally inadequate childcare… so guess what? NHS work is deemed ‘anti women’ and impossible so forget a 24/7 health service. There is a hidden gender wall. Will anyone discuss this? Na. Problem D. Another catastrophic social engineering project that has seen ypung peoples educational standards torched on the altar of the 50% at uni goal. All of this – and toxic identitarianism and the nihilistic equality cult – are the direct consequences of New Labour and their EU think. Home grown poison. No Bond globo villains in Davos could ever shatter and harm a society as much as New Labour.
You’ve gone off on a bit of tangent on that lol. I do think very bad things happened under new Labour last time. The supreme Court and the whole Iraq debacle being the main ones for me.
Regarding the feminism stuff. As far as I’m concerned much of the trans/gender/feminist debate has been imported from America. I have to say I think the general public (myself included) are only just realising how far some of this stuff has gone, I have to say the extent to which it seems to have captured and disrupted some universities is slightly disturbing, not because I have anything against debating the issue but the way in which the debate seems to have happened, with professors getting lynched, it’s all got a bit militant etc.
However, I think when it comes down to it there will be a push back. We will see how far sturgeon gets I suppose, there’s a woman that knows how to cause a stir. She kept jumping boris on the covid restrictions too.
Tbh Mr marvell I don’t know what equality quotas the NHS has, any quota like that though I imagine is counter productive. We need to hire people on performance, capability, competence not on what a quota says. From a business perspective quotas like that would be a nightmare I imagine. And not really fair, I wouldn’t care what race/gender etc. as long as the person is the right person for the job.
Regarding the ‘underclass’. I hate that term. I normally swear at posters on here that use it. It assumes every benefit claiment is somehow below or apart from, normal society. I’m not sure on tax credits etc. I do limited company, self employed type tax, we don’t use the system for benefits so I don’t know. Or about it locking people into dependency. Life at the bottom can be very fu**ing complicated. I will say that.
Net zero like I say might have more to do with the actual global energy situation than just being kind to nature. We will see.
You’ve gone off on a bit of tangent on that lol. I do think very bad things happened under new Labour last time. The supreme Court and the whole Iraq debacle being the main ones for me.
Regarding the feminism stuff. As far as I’m concerned much of the trans/gender/feminist debate has been imported from America. I have to say I think the general public (myself included) are only just realising how far some of this stuff has gone, I have to say the extent to which it seems to have captured and disrupted some universities is slightly disturbing, not because I have anything against debating the issue but the way in which the debate seems to have happened, with professors getting lynched, it’s all got a bit militant etc.
However, I think when it comes down to it there will be a push back. We will see how far sturgeon gets I suppose, there’s a woman that knows how to cause a stir. She kept jumping boris on the covid restrictions too.
Tbh Mr marvell I don’t know what equality quotas the NHS has, any quota like that though I imagine is counter productive. We need to hire people on performance, capability, competence not on what a quota says. From a business perspective quotas like that would be a nightmare I imagine. And not really fair, I wouldn’t care what race/gender etc. as long as the person is the right person for the job.
Regarding the ‘underclass’. I hate that term. I normally swear at posters on here that use it. It assumes every benefit claiment is somehow below or apart from, normal society. I’m not sure on tax credits etc. I do limited company, self employed type tax, we don’t use the system for benefits so I don’t know. Or about it locking people into dependency. Life at the bottom can be very fu**ing complicated. I will say that.
Net zero like I say might have more to do with the actual global energy situation than just being kind to nature. We will see.
Good points. Tbh, there are deeper convulsions shaking our national body in ER that trouble me even more than the energy disaster and the Net Zero madness. Again, all stem from the Blair/Brown Revolution. Problem A – mass uncontrolled movement of peoples was buried by the media but eventually came to surface (though the media will never connect 8m unexpected new faces to the implosion of public services). Problem B – the hidden extension of welfarism via the madness of tax credits & the redistribution only tax policy. Still not unmasked. We were told it was sorted. It is not, locking the underclass in dependency. Problem C – their Soviet drive to free and mass feminize the new service workforce.
Numbers wise, a revolution and success- 1m of 1.2m NHS workers are women. But – hello – we have totally inadequate childcare… so guess what? NHS work is deemed ‘anti women’ and impossible so forget a 24/7 health service. There is a hidden gender wall. Will anyone discuss this? Na. Problem D. Another catastrophic social engineering project that has seen ypung peoples educational standards torched on the altar of the 50% at uni goal. All of this – and toxic identitarianism and the nihilistic equality cult – are the direct consequences of New Labour and their EU think. Home grown poison. No Bond globo villains in Davos could ever shatter and harm a society as much as New Labour.
I take your point, but I don’t think Net Zero has anything to do with the climate, it is the vehicle chosen by the Club of Rome types (who themselves cribbed off the ideas of folks like Huxley and Russell), and it’s about control and money …mainly control.
The front end presentation of this agenda certainly resembles a religion/cult, and has all the necessary elements (shibboleths and dogmas, articles of faith, a child saint, much rending of garments and public performance of virtue and sacrifice, burning/shaming/casting out of heretics, etc). These people are just useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda they do not understand, at all.
Net Zero is about creating a world where 1 group of people (self appointed) control the division and use of all resources. It’s a central administration project for one world govt by ‘experts’. The people who want this to happen have been building this framework (and making the investments) for decades, it’s a long game. Larry Fink and David Rockefeller don’t give a shit about the polar bears. There may be some genuine tree-huggers among this ‘elite’ cast, but the ones that actual hold power are not hippies, they’re technocrats and psychopaths who are implementing a very detailed, very lucrative, plan. The Swedish Doom Goblin is mere window dressing and diversion, and the Ed Milibands are similarly useful idiots.
Good comments Mr marvell.
Yes the biggest problem with this mega Corp conspiracy is it forgets that business generally, wants stability. It doesn’t want disruption, political chaos or lockdowns. (one of the old fringe type theories was centrist politics was maintained for that very reason, stop any extreme crazy kicking off) All of those things are very bad for business.
People I think need to come to terms with the fact the ‘pax Americana’ is probably over. All the benefits that came with that are under threat. Cheap goods, cheap energy, cheap food. The conflict between America and the East has been coming for a long time, they’ve all been gearing up for it. What we are living is not the result of a mega Corp conspiracy, we are living a big east west confrontation in my opinion.
Net zero may have something to do with decreasing our dependency on Russian energy. Just saying.
I agree there is an above politics. I just see it WITHIN our hopeless corrupted UK elite. I do not see net zero as an idea imposed by globalist/corporatists. It is a virtue signalling cult like Lomdon groupthink credo which our vain weak and hoplessly ignorant Blob & politicians have bowed to without any Davos push. It is utterly shambolic, all emanating from a Latvian ex commie schoolteacher nutcase who naturally was asked by the EU to frame the continents war on fossil fuels. Thanks to idiots like Milliband and the German Norstream appeasers, this has has led to an energy crisis which will last for 2 decades. The rogues and fools are the popularity seeking Johnsons amd Mays and this deranged twit Skidamore (Tories???) who could not effect a global conspiracy if they tried. They are failed charlatans, riding the tide of a dangerous degrowth cult they do not even recognise, running us off a cliff – not conspiring cleverly to bring about some Rollerball Great Reset.
Things like Net Zero and the Online Harms BS Bill did not emanate from our government. These are ‘above’ policies.
The way to tell if something is an ‘above policy’ is: Can you vote against it?
…if not, very strong chance it’s an above policy, decided way above the pay grade of our government, by a consortium much more powerful. Net Zero is a really obvious one. The global power players and banking class are heavily invested in renewables, and in shifting the economy towards a carbon-based monetary system, which would give them ultimate control over wealth creation (strangling competition with Net Zero regulation), as well as a direct connection to the fire hose of public tax money (use govts to extort huge carbon taxes on the populous; act as contractors to the govt to mop up that money, all brokered in secret at gatherings like WEF). There is currently no party in government that you could vote for to divert this agenda, all 3 are all in. Above policy.
Global minimum tax rates (and higher taxes in general) is another one. Truss was elected on a platform of cutting taxes. Setting aside how she handled the delivery of the budget, the IMF and BoE gave strong signals that she was out on her own, and someone was clearly sent to forcibly reshuffle her cabinet, replacing her Chancellor with obedient Davos-man, Hunt. The traders received the signal and shorted the heck out of various markets, until she was flattened, and Davos-man Rishi could be manoeuvred back in, where they wanted him before. He immediately reverses the policies. Within weeks, he goes to G20 and the agenda summary reveals that he committed us to global minimum tax rates, among a number of other evils. So that global level agenda had been in motion for months, and there was no way Truss would be allowed to go in another direction, because that’s above policy — above her pay grade. Rishi got things back onto the above track, and the G20 revealed a bit about why the Truss situation happened, and happened so swiftly and brutally. It had to be done before G20.
This article is odd. I really do not see any threat from a talking shop involving corporations and global poseurs. All of greatest threats to the stability of our society – all part of the Blairite progressive revoution – lie in the dogmas and governing structures he bequeathed. It is our own unelected national technocracy or NMIs who threaten our prosperity – not Diageo or BP who employ real workers and actually fund the ever expanding Blob (thats right – your magic money tree theory WAS bollox). Corporations do not threaten us. It is the nihilistic insanity of Skidamore and Net Zero fanatics within our Government who do; how casual he is in wishing away the livelihoods of hundreds of workers in that new coal mine today. We are threatened by a dark growing pol potty cult of degrowth; high tax gigh benefits no mobility massive regulation naked hostility to enterprise – all woven into the warped dogmas of our media and governing class. Who cares about Davos and globalists! Look what these pygmies are doing to us here!!
Kier and a number of Labour party folks are headed to Davos this year, but Kier has been a globalist for a long time, evidenced by his membership of the Trilateral Commission.
They’re absolutely as rotten as the WEF, just more covert about their activities.
I think he means the Canadian one. As to Boris, maybe he showed signs of going rogue, as, of course, did Truss. In any case, “they” went all out, with the collusion of the media, civil service, etc., etc. to get rid of Boris and Truss and install the reliable DAVOS clone that is Sunak to ensure that Britain, at least, would not fall back into the hands of its people.
Starmer is now being lined up to replace him, apparently with the intention of altering the electoral system in the UK to preclude any possibility of a restored democratic process “taking back control” here.
I do wonder, with the Evil Emperor Swab’s open boasts about how many governments he has successfully “penetrated” (shudder), how this power grab can be reversed. It’s amazing what money can buy.
Trudeau has quite openly professed his admiration for the Chinese model of government, talking about how efficiently it works in getting people to behave & do what they’re told. As evidenced by his sledgehammer tactics during Covid. He embodies everything that is terrifying about the WEF & its fostering of of a class of ambitious, arrogant, elitist sociopaths.
Are you talking about Boris Johnson? I’m pretty sure he was in the WEF-youth. More to the point, he’s the most nakedly self-interested ligger I can think of. You can almost smell his desperation to get into the purplest of circles, where everything is free & no one is accountable.
Trudeau has quite openly professed his admiration for the Chinese model of government, talking about how efficiently it works in getting people to behave & do what they’re told. As evidenced by his sledgehammer tactics during Covid. He embodies everything that is terrifying about the WEF & its fostering of of a class of ambitious, arrogant, elitist sociopaths.
Oh ya, the Liberals are true believers. Trudeau was in the global leaders program, along with a bunch of MPs. They are the elitist, upper level bureaucrats who think they have it all figured out.
The Conservative Party was the same too, until they elected what might be a populist leader. He has a very negative opinion of the WEF.
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a WEF Board Member which helps explain why Canada is now starting an attack on our farming industry similar to the Netherlands. It also explains the seizing of bank accounts of supporters of the convoy – which is clearly a blueprint for future control of the population. Our government is, of course pushing for digital money, seizing firearms and has legislation in process to censor the internet. Of course I am a mouth breathing conspiracy theorist for making these connections – even though as the author points out all this creepy authoritarian policy is right out there on the WEF website.
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago
Seriously, how is Davos still a thing? And who, in the name of Love, invites Bono? What is he supposed to bring to the discussion?
I wonder if there were similar inklings of fear and trepidation among the ‘superclass’ at Versailles at the start of 1789? A feeling that the future was not looking quite so rosy – but still a godlike belief in their right to rule, a messianic adherence to the agenda they’ve agreed on for the last 20 years and a total misreading of the reasons the peasants seem more revolting than usual for the time of year.
Among the talks on Global Capitalism and the Green New Deal and how it will benefit them, there’ll no doubt be concerns raised at the rising tide of resentment among the over-taxed and multi-vaxxed plebs at being forced to live in Matrix pods and eat bugs, and our growing mistrust of the useful idiots in the media who promote this neo-liberal, dystopian agenda.
But, of course, it’s always a lot easier to muse on the foibles of the minions whilst perched on a Swiss mountain-top, in a lair full of wanna-be Bond villains. Yet never once having the self-awareness to recognise what the rest of us can see quite plainly, ‘Yes, when discussing the problems we face, it is you and your cohort of globalists who’ve brought most of this about. That your certainty about the future was unfounded and your ideas detrimental to the common-good.’
Hopefully some young entrepreneur is doing a Dragon’s Den style pitch to some of them, “I’m looking for investors into my little company, we make torches and pitchforks. I think we’re set for a big few years. You might want to get in early …”
We know what’s good for the world; let’s cut food production 30% and force people to drive EVs while simultaneously destroying the electrical grid. As a sweetener, we will crush small business with ESG. What could go wrong? They’re pompous fools.
Ah yes… Anyone have a pitchfork I can borrow? Better living through socialism. Central planning never works. Simply too many moving parts. The invisible hand is always working, and unless these NGO groups strip the entire world of the power to influence the free market, the invisible hand will eventually swipe them out of the way, or we’ll descend into total tyranny.
For those becoming better aware of this issue, good for you. Unfortunately, we can’t boycott these multi national corporations twice. Now it’s your turn. Vote with your wallet, vote with your feet.
We know what’s good for the world; let’s cut food production 30% and force people to drive EVs while simultaneously destroying the electrical grid. As a sweetener, we will crush small business with ESG. What could go wrong? They’re pompous fools.
Ah yes… Anyone have a pitchfork I can borrow? Better living through socialism. Central planning never works. Simply too many moving parts. The invisible hand is always working, and unless these NGO groups strip the entire world of the power to influence the free market, the invisible hand will eventually swipe them out of the way, or we’ll descend into total tyranny.
For those becoming better aware of this issue, good for you. Unfortunately, we can’t boycott these multi national corporations twice. Now it’s your turn. Vote with your wallet, vote with your feet.
Musk declined to join. Said today that the WEF gives him the willies. (Précis).
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago
Seriously, how is Davos still a thing? And who, in the name of Love, invites Bono? What is he supposed to bring to the discussion?
I wonder if there were similar inklings of fear and trepidation among the ‘superclass’ at Versailles at the start of 1789? A feeling that the future was not looking quite so rosy – but still a godlike belief in their right to rule, a messianic adherence to the agenda they’ve agreed on for the last 20 years and a total misreading of the reasons the peasants seem more revolting than usual for the time of year.
Among the talks on Global Capitalism and the Green New Deal and how it will benefit them, there’ll no doubt be concerns raised at the rising tide of resentment among the over-taxed and multi-vaxxed plebs at being forced to live in Matrix pods and eat bugs, and our growing mistrust of the useful idiots in the media who promote this neo-liberal, dystopian agenda.
But, of course, it’s always a lot easier to muse on the foibles of the minions whilst perched on a Swiss mountain-top, in a lair full of wanna-be Bond villains. Yet never once having the self-awareness to recognise what the rest of us can see quite plainly, ‘Yes, when discussing the problems we face, it is you and your cohort of globalists who’ve brought most of this about. That your certainty about the future was unfounded and your ideas detrimental to the common-good.’
Hopefully some young entrepreneur is doing a Dragon’s Den style pitch to some of them, “I’m looking for investors into my little company, we make torches and pitchforks. I think we’re set for a big few years. You might want to get in early …”
Last edited 1 year ago by Paddy Taylor
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
The WEF is indeed not a conspiracy but reflects where much economic and social power already lies. Successful authoritarian actors are usually good explaining their plans in a way that is superficially enhancing to the lives of a sufficient portion of the population to be accepted and supported. The public/private partnership certainly produced anti-covid vaccines much quicker than was generally expected from previous vaccine rollouts.In that sense it was a success. What was less successful was the pre-vaccine measures to control the spread of covid consisting of masking and the shutting down of large sectors of the economy that had little scientific justification when all factors were taken into account.The fact that existing medicos to ameliorate the effects of the infection were never properly explored was a social policy failure.
The problem with any authoritarian system, however theoretically well-intentions is that it produces groupthink solutions with a bias to the interests of the elite class. Democracy is mediated during settled times through bureaucratic parties that are easily captured by such elite thinking. The Canadian government is perhaps the worst example of WEF ideological capture among traditional democracies. Let us hope sufficient numbers of the population cease to support the government so that its nefarious policies receive a rebuff from the electorate.
I certainly don’t dispute the point that you or the article are making – but perhaps an addition. Generally speaking I am loathe to blame the media – it’s normally just a cop out. But I do wonder at the ongoing reluctance of the media to really talk in depth about the interaction between national politicians and the various international organisations – surely this is ‘news.’ I’m not sure why it is: it may not be a conspiracy of silence, I suspect many journos simply don’t understand it or it’s too much like hard work. But the media really hasn’t kept up with the trends where governments have signed up to international deals at the expense of increasingly-severe constitutional deficits. There is social media coverage of course, but that is somewhat hit and miss.
You mention covid and all too often the media’s line on covid was, ‘that country is doing X so why aren’t you.’ This of course played very much to the agenda of minimising national governments and maximising a sense of drama that subsumed national politicians into a globalised mush.
Indeed the one recent time I can think of where there was some serious coverage of intergovernmental/supranationals was the single currency crisis where the issue was too big to ignore. But even there the coverage was pretty weak and had a ‘going through the motions’ feel about it. There was coverage of Brexit of course – but again that coverage (particularly the BBC) had an undertone of, ‘you the public are too dumb to understand this.’
I’m not entirely sure what the answer on this is. Inevitably when blaming the media one response is that we the public need to wise up. Another problem is the lack of viewpoint diversity amongst commentariat academics and journalists but undoubtedly these problems are rather easier to state than are solutions.
The regime media is part of the professional managerial class that absolutely loves globalism and the WEF. Thankfully, the regime media is just about dead. Without the support of billionaires like Bloomberg and Bezos, and direct govt funding, the regime media would be dead already. Ultimately, these orgs need to actually make money and that ain’t happening.
Bear in mind the media in the UK (excepting PEye) never talked about the cartel of right-wing bias that existed 1960s to late 80s and poss before though i wasn’t old enough to observe. The security apparatus, media (Today programme c 1979 anyone?) civil service, judiciary and even the UVF were hand in glove for the most part. It was a safe and stable time to be British BUT not if you chose to pick a fight with the state. I doubt the WEF will ever have that kind of power, even in Canada.
Indeed – there never was a golden age of the media and anyone who thinks there was simply asks to be deceived.
But what concerns me perhaps is not only the possibility or likelihood of the WEF (or others) having the sort of power that right or wrong should be the preserve of states it is that the media are simply not talking about it. As I say I do realise that some in the media don’t understand the current trends or that it’s just easier to churn out the same attack piece at a national minister.
But, for example, the media has been near-totally silent about central bank digital currencies. That is a level of surveillance that absolutely would give these international organisations tremendous power. The media has had extraordinarily little to say about the mechanics of the single currency and single market or ever more complex trade deals (with private court systems) that absolutely affect all our lives. To be clear here, I’m not simply blaming the ‘mainstream media.’ The more academic end of the media spectrum can not claim either ignorance or disinclination. The trade press are similarly quiet on for example the place of big tech.
Twenty years ago many people simply accepted social media in a very blase way and I see the same mistakes that were made then being made now.
Indeed one thing that covid showed up was how reliant some countries are on global charitable foundations to procure vaccines. The debate about the shrivelled role of the state in basic healthcare procurement is absolutely not some conspiracy theory.
Are we the public to blame for lapping up what the current media offers or are the media to blame for dumbing us all down. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But what ever the reality it’s not healthy for anyone.
You’re right. There never was a golden age of journalism, but the industry has underwent fundamental restructuring over the last two decades. Bottom line. They don’t make money anymore.
So they either cater to the bias of their subscribers, or the ideology of their benefactors, like Bloomberg or Bezos. In some countries like Canada, the govt actually funds the regime media, picking outlets that are eligible for grants and those that aren’t.
Another factor is the education of journalists. Back in the day, most reporters didn’t have a post-secondary education. They often came from the working class and spoke truth to power. Journalists now come from the same universities as the politicians they report on. They are connected to the professional managerial class and have little in common with the working class.
There’s actually a lot of research out there detailing the restructuring of the news industry, and how it has impacted news coverage.
You’re right. There never was a golden age of journalism, but the industry has underwent fundamental restructuring over the last two decades. Bottom line. They don’t make money anymore.
So they either cater to the bias of their subscribers, or the ideology of their benefactors, like Bloomberg or Bezos. In some countries like Canada, the govt actually funds the regime media, picking outlets that are eligible for grants and those that aren’t.
Another factor is the education of journalists. Back in the day, most reporters didn’t have a post-secondary education. They often came from the working class and spoke truth to power. Journalists now come from the same universities as the politicians they report on. They are connected to the professional managerial class and have little in common with the working class.
There’s actually a lot of research out there detailing the restructuring of the news industry, and how it has impacted news coverage.
Indeed – there never was a golden age of the media and anyone who thinks there was simply asks to be deceived.
But what concerns me perhaps is not only the possibility or likelihood of the WEF (or others) having the sort of power that right or wrong should be the preserve of states it is that the media are simply not talking about it. As I say I do realise that some in the media don’t understand the current trends or that it’s just easier to churn out the same attack piece at a national minister.
But, for example, the media has been near-totally silent about central bank digital currencies. That is a level of surveillance that absolutely would give these international organisations tremendous power. The media has had extraordinarily little to say about the mechanics of the single currency and single market or ever more complex trade deals (with private court systems) that absolutely affect all our lives. To be clear here, I’m not simply blaming the ‘mainstream media.’ The more academic end of the media spectrum can not claim either ignorance or disinclination. The trade press are similarly quiet on for example the place of big tech.
Twenty years ago many people simply accepted social media in a very blase way and I see the same mistakes that were made then being made now.
Indeed one thing that covid showed up was how reliant some countries are on global charitable foundations to procure vaccines. The debate about the shrivelled role of the state in basic healthcare procurement is absolutely not some conspiracy theory.
Are we the public to blame for lapping up what the current media offers or are the media to blame for dumbing us all down. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But what ever the reality it’s not healthy for anyone.
The regime media is part of the professional managerial class that absolutely loves globalism and the WEF. Thankfully, the regime media is just about dead. Without the support of billionaires like Bloomberg and Bezos, and direct govt funding, the regime media would be dead already. Ultimately, these orgs need to actually make money and that ain’t happening.
Bear in mind the media in the UK (excepting PEye) never talked about the cartel of right-wing bias that existed 1960s to late 80s and poss before though i wasn’t old enough to observe. The security apparatus, media (Today programme c 1979 anyone?) civil service, judiciary and even the UVF were hand in glove for the most part. It was a safe and stable time to be British BUT not if you chose to pick a fight with the state. I doubt the WEF will ever have that kind of power, even in Canada.
The fact that Event 201 was perpetrated by this group a mere two months before the Covid outbreak tells us the entire exercise was a success – for them. It was a fire drill conducted by arsonists and our supposed democratic governments were all in. We’re going to need a lot more than hope to survive what they’re planning.
The WEF has been supported by the rise of the professional managerial class. Their supporters come the private and public sector bureaucracy, the NGOs, the think tanks etc., but this class is doomed IMO. They don’t directly contribute to economic growth and will crumble by their massive drag on the economy. At least I hope so. Big tech and finance is dominated by this class and massive layoffs are coming to both industries.
You could say the same of the mediaeval priesthood, but they lasted about a millennium. Breaking their power in Europe took up to 250 years (more like 450 in Ireland), and that’s not counting a couple of false starts (the Lollards, the Albigensenists…).
It might take a US President to do to that 6,000 what (the horrible) MBS did to Saudi’s elite: lock them in the Hilton, guard them with hired goons and starve them till they sign away their loot.
You could say the same of the mediaeval priesthood, but they lasted about a millennium. Breaking their power in Europe took up to 250 years (more like 450 in Ireland), and that’s not counting a couple of false starts (the Lollards, the Albigensenists…).
It might take a US President to do to that 6,000 what (the horrible) MBS did to Saudi’s elite: lock them in the Hilton, guard them with hired goons and starve them till they sign away their loot.
I certainly don’t dispute the point that you or the article are making – but perhaps an addition. Generally speaking I am loathe to blame the media – it’s normally just a cop out. But I do wonder at the ongoing reluctance of the media to really talk in depth about the interaction between national politicians and the various international organisations – surely this is ‘news.’ I’m not sure why it is: it may not be a conspiracy of silence, I suspect many journos simply don’t understand it or it’s too much like hard work. But the media really hasn’t kept up with the trends where governments have signed up to international deals at the expense of increasingly-severe constitutional deficits. There is social media coverage of course, but that is somewhat hit and miss.
You mention covid and all too often the media’s line on covid was, ‘that country is doing X so why aren’t you.’ This of course played very much to the agenda of minimising national governments and maximising a sense of drama that subsumed national politicians into a globalised mush.
Indeed the one recent time I can think of where there was some serious coverage of intergovernmental/supranationals was the single currency crisis where the issue was too big to ignore. But even there the coverage was pretty weak and had a ‘going through the motions’ feel about it. There was coverage of Brexit of course – but again that coverage (particularly the BBC) had an undertone of, ‘you the public are too dumb to understand this.’
I’m not entirely sure what the answer on this is. Inevitably when blaming the media one response is that we the public need to wise up. Another problem is the lack of viewpoint diversity amongst commentariat academics and journalists but undoubtedly these problems are rather easier to state than are solutions.
The fact that Event 201 was perpetrated by this group a mere two months before the Covid outbreak tells us the entire exercise was a success – for them. It was a fire drill conducted by arsonists and our supposed democratic governments were all in. We’re going to need a lot more than hope to survive what they’re planning.
The WEF has been supported by the rise of the professional managerial class. Their supporters come the private and public sector bureaucracy, the NGOs, the think tanks etc., but this class is doomed IMO. They don’t directly contribute to economic growth and will crumble by their massive drag on the economy. At least I hope so. Big tech and finance is dominated by this class and massive layoffs are coming to both industries.
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
The WEF is indeed not a conspiracy but reflects where much economic and social power already lies. Successful authoritarian actors are usually good explaining their plans in a way that is superficially enhancing to the lives of a sufficient portion of the population to be accepted and supported. The public/private partnership certainly produced anti-covid vaccines much quicker than was generally expected from previous vaccine rollouts.In that sense it was a success. What was less successful was the pre-vaccine measures to control the spread of covid consisting of masking and the shutting down of large sectors of the economy that had little scientific justification when all factors were taken into account.The fact that existing medicos to ameliorate the effects of the infection were never properly explored was a social policy failure.
The problem with any authoritarian system, however theoretically well-intentions is that it produces groupthink solutions with a bias to the interests of the elite class. Democracy is mediated during settled times through bureaucratic parties that are easily captured by such elite thinking. The Canadian government is perhaps the worst example of WEF ideological capture among traditional democracies. Let us hope sufficient numbers of the population cease to support the government so that its nefarious policies receive a rebuff from the electorate.
Wilfred Davis
1 year ago
As many as 5,000 soldiers may be deployed for their protection.
The Davos people seem to have a keen appreciation of their popularity.
Wilfred Davis
1 year ago
As many as 5,000 soldiers may be deployed for their protection.
The Davos people seem to have a keen appreciation of their popularity.
Peter Donnelly
1 year ago
A better example of hubris would be hard to find. Marc Rutte dismisses fears about the sidelining of democracy as being the product of a fevered mind. As if to emphasise the , hhe and 6 other member of the cabinet will attend this years jamboree. Two of of the group will be vice-premiers one of whom will be Sigrid Kaag who is ironically leader of the Democracy 66 party but has shown little appetite for the original aims of the party to have more, not less, democracy such as elected mayors, plebiscites and people councils. Moreover they all view national policies as being subservient to the global agenda advanced by the WEF. Needless to say they are driving the voters into the camp of the radical right who are, at least, speaking up for democracy and haven so since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
Peter Donnelly
1 year ago
A better example of hubris would be hard to find. Marc Rutte dismisses fears about the sidelining of democracy as being the product of a fevered mind. As if to emphasise the , hhe and 6 other member of the cabinet will attend this years jamboree. Two of of the group will be vice-premiers one of whom will be Sigrid Kaag who is ironically leader of the Democracy 66 party but has shown little appetite for the original aims of the party to have more, not less, democracy such as elected mayors, plebiscites and people councils. Moreover they all view national policies as being subservient to the global agenda advanced by the WEF. Needless to say they are driving the voters into the camp of the radical right who are, at least, speaking up for democracy and haven so since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
Gavin Thomas
1 year ago
Any leader going against the globalist policies of the WEF, for the good of their own country, is hounded and punished by WEF lackeys – the Main Stream Media and the Financial Markets.
Liz Truss discovered this the hard way.
What did Truss do that in any way went against the global corporate agenda? Reduce taxes on the wealthy? Reduce industrial regulation? Which of her policies went against the interests of the WEF?
There’s loads in the press atm about China tracking our governments cars, do we think truss really had to go because of the phone hack nord stream business? Russia summoned our ambassador and said they had proof the UK did it, after that the news went dead. Truss left. Any thoughts on that anyone?
There’s loads in the press atm about China tracking our governments cars, do we think truss really had to go because of the phone hack nord stream business? Russia summoned our ambassador and said they had proof the UK did it, after that the news went dead. Truss left. Any thoughts on that anyone?
What did Truss do that in any way went against the global corporate agenda? Reduce taxes on the wealthy? Reduce industrial regulation? Which of her policies went against the interests of the WEF?
I don’t know about the Tin Woman Truss, but that’s certainly true of Trump, Corbyn, Bolsonaro and Orban.
Gavin Thomas
1 year ago
Any leader going against the globalist policies of the WEF, for the good of their own country, is hounded and punished by WEF lackeys – the Main Stream Media and the Financial Markets.
Liz Truss discovered this the hard way.
Rupert Carnegie
1 year ago
The central enthusiasm of the WEF is globalisation which has, to be fair, spread prosperity since the 1990s to hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians and others. Unfortunately, it has been at the expense of tens of millions of workers in the West who have seen their real incomes stagnate or fall in the same period – in contrast to the growth in their incomes 1950-90.
One could argue that this is fair enough and Capitalism / Free Trade is just producing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” as advertised but this ignores the growing political backlash in western states from the economically marginalised.
Trump was elected by the victims of globalisation and by inhibiting trade with China (i.e. protectionism in disguise) was successfully boosting incomes before Covid struck. Biden has not reversed his policies. The UK’s inability to get a trade deal with the US post Brexit is another data point in this incipient trend.
Globalisation needs to be deliberately slowed down if it is to survive. Pursuing it without modification risks ironically a slide to 1930s style trading blocs. Even if one is convinced of the long term benefits of globalisation, the WEF consensus is short sighted.
The underlying structural problem is not, however, the WEF per se but a broader growth of excessive corporate influence on government decision making since the 1980s.
Corporate lobbying has a useful place but it is too powerful at present. It is debatable if the US Congress is still a democratic institution in any meaningful sense given the priority attached to raising campaign finance. London may be less corrupt currently than Washington, but insiders are clearly alarmed by trends in the last five years and the direction of travel is all too clear: “Washington on the Thames”. Brussels has equivalent challenges.
The Anglo-Saxon legal definition of corruption is very narrow. We need a sustained attack on corporate influence peddling more broadly defined. Many of the mechanisms are well known: political contributions, mercenary think tanks, well paid retirement jobs for politicians, civil servants and generals, appointment of sympathetic individuals to regulatory posts (leading sometimes to outright agency capture), etc etc
If Corporate influence was reduced overall to sensible levels then I doubt we would continue to be exercised by any consensus at Davos since its impact would be far less.
Agree in general, with one note.
US policy towards China is actually about a lot more than protectionism. China essentially has no respect for the international rules on things like IP ownership and protection and has also been engaged in industrial scale industrial espionage and IP theft. The US is quite rightly acting against this – as should we.
Agree in general, with one note.
US policy towards China is actually about a lot more than protectionism. China essentially has no respect for the international rules on things like IP ownership and protection and has also been engaged in industrial scale industrial espionage and IP theft. The US is quite rightly acting against this – as should we.
A relief to read an intelligent, rational post here.
Rupert Carnegie
1 year ago
The central enthusiasm of the WEF is globalisation which has, to be fair, spread prosperity since the 1990s to hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians and others. Unfortunately, it has been at the expense of tens of millions of workers in the West who have seen their real incomes stagnate or fall in the same period – in contrast to the growth in their incomes 1950-90.
One could argue that this is fair enough and Capitalism / Free Trade is just producing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” as advertised but this ignores the growing political backlash in western states from the economically marginalised.
Trump was elected by the victims of globalisation and by inhibiting trade with China (i.e. protectionism in disguise) was successfully boosting incomes before Covid struck. Biden has not reversed his policies. The UK’s inability to get a trade deal with the US post Brexit is another data point in this incipient trend.
Globalisation needs to be deliberately slowed down if it is to survive. Pursuing it without modification risks ironically a slide to 1930s style trading blocs. Even if one is convinced of the long term benefits of globalisation, the WEF consensus is short sighted.
The underlying structural problem is not, however, the WEF per se but a broader growth of excessive corporate influence on government decision making since the 1980s.
Corporate lobbying has a useful place but it is too powerful at present. It is debatable if the US Congress is still a democratic institution in any meaningful sense given the priority attached to raising campaign finance. London may be less corrupt currently than Washington, but insiders are clearly alarmed by trends in the last five years and the direction of travel is all too clear: “Washington on the Thames”. Brussels has equivalent challenges.
The Anglo-Saxon legal definition of corruption is very narrow. We need a sustained attack on corporate influence peddling more broadly defined. Many of the mechanisms are well known: political contributions, mercenary think tanks, well paid retirement jobs for politicians, civil servants and generals, appointment of sympathetic individuals to regulatory posts (leading sometimes to outright agency capture), etc etc
If Corporate influence was reduced overall to sensible levels then I doubt we would continue to be exercised by any consensus at Davos since its impact would be far less.
David Yetter
1 year ago
I seem to recall an Italian gentleman a while back liked the idea of public-private cooperation, or as he described it “the union of state and corporate power”. Now what was the name of that movement he lead to implement the idea, let me see… Oh! I remember: Fascism!
Last edited 1 year ago by David Yetter
David Yetter
1 year ago
I seem to recall an Italian gentleman a while back liked the idea of public-private cooperation, or as he described it “the union of state and corporate power”. Now what was the name of that movement he lead to implement the idea, let me see… Oh! I remember: Fascism!
Last edited 1 year ago by David Yetter
Richard Barrett
1 year ago
There was a time when the left had a huge problem with the WEF and what it represents. Nowadays however, a leftist who draws attention to the WEF is sometimes accused of being in bed with right-wing conspiracy nutters.
Richard Barrett
1 year ago
There was a time when the left had a huge problem with the WEF and what it represents. Nowadays however, a leftist who draws attention to the WEF is sometimes accused of being in bed with right-wing conspiracy nutters.
David Barnett
1 year ago
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member or associate of the WEF or WEF-YGL-Initiative?”.
What do you do about a stealth coup d’etat?
David Barnett
1 year ago
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member or associate of the WEF or WEF-YGL-Initiative?”.
What do you do about a stealth coup d’etat?
mike otter
1 year ago
I see most people below realise that WEF is overall a bad thing, but seem divided as to what level of threat it poses to established Western political and social systems. (Note WEF is a competitor AGAINST, not a threat TO China, the Taliban, Putin, the Mafia etc) Our system is uniquely vulnerable to attacks on open societies precisely because it is open. WEF clowns are one amongst many who seek to rule the world according their own template, and no one group has ever succeeded. Sure they’ll do damage as did the Roman, British and Soviet Empires BUT unlike those would be “World Kings” WEF has minimal to zero redeeming qualities. Whatever happens the tides of history and evolution will wash them and their influence away. They are a feature of “end of empire” for the West as Caligula & Nero were for Rome. Even then the transgenderism, bestiality etc of c50Ad Rome wasn’t the end of Empire, just it’s Claudio-Julian phase.
Last edited 1 year ago by mike otter
mike otter
1 year ago
I see most people below realise that WEF is overall a bad thing, but seem divided as to what level of threat it poses to established Western political and social systems. (Note WEF is a competitor AGAINST, not a threat TO China, the Taliban, Putin, the Mafia etc) Our system is uniquely vulnerable to attacks on open societies precisely because it is open. WEF clowns are one amongst many who seek to rule the world according their own template, and no one group has ever succeeded. Sure they’ll do damage as did the Roman, British and Soviet Empires BUT unlike those would be “World Kings” WEF has minimal to zero redeeming qualities. Whatever happens the tides of history and evolution will wash them and their influence away. They are a feature of “end of empire” for the West as Caligula & Nero were for Rome. Even then the transgenderism, bestiality etc of c50Ad Rome wasn’t the end of Empire, just it’s Claudio-Julian phase.
Last edited 1 year ago by mike otter
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Davos. The place where our elected leaders go to be told what to do and how to run our country by people who we have not elected.
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Davos. The place where our elected leaders go to be told what to do and how to run our country by people who we have not elected.
Edward Seymour
1 year ago
It comes to something when a dullard Dublin pub singer has the presumption to tell us all where we’re going wrong. This is the elite?
Edward Seymour
1 year ago
It comes to something when a dullard Dublin pub singer has the presumption to tell us all where we’re going wrong. This is the elite?
jane baker
1 year ago
Im thinking back in time to say,1970. I’m thinking of a whole ot children,teenagers,and young adults let’s say age range 5 – 25. Every nature show on tv,and there were a lot then ends with a warning that the enchanting creature featured is imperilled due to it’s habitat vanishing to to human pressure. Now SOME of those kids had a talent for the new then hippie and alternative computer science. They ended up rich beyond imagination and realised that their wealth gave them the power and influence to SAVE THE PLANET. And they knew what was needed to do it. And they had seen in their lifetimes how well intentioned schemes always foundered on most people’s laziness and intransigence. They realized that,”WE HAVE TO CONTROL PEOPLE” the very words stary eyed George Monbiot spoke to camera,in chilling close up at the end of a tv documentary he wrote and fronted,that I saw on the BBC over 20 years ago about the unregulated and over abundant car traffic – in Oxford.
jane baker
1 year ago
Im thinking back in time to say,1970. I’m thinking of a whole ot children,teenagers,and young adults let’s say age range 5 – 25. Every nature show on tv,and there were a lot then ends with a warning that the enchanting creature featured is imperilled due to it’s habitat vanishing to to human pressure. Now SOME of those kids had a talent for the new then hippie and alternative computer science. They ended up rich beyond imagination and realised that their wealth gave them the power and influence to SAVE THE PLANET. And they knew what was needed to do it. And they had seen in their lifetimes how well intentioned schemes always foundered on most people’s laziness and intransigence. They realized that,”WE HAVE TO CONTROL PEOPLE” the very words stary eyed George Monbiot spoke to camera,in chilling close up at the end of a tv documentary he wrote and fronted,that I saw on the BBC over 20 years ago about the unregulated and over abundant car traffic – in Oxford.
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago
There is little on the face of WEF’s ideas that is unacceptable, but at times like this I recall Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago
There is little on the face of WEF’s ideas that is unacceptable, but at times like this I recall Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
It’s not just national boundaries that the archetypal psychopath that is Davos Man can’t abide, its limits in general and in particular limits to his ability to exert his control. He’ll go to any length to try and defy those limits and his membership of a class of temporary candles in the wind. The class of Global Leaders of Tomorrow ‘92 are now yesterday’s men whose heart problems are now real as they are metaphorical; their mentors are falling into a decaying old age if they have not already succumbed to the inevitable. Davos Man looks at the hyper-rational, infinitely lived agent of their simplistic economic theories with envy, or as a role model. To them, the universe dies when they die and so they rage against the dying of their light – at whatever the cost for the useless eaters that surround them, they don’t matter.
Neuralink, mRNA interventions, Crispr, all offer the soulless Davos Man the alchemical moonshot of redemption. They know that experiments will need to be done, they know the tech needs a lot of work and huge amounts of money, and they know their time is running out. Can it be done in time, or not? To be or not to be, that’s the only question that matters to him, that’s his real tragedy of the horizon. Remember Davos Man is not like most of us: zero empathy and a ruthless ability remorse or to lie and cheat got him to where he is, after all. It’s all just a means to an end for him. Trying to understand him is like trying understand a heroin addict.
This is, of course, just a sketch. Davos Man is as hypothetical as the perfectly utilitarian rational agent. Almost all of the people chomping on canapés and sipping wine under the protection of 5,000 well-trained and obedient Guardians in Davos have emotions, kids, families, people they care about. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not a useful analytical tool to use to understand some of the power dynamics going on in our world; or that, in a very small number cases, sadly – for them and for the rest of us – I believe it’s not an entirely inaccurate way to describe some real living people.
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
It’s not just national boundaries that the archetypal psychopath that is Davos Man can’t abide, its limits in general and in particular limits to his ability to exert his control. He’ll go to any length to try and defy those limits and his membership of a class of temporary candles in the wind. The class of Global Leaders of Tomorrow ‘92 are now yesterday’s men whose heart problems are now real as they are metaphorical; their mentors are falling into a decaying old age if they have not already succumbed to the inevitable. Davos Man looks at the hyper-rational, infinitely lived agent of their simplistic economic theories with envy, or as a role model. To them, the universe dies when they die and so they rage against the dying of their light – at whatever the cost for the useless eaters that surround them, they don’t matter.
Neuralink, mRNA interventions, Crispr, all offer the soulless Davos Man the alchemical moonshot of redemption. They know that experiments will need to be done, they know the tech needs a lot of work and huge amounts of money, and they know their time is running out. Can it be done in time, or not? To be or not to be, that’s the only question that matters to him, that’s his real tragedy of the horizon. Remember Davos Man is not like most of us: zero empathy and a ruthless ability remorse or to lie and cheat got him to where he is, after all. It’s all just a means to an end for him. Trying to understand him is like trying understand a heroin addict.
This is, of course, just a sketch. Davos Man is as hypothetical as the perfectly utilitarian rational agent. Almost all of the people chomping on canapés and sipping wine under the protection of 5,000 well-trained and obedient Guardians in Davos have emotions, kids, families, people they care about. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not a useful analytical tool to use to understand some of the power dynamics going on in our world; or that, in a very small number cases, sadly – for them and for the rest of us – I believe it’s not an entirely inaccurate way to describe some real living people.
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
One thing missing from this article is that the EU was ripe for penetration; it was already rotten with Trotskyist and Maoist entryists working to subvert democracy for ideological reasons, and had always recognised that its aims could not be achieved democratically, but rather by a series of engineered crises leading to pre-determined outcomes.
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
One thing missing from this article is that the EU was ripe for penetration; it was already rotten with Trotskyist and Maoist entryists working to subvert democracy for ideological reasons, and had always recognised that its aims could not be achieved democratically, but rather by a series of engineered crises leading to pre-determined outcomes.
Martin Johnson
1 year ago
Adam Smith nailed the WEF in 1776 when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations: People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.
Certainly, the oligarchic class should have the right to meet and nothing can stop them, anyway*, but the other 99.9999% of us do not have to be deluded into thinking they have our interests at heart.
*though, reviving real anti-trust enforcement against conspiracy in restraint of trade would be a useful step 🙂
Martin Johnson
1 year ago
Adam Smith nailed the WEF in 1776 when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations: People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.
Certainly, the oligarchic class should have the right to meet and nothing can stop them, anyway*, but the other 99.9999% of us do not have to be deluded into thinking they have our interests at heart.
*though, reviving real anti-trust enforcement against conspiracy in restraint of trade would be a useful step 🙂
Andrew Daws
1 year ago
They’re coming late to the game. In the early 1900s, a vicar in Maidenhead set up a conservative evangelical organisation specifically aimed at infiltrating the government, the church, and industry with right-thinking evangelicals, to usher in God’s kingdom on Earth. His organisation included the infamous John Smyth, who used to invite male teenagers to his home for extensive beating sessions, and their malign influence is still felt in a number of churches today. He was appealing to a deep felt instinct in all of us to belong to a tribe, and to exercise control over everyone else
Andrew Daws
1 year ago
They’re coming late to the game. In the early 1900s, a vicar in Maidenhead set up a conservative evangelical organisation specifically aimed at infiltrating the government, the church, and industry with right-thinking evangelicals, to usher in God’s kingdom on Earth. His organisation included the infamous John Smyth, who used to invite male teenagers to his home for extensive beating sessions, and their malign influence is still felt in a number of churches today. He was appealing to a deep felt instinct in all of us to belong to a tribe, and to exercise control over everyone else
Come on… It’s just a classic corporate free loader p**s up replete with free food and drink plus coke and hookers?! so.. whats new?… I am amazed that some tribe of terrorists hasnt had an, excuse the pun, crack at it?
.. a bigger and richer version of the City’s ” most maligned, shallow and barefaced freeload, aka The Cretin’s Carnival, the so called ” Monte Carlo Reinsurance Conference” ! Superb stories from restauranters as to how they can treble the prices of every drink or food item, load bills, split deals with taxi drivers, and syndicate hookers… all paid for by your insurance premiums!
.. a bigger and richer version of the City’s ” most maligned, shallow and barefaced freeload, aka The Cretin’s Carnival, the so called ” Monte Carlo Reinsurance Conference” ! Superb stories from restauranters as to how they can treble the prices of every drink or food item, load bills, split deals with taxi drivers, and syndicate hookers… all paid for by your insurance premiums!
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Come on… It’s just a classic corporate free loader p**s up replete with free food and drink plus coke and hookers?! so.. whats new?… I am amazed that some tribe of terrorists hasnt had an, excuse the pun, crack at it?
There’s a silver lining to every cloud. If Bono is busy turning the world into a corporate prison, he doesn’t have time to record any more music.
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
There’s a silver lining to every cloud. If Bono is busy turning the world into a corporate prison, he doesn’t have time to record any more music.
Garrett R
1 year ago
I have a question. Let’s work this through to a logical conclusion. WEF clearly has no government oversight. It calls together some of the most powerful companies in the world to discuss and solve highly complex issues.
What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?
I am not sure we can ask for more. They livestream their sessions. The publicize their agenda. They are very open about their goals. I just…I don’t understand what would replace WEF without in fact becoming another WEF. What am I missing?
“What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?”
The alternative is democratic accountability. Just because there is presently no model of democratic world government in place does not mean that a bunch of plutocrats and over-promoted bureaucrats can decide that there is consequently a vacuum that can be filled with something of their own devising.
And even if there is a power-vacuum at the global level (I don’t entirely dispute this: while global warming is mostly nonsense, ocean pollution and overfishing is not, and the solution to that has to be global in nature), one model we know from painful experience doesn’t work is one where unelected bureaucrats meet with corporations and then instruct national governments what the plan is.
In short, there is a ready alternative to the WEF: it’s called no WEF, and nothing in its place. It’s not perfect, but then again if we’re demanding perfection the WEF also fails the test.
‘global warming is mostly nonsense”.
At last, a real internet scientist speaks. Thanks for the ‘heads-up’. It would help humanity enormously if you could expand this thought into a full scientific paper, with lots of researchy facts and numbers ‘n stuff, just so the fake “so-called’ scientists could realise their stupidity.
‘global warming is mostly nonsense”.
At last, a real internet scientist speaks. Thanks for the ‘heads-up’. It would help humanity enormously if you could expand this thought into a full scientific paper, with lots of researchy facts and numbers ‘n stuff, just so the fake “so-called’ scientists could realise their stupidity.
“What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?”
The alternative is democratic accountability. Just because there is presently no model of democratic world government in place does not mean that a bunch of plutocrats and over-promoted bureaucrats can decide that there is consequently a vacuum that can be filled with something of their own devising.
And even if there is a power-vacuum at the global level (I don’t entirely dispute this: while global warming is mostly nonsense, ocean pollution and overfishing is not, and the solution to that has to be global in nature), one model we know from painful experience doesn’t work is one where unelected bureaucrats meet with corporations and then instruct national governments what the plan is.
In short, there is a ready alternative to the WEF: it’s called no WEF, and nothing in its place. It’s not perfect, but then again if we’re demanding perfection the WEF also fails the test.
Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Garrett R
1 year ago
I have a question. Let’s work this through to a logical conclusion. WEF clearly has no government oversight. It calls together some of the most powerful companies in the world to discuss and solve highly complex issues.
What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?
I am not sure we can ask for more. They livestream their sessions. The publicize their agenda. They are very open about their goals. I just…I don’t understand what would replace WEF without in fact becoming another WEF. What am I missing?
Hugh Marcus
1 year ago
While the gullible (who only get their news via FaceBook) shout loudly about the great reset, the WEF’s bigger agenda is staring us in the face. Taxation, as I’ve often said before, when you see a politician saying that Google Amazon et al, will be paying more taxes, they’re lying. The agenda of those attending Davos each year is to ensure they don’t & they never will. The politicians attending are in their pocket & they aim to keep it that way.
Hugh Marcus
1 year ago
While the gullible (who only get their news via FaceBook) shout loudly about the great reset, the WEF’s bigger agenda is staring us in the face. Taxation, as I’ve often said before, when you see a politician saying that Google Amazon et al, will be paying more taxes, they’re lying. The agenda of those attending Davos each year is to ensure they don’t & they never will. The politicians attending are in their pocket & they aim to keep it that way.
Martin Johnson
1 year ago
This essay drives home the eternal truth of what Eric Hoffer wrote ca. 1965: All great ideas start as movements, become businesses, and degenerate into rackets.
The WEF and the ideas of Govt-Corporate partnerships was an interesting idea in 1971, was a business by the early Thatcher-Reagan period around 1982, and by the late 1990s (Kyoto climate protocol is as good a marker as any) was becoming a racket. The subsequent response to the Great Financial Crisis and then the development and normalization of things like ESG and DEI have elevated the original idea to be the rationale for the greatest organized criminal enterprise in history.
Some of us understandably look at WEF as the problem, but it is more a symptom or in a way the scene of the crime.
Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
1 year ago
This essay drives home the eternal truth of what Eric Hoffer wrote ca. 1965: All great ideas start as movements, become businesses, and degenerate into rackets.
The WEF and the ideas of Govt-Corporate partnerships was an interesting idea in 1971, was a business by the early Thatcher-Reagan period around 1982, and by the late 1990s (Kyoto climate protocol is as good a marker as any) was becoming a racket. The subsequent response to the Great Financial Crisis and then the development and normalization of things like ESG and DEI have elevated the original idea to be the rationale for the greatest organized criminal enterprise in history.
Some of us understandably look at WEF as the problem, but it is more a symptom or in a way the scene of the crime.
Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Johnson
Benjamin Greco
1 year ago
It is wrong to say that the Global governance of the WEF can’t be reined in by the people through electoral politics. Brexit and Donald Trump are examples of popular revolt against globalization. These populist movements would have a better chance of success if they had intelligent leadership, instead they flail about with little idea of what they are fighting against led by buffoons and clowns like Trump, who is only interested in self-aggrandizement. In politics as in business the WEF crowd has captured the Left by acquiescing to all their woke demands. Since there is no need to capture the mainstream Right who are already willing to submit to corporate governance, until the Left wakes up and realizes they have been had, the only opposition to globalization will come from far-right nationalists whose agenda is more dangerous than the WEF’s.
I don’t expect the Left will wake up, so it will take forces outside of the control of governments and corporations to break the global elites governing us, another pandemic or mass migration from the South to the North due to climate change might do it, but when it happens this way, it won’t be pretty.
I don’t agree with this at all. The populist instinct is strong right now because govts across the west have failed to deliver to good governance.
They pursue policies like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, net zero, defund the police and gender ideology that hurt the working class.
Unless this changes, populist aren’t going away. And just because Trump and Johnson were buffoons, it doesn’t mean that next set of leaders will be the same.
Desantis has some faults, but he seems much more measured and focussed. Pierre Poilievre had incredible support for his Conservative Party leadership vote in Canada.
The political landscape in the west is being transformed right now. The right is no longer beholden to corporations. Big business has switched its support to the left, which is no longer really left wing.
DeSantis will talk like Trump and bow down to the Davos crowd. There are no Republicans out there who really will fight corporate power. They will use populists, but they will pass tax-cuts for the rich.
I’m much more worried that Poilievre in Canada will bend the knee than Desantis. I think Desantis is strongly opposed to ESG, which is the most dangerous WEF policy. I don’t think he can afford to bend the knee.
There is Senator Rand Paul. He has consistently spoken out against these international bureaucrats, so-called free trade agreements, and the military-industrial complex. In my opinion, defense contractors in all countries are the greatest threat facing the world today.
I’m much more worried that Poilievre in Canada will bend the knee than Desantis. I think Desantis is strongly opposed to ESG, which is the most dangerous WEF policy. I don’t think he can afford to bend the knee.
There is Senator Rand Paul. He has consistently spoken out against these international bureaucrats, so-called free trade agreements, and the military-industrial complex. In my opinion, defense contractors in all countries are the greatest threat facing the world today.
Vaccine mandates didn’t benefit the Left, they benefited pharmaceutical companies. The people who are hurting the working class are big corporations. The Left has just given up helping the working-class.
It did benefit the laptop class or the professional managerial class, who could work from home. I would consider them left wing, although these right-left labels are almost meaningless now. Who it hurt was the working class and small business.
I assume you’re talking about lockdowns not vaccine mandates. I don’t know about Britain but the lockdown in the US only lasted 3 months, the small business owners who were hurt were given government handouts, and it was instituted by Trump, so I don’t understand why conservatives think it is such a big deal. Most workers had to keep working. The lockdown didn’t hurt them as much as Covid did.
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. Covid didn’t hurt any business that I can think of. The govt response to the pandemic is responsible for all the damage – and the damage is extensive.
Those govt handouts you refer to weren’t as wonderful as people think. More than 3.8 million small businesses in the US took out govt loans at the beginning of Covid, with an avg of $100,000 each. They have to be repaid and the payments started in January.
But the news is much worse than this for small business. Revenue is way down, inflation and supply-chain shortages have increased costs and a recession is very likely.
“A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found only 36% of their small business members have reached their pre-pandemic sales levels, while 31% of businesses are still below 75% of their pre-crisis sales.”
Workers were hurt by vax mandates. In Canada, thousands and thousands of workers were hailed as heroes for working in public during Covid. And many of them were hi fired for refusing to get the vaccine. That’s the spark that started the truckers protest a year ago.
Again, the contemptible Covid response was not a left-right thing. IMO Trump would have done the same thing as Biden. I don’t know what conservatives had to do with it.
Are you kidding. It was a pandemic. People stayed home because they didn’t want to die. Small businesses would have been hurt no matter what the government did. People are still dying from this infection, and you act like it is nothing but a cold. Millions have died and many more would have died if not for the government response. You just won’t admit that lockdowns and vaccine mandates saved lives. Maybe things went too far, especially with vax mandates, but doing nothing was not an option.
Conservatives are the only people I know who sound like you. Anything to own the libs.
I’m not downplaying the pandemic. Covid was dangerous and caused death and heartache across the globe. Millions died and more will die in the future.
But let’s get real here. Covid killed old people – old people with multiple underlying health issues. It didn’t kill people under 65 and it didn’t kill healthy people.
I live in Alberta. The avg lifespan here is 79. The avg age of Covid victims was 80. In a province of 5 million people, we did not have one person under 18 die from Covid. Not one.
Vaccines saved lives, no question. They saved the lives of the very old and fragile. They didn’t stop transmission of the disease and they didn’t protect communities from the disease.
I supported the initial lockdowns – two weeks to stop the spread – but we knew almost immediately what the disease actually was. The Great Barrington Declaration was released in October, 2020. This would have been the proper response to Covid, but it was literally suppressed by the NIH, the CDC, big pharma and big tech.
You’re right, people stayed home out of fear. But the fear was completely misaligned with the actual threat of the disease for the vast majority of people. The govt created the fear, fueled the fear and reacted to this fear when establishing inappropriate policies. My neighbour was absolutely giddy when she could vaccinate her five year old. Is this a rational response?
To wave away the impact of lockdowns is mind blowing. It led to supply-chain breakdowns that are still affecting the economy today. It led to the cancellation of health care procedures that are part of the excess mortality rates we are still suffering today. It led to the education issues that will follow many students throughout their lives.
Lockdowns killed far more people than they saved. They were absolutely devastating.
It is sad that opposing views to the policy enacted by the government had a bad time on social media but what you see as a nefarious form of suppression I see as politics which have become pretty ugly these days. We don’t really debate anything civilly or sanely anymore.
But to say that things would have been better if the proposals in the Great Barrington Declaration had been followed is nothing more than speculation. The policy makers weren’t going to change or debate the policies that they sincerely thought were best just because some dissenting voices put out a statement with very few details. It is naïve to think they would or should have in the midst of a crisis. You shouldn’t impugn their motives. They believed they were doing the right thing and many health experts agreed with them. It is easy to criticize anyone in hindsight. They saved lives. You are exaggerating the effects of the lockdowns.
We don’t know and never will know what would have happened if we had tried to isolate older people and let younger people go about their business. We don’t even know if it would have been practical in large populous cities or in a country as large as the US. The policy wasn’t put in place, and it really was too late by October 2020. Will we never know what the consequences of the policy would have been. It is strange that conservatives blame liberals for a policy put in place by a Republican President. Had Trump been competent and knew how to manage a crisis or the bureaucracy of the Executive branch he was in charge of, maybe policies more to your liking would have been tried. And the rest of the world would have followed. But that didn’t happen.
All we can do is have a debate now for the next time. We should start that debate by at least admitting that everyone was sincerely trying to do the right thing and their best. Unfortunately, everyone has too much fun tearing each other down today.
It is sad that opposing views to the policy enacted by the government had a bad time on social media but what you see as a nefarious form of suppression I see as politics which have become pretty ugly these days. We don’t really debate anything civilly or sanely anymore.
But to say that things would have been better if the proposals in the Great Barrington Declaration had been followed is nothing more than speculation. The policy makers weren’t going to change or debate the policies that they sincerely thought were best just because some dissenting voices put out a statement with very few details. It is naïve to think they would or should have in the midst of a crisis. You shouldn’t impugn their motives. They believed they were doing the right thing and many health experts agreed with them. It is easy to criticize anyone in hindsight. They saved lives. You are exaggerating the effects of the lockdowns.
We don’t know and never will know what would have happened if we had tried to isolate older people and let younger people go about their business. We don’t even know if it would have been practical in large populous cities or in a country as large as the US. The policy wasn’t put in place, and it really was too late by October 2020. Will we never know what the consequences of the policy would have been. It is strange that conservatives blame liberals for a policy put in place by a Republican President. Had Trump been competent and knew how to manage a crisis or the bureaucracy of the Executive branch he was in charge of, maybe policies more to your liking would have been tried. And the rest of the world would have followed. But that didn’t happen.
All we can do is have a debate now for the next time. We should start that debate by at least admitting that everyone was sincerely trying to do the right thing and their best. Unfortunately, everyone has too much fun tearing each other down today.
I’m not downplaying the pandemic. Covid was dangerous and caused death and heartache across the globe. Millions died and more will die in the future.
But let’s get real here. Covid killed old people – old people with multiple underlying health issues. It didn’t kill people under 65 and it didn’t kill healthy people.
I live in Alberta. The avg lifespan here is 79. The avg age of Covid victims was 80. In a province of 5 million people, we did not have one person under 18 die from Covid. Not one.
Vaccines saved lives, no question. They saved the lives of the very old and fragile. They didn’t stop transmission of the disease and they didn’t protect communities from the disease.
I supported the initial lockdowns – two weeks to stop the spread – but we knew almost immediately what the disease actually was. The Great Barrington Declaration was released in October, 2020. This would have been the proper response to Covid, but it was literally suppressed by the NIH, the CDC, big pharma and big tech.
You’re right, people stayed home out of fear. But the fear was completely misaligned with the actual threat of the disease for the vast majority of people. The govt created the fear, fueled the fear and reacted to this fear when establishing inappropriate policies. My neighbour was absolutely giddy when she could vaccinate her five year old. Is this a rational response?
To wave away the impact of lockdowns is mind blowing. It led to supply-chain breakdowns that are still affecting the economy today. It led to the cancellation of health care procedures that are part of the excess mortality rates we are still suffering today. It led to the education issues that will follow many students throughout their lives.
Lockdowns killed far more people than they saved. They were absolutely devastating.
Are you kidding. It was a pandemic. People stayed home because they didn’t want to die. Small businesses would have been hurt no matter what the government did. People are still dying from this infection, and you act like it is nothing but a cold. Millions have died and many more would have died if not for the government response. You just won’t admit that lockdowns and vaccine mandates saved lives. Maybe things went too far, especially with vax mandates, but doing nothing was not an option.
Conservatives are the only people I know who sound like you. Anything to own the libs.
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. Covid didn’t hurt any business that I can think of. The govt response to the pandemic is responsible for all the damage – and the damage is extensive.
Those govt handouts you refer to weren’t as wonderful as people think. More than 3.8 million small businesses in the US took out govt loans at the beginning of Covid, with an avg of $100,000 each. They have to be repaid and the payments started in January.
But the news is much worse than this for small business. Revenue is way down, inflation and supply-chain shortages have increased costs and a recession is very likely.
“A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found only 36% of their small business members have reached their pre-pandemic sales levels, while 31% of businesses are still below 75% of their pre-crisis sales.”
Workers were hurt by vax mandates. In Canada, thousands and thousands of workers were hailed as heroes for working in public during Covid. And many of them were hi fired for refusing to get the vaccine. That’s the spark that started the truckers protest a year ago.
Again, the contemptible Covid response was not a left-right thing. IMO Trump would have done the same thing as Biden. I don’t know what conservatives had to do with it.
I assume you’re talking about lockdowns not vaccine mandates. I don’t know about Britain but the lockdown in the US only lasted 3 months, the small business owners who were hurt were given government handouts, and it was instituted by Trump, so I don’t understand why conservatives think it is such a big deal. Most workers had to keep working. The lockdown didn’t hurt them as much as Covid did.
It did benefit the laptop class or the professional managerial class, who could work from home. I would consider them left wing, although these right-left labels are almost meaningless now. Who it hurt was the working class and small business.
DeSantis will talk like Trump and bow down to the Davos crowd. There are no Republicans out there who really will fight corporate power. They will use populists, but they will pass tax-cuts for the rich.
Vaccine mandates didn’t benefit the Left, they benefited pharmaceutical companies. The people who are hurting the working class are big corporations. The Left has just given up helping the working-class.
I don’t agree with this at all. The populist instinct is strong right now because govts across the west have failed to deliver to good governance.
They pursue policies like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, net zero, defund the police and gender ideology that hurt the working class.
Unless this changes, populist aren’t going away. And just because Trump and Johnson were buffoons, it doesn’t mean that next set of leaders will be the same.
Desantis has some faults, but he seems much more measured and focussed. Pierre Poilievre had incredible support for his Conservative Party leadership vote in Canada.
The political landscape in the west is being transformed right now. The right is no longer beholden to corporations. Big business has switched its support to the left, which is no longer really left wing.
Watch what is happening in Brazil and see the lengths the hard left will go to.
Last edited 1 year ago by Lesley van Reenen
Benjamin Greco
1 year ago
It is wrong to say that the Global governance of the WEF can’t be reined in by the people through electoral politics. Brexit and Donald Trump are examples of popular revolt against globalization. These populist movements would have a better chance of success if they had intelligent leadership, instead they flail about with little idea of what they are fighting against led by buffoons and clowns like Trump, who is only interested in self-aggrandizement. In politics as in business the WEF crowd has captured the Left by acquiescing to all their woke demands. Since there is no need to capture the mainstream Right who are already willing to submit to corporate governance, until the Left wakes up and realizes they have been had, the only opposition to globalization will come from far-right nationalists whose agenda is more dangerous than the WEF’s.
I don’t expect the Left will wake up, so it will take forces outside of the control of governments and corporations to break the global elites governing us, another pandemic or mass migration from the South to the North due to climate change might do it, but when it happens this way, it won’t be pretty.
John Holland
1 year ago
A powerful article, though the standard-issue unHerd ideological comments below ignore entirely the corporate, profit-making part of the Davos contingent and obsess solely on the bureaucratic element, to create exactly the kind of unspoken conspiracy narrative that the article dismisses more than once.
This, obviously, enables people to make a very simple and ideologically-convenient story of evil Progressives trying to create a “utopia”- which of course, is balls. Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)- just a straight-forward money and power grab by the vastly wealthy. Who seriously believes that the world’s biggest corporations- oil companies, global ‘food’ semi-monopolies, finance, pharmaceutical giants- are Progressive Utopianists in any meaningful sense of the term? They are rich people using their power to get even richer, and ensuring that civic government and democratic accountability are as weak as possible.
Of course they have all the money they need. No-one wants to be a billionaire for the money in itself- its for the personal power that kind of money brings.
But that doesnt mean they have some great utopian plan for humanity- any more than the warring pretenders to Mediaeval crowns had utopian plans for humanity, or a gorrila fighting to be troop leader does it to change gorilla society. Rupert Murdoch wants power- he wants power to make the world more amenable to yet more power, nothing more.
Conspiracy ideation is fun, but it’s largely self-contradictory (the oil corporations want to ban us from using oil!) nonsense.
Of course they have all the money they need. No-one wants to be a billionaire for the money in itself- its for the personal power that kind of money brings.
But that doesnt mean they have some great utopian plan for humanity- any more than the warring pretenders to Mediaeval crowns had utopian plans for humanity, or a gorrila fighting to be troop leader does it to change gorilla society. Rupert Murdoch wants power- he wants power to make the world more amenable to yet more power, nothing more.
Conspiracy ideation is fun, but it’s largely self-contradictory (the oil corporations want to ban us from using oil!) nonsense.
IF we have hit peak oil ( which is disputed but BP says we have and they will not be exploring oil or gas fields after 2030) coupled with no russian energy and a reasonably hostile opec, we have no choice but to reduce our fossil fuel use. The Geopolitical situation is getting messier by the day. The only way to cope with the energy crisis is demand destruction and/or alternative power sources. Its really crap, but it is what it is. It’s going to hurt. Net zero is just a nice way to say it. Is just my humble opinion.
Edit
Yes it could, but we need to transition, I think net zero is about that transition. Its not about oil running out. Its not running out in that sense. Its about the fact there is less conventional oil, non conventional oil has largely made up for the increase in global demand since 2005. This is the shale oil etc. More expensive to extract. Its all about the oil price and whether it will stay high enough to enable that oil to be extracted at a profit. Now the oil price has been mental since covid, it actually went negative in 2020. In a volatile market big business won’t take the risk. That’s more the essence of the argument. Now what happens in the next few years depends on a fair few variables granted. I think it’s worth bearing in mind though before we get excited that net zero is simply a crazy plan to destroy our industry.
I don’t disagree with any of this. High demand and low supply will create high prices. Low demand and high supply will create low prices.
If prices go too high, the market will find alternatives. It might be renewables, which I doubt with today’s technology, or more likely nuclear. I don’t have a problem with any of that.
Government-induced demand destruction is the problem. I have no doubt the markets can cope with less fossil fuel supply and offer alternatives.
But if the govt creates the problem by artificially increasing the cost of energy, that’s when we have problems.
Yes certainly, nuclear and hydrogen are coming fast, just to be clear I’m not thinking we are headed for a distopian no electricity future, just that net zero fundamentally is nothing to do with anything other than changing from fossil fuel to nuclear and hydrogen etc. I’m suggesting that this might be driven by things like the volatility of the energy market, cutting off russia etc more than the government really wanting to implement net zero on purely idealogical grounds.
I think we agree here. I’m probably more bullish on the future of fossil fuels, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the market moved away from them either. I don’t have an issue with wind and solar either – if they work. The key is the free market. Let markets decide what lies ahead, not the govt.
Think that’s really fair. The future of fossil fuels is a really tough call atm I think, you could well be quite right in your outlook. I think too much free market intervention is a bad thing too. Especially sanctions. I agree wind and solar are unreliable, I think hydrogen and nuclear are more realistic solutions as a main source tbh. Hopefully we’ll keep the oil and gas going for now 🙂
Think that’s really fair. The future of fossil fuels is a really tough call atm I think, you could well be quite right in your outlook. I think too much free market intervention is a bad thing too. Especially sanctions. I agree wind and solar are unreliable, I think hydrogen and nuclear are more realistic solutions as a main source tbh. Hopefully we’ll keep the oil and gas going for now 🙂
I think we agree here. I’m probably more bullish on the future of fossil fuels, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the market moved away from them either. I don’t have an issue with wind and solar either – if they work. The key is the free market. Let markets decide what lies ahead, not the govt.
Yes certainly, nuclear and hydrogen are coming fast, just to be clear I’m not thinking we are headed for a distopian no electricity future, just that net zero fundamentally is nothing to do with anything other than changing from fossil fuel to nuclear and hydrogen etc. I’m suggesting that this might be driven by things like the volatility of the energy market, cutting off russia etc more than the government really wanting to implement net zero on purely idealogical grounds.
I don’t disagree with any of this. High demand and low supply will create high prices. Low demand and high supply will create low prices.
If prices go too high, the market will find alternatives. It might be renewables, which I doubt with today’s technology, or more likely nuclear. I don’t have a problem with any of that.
Government-induced demand destruction is the problem. I have no doubt the markets can cope with less fossil fuel supply and offer alternatives.
But if the govt creates the problem by artificially increasing the cost of energy, that’s when we have problems.
Edit
Yes it could, but we need to transition, I think net zero is about that transition. Its not about oil running out. Its not running out in that sense. Its about the fact there is less conventional oil, non conventional oil has largely made up for the increase in global demand since 2005. This is the shale oil etc. More expensive to extract. Its all about the oil price and whether it will stay high enough to enable that oil to be extracted at a profit. Now the oil price has been mental since covid, it actually went negative in 2020. In a volatile market big business won’t take the risk. That’s more the essence of the argument. Now what happens in the next few years depends on a fair few variables granted. I think it’s worth bearing in mind though before we get excited that net zero is simply a crazy plan to destroy our industry.
Look dude. I have explicitly said the WEF isn’t some cabal of henchmen trying to take over the world. I said it in my first post. Don’t put words in my mouth.
But you’re a fool if you don’t think they have outsized influence on political leaders across the world. They’re all in Davos today. The PM of Canada and half his cabinet have graduated from their Global Leaders program.
I do agree they have too much influence. Bringing corporations and governments together in such a way is just asking for corruption. I am not a Trudeau fan either.
I agree they have outsize influence. Absolutely. But the problem for me with so many comments here is the conflation of so many disparate things into a simplistic one-size-fits-all conspiracy.
I may have been unfair to you, but the number of people here who think that because globalised finance and a supra-national elite have a disproportionate influence on democratic systems, then the scientific facts of carbon dioxide on atmospheric heat exchange must therefore be a lie or a conspiracy is just absurd, and betrays a hopeless lack of rational thought.
As for the market deciding absolutely everything- should the market decide the use of asbestos? Or lead in petrol- the lead that rots kids brains? The market for opioides in the US is currently very healthy indeed- is that ok? Where, if ever, do you draw the line? The free market is a very useful and usually efficient tool. When it becomes a cult, to which lives must be sacrificed, it’s anti-human.
By the way, ‘net-zero’ is not a “utopian ideal”.
It’s a largely technological idea (no-where being actually implemented right now, nor in the near-future) to remove a particular, very damaging, chemical compound from the industrial system- or at least, making the overall production of it balanced by its atmospheric removal. That’s really not a “utopian ideal” in any remotely meaningful sense.
Hmmm hydrogen and nuclear are moving fast and getting enormous investment now from big tech and big oil right now, I can source business news to support that if you’re genuinely interested. There’s been a fair few important advancements in hydrogen this year. They have put Whitby I believe (might have the town wrong) onto hydrogen trial already. They are fitting solar with serious battery back up in some social housing across the UK already. Sources also available but Google you will find it. The link to the Morgan Stanley report I put way up above talks about big tech advancements being one of their main trends to watch over the next few years.
This is all good, I’m aware of these developments (though all have very real problems) – my point was that most of the commenters in this site see everything you just listed as dystopian, and as part of a Deep-State conspiracy against humanity, to be fought through violence (“pitch-forks”) if necessary. See John Riordan’s comment below.
OK, JR below is talking about the WEF slogan – you will own nothing and be happy. Info here just the first one I came across https://www.google.com/amp/s/sociable.co/web/wef-director-youll-own-nothing-be-happy-disinformation-campaign/amp/
Funny enough that says they tried and failed to disown the slogan after it went out.
The WEF have a whole raft of documents, the book the great reset, they have a centre in London, have tentacles in our universities. They tend to promote the same agenda throughout and they have a lot of money, a lot of revolving doors between media, corporations and governments. This is why people get so upset. Check out their Web page. They are very bad. They have the capability to push an agenda but only so far. I can’t get behind the global conspiracy. That’s not how Geopolitics works. But, you can see why, when you look into them, people rightly, draw attention to them. They are very bad from a big potential for corruption, certain amount of control outside of state etc. I would say JR below has made fair points.
There are people that post crazy stuff. The trouble with the WEF is it was part of Alex jones type NWO stuff, David ike, q anon all that. So it does attract fringe opinions. Fringe opinion should be considered. The point is to challenge the msm concensus. Sometimes the crazy posters make the best points occasionally.
Found a fringe site that had archived the link to forbes report. The video has been removed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=4a9be7291735
Also don’t see pitch forks?
I don’t think we need a pitchfork type revolution. That’s probably the last thing we need the state of global affairs at the moment. Plus all the davos set would just off abroad. It would put the tin hat on it. I think davos should be disallowed. WEF disbanded. Would be a good start.
OK, JR below is talking about the WEF slogan – you will own nothing and be happy. Info here just the first one I came across https://www.google.com/amp/s/sociable.co/web/wef-director-youll-own-nothing-be-happy-disinformation-campaign/amp/
Funny enough that says they tried and failed to disown the slogan after it went out.
The WEF have a whole raft of documents, the book the great reset, they have a centre in London, have tentacles in our universities. They tend to promote the same agenda throughout and they have a lot of money, a lot of revolving doors between media, corporations and governments. This is why people get so upset. Check out their Web page. They are very bad. They have the capability to push an agenda but only so far. I can’t get behind the global conspiracy. That’s not how Geopolitics works. But, you can see why, when you look into them, people rightly, draw attention to them. They are very bad from a big potential for corruption, certain amount of control outside of state etc. I would say JR below has made fair points.
There are people that post crazy stuff. The trouble with the WEF is it was part of Alex jones type NWO stuff, David ike, q anon all that. So it does attract fringe opinions. Fringe opinion should be considered. The point is to challenge the msm concensus. Sometimes the crazy posters make the best points occasionally.
Found a fringe site that had archived the link to forbes report. The video has been removed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=4a9be7291735
Also don’t see pitch forks?
I don’t think we need a pitchfork type revolution. That’s probably the last thing we need the state of global affairs at the moment. Plus all the davos set would just off abroad. It would put the tin hat on it. I think davos should be disallowed. WEF disbanded. Would be a good start.
This is all good, I’m aware of these developments (though all have very real problems) – my point was that most of the commenters in this site see everything you just listed as dystopian, and as part of a Deep-State conspiracy against humanity, to be fought through violence (“pitch-forks”) if necessary. See John Riordan’s comment below.
Hmmm hydrogen and nuclear are moving fast and getting enormous investment now from big tech and big oil right now, I can source business news to support that if you’re genuinely interested. There’s been a fair few important advancements in hydrogen this year. They have put Whitby I believe (might have the town wrong) onto hydrogen trial already. They are fitting solar with serious battery back up in some social housing across the UK already. Sources also available but Google you will find it. The link to the Morgan Stanley report I put way up above talks about big tech advancements being one of their main trends to watch over the next few years.
By the way, ‘net-zero’ is not a “utopian ideal”.
It’s a largely technological idea (no-where being actually implemented right now, nor in the near-future) to remove a particular, very damaging, chemical compound from the industrial system- or at least, making the overall production of it balanced by its atmospheric removal. That’s really not a “utopian ideal” in any remotely meaningful sense.
I do agree they have too much influence. Bringing corporations and governments together in such a way is just asking for corruption. I am not a Trudeau fan either.
I agree they have outsize influence. Absolutely. But the problem for me with so many comments here is the conflation of so many disparate things into a simplistic one-size-fits-all conspiracy.
I may have been unfair to you, but the number of people here who think that because globalised finance and a supra-national elite have a disproportionate influence on democratic systems, then the scientific facts of carbon dioxide on atmospheric heat exchange must therefore be a lie or a conspiracy is just absurd, and betrays a hopeless lack of rational thought.
As for the market deciding absolutely everything- should the market decide the use of asbestos? Or lead in petrol- the lead that rots kids brains? The market for opioides in the US is currently very healthy indeed- is that ok? Where, if ever, do you draw the line? The free market is a very useful and usually efficient tool. When it becomes a cult, to which lives must be sacrificed, it’s anti-human.
Look dude. I have explicitly said the WEF isn’t some cabal of henchmen trying to take over the world. I said it in my first post. Don’t put words in my mouth.
But you’re a fool if you don’t think they have outsized influence on political leaders across the world. They’re all in Davos today. The PM of Canada and half his cabinet have graduated from their Global Leaders program.
IF we have hit peak oil ( which is disputed but BP says we have and they will not be exploring oil or gas fields after 2030) coupled with no russian energy and a reasonably hostile opec, we have no choice but to reduce our fossil fuel use. The Geopolitical situation is getting messier by the day. The only way to cope with the energy crisis is demand destruction and/or alternative power sources. Its really crap, but it is what it is. It’s going to hurt. Net zero is just a nice way to say it. Is just my humble opinion.
“Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)-…”
“You will own nothing and be happy”, I suppose, merely represents a wealth grab and in no way contains elements of utopian ambitions, according to you?
You are guilty of precisely the blinkered thinking you assign to others here. The WEF comprises both plutocrats and state apparatchiks. It is a classic Fascist organisation, in the strict definition employed by Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.
And we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do.
Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you? You can make up random quotes of your own- it’s fun- but as a basis for a rational argument, it’s pointless. You are genuinely telling me that the world’s corporations are planning to destroy the concept of private property? Really?
I’m not aware of anything meaningfully describable as “utopianism” in Mussolini’s ‘ideas’- he was deeply Nationalist, as are most of the commenters here who so despise globalism, and relied on the support of the Catholic Church, who saw him as their chief bulwark against Communism. So anti-Communist, ultra-Nationalist, militaristic and Catholic. Mussolini saw the Fascists as promoting the values of the “Mediterranean-Aryan race” against the “International plutocracy controlled by Jews”, and fetishised the national historical descent from Rome- the fascist state was the “Third Rome”.
How many here promote nationalism, militarism, anti-“internationalism”, traditional gender roles, Church and ethnic historicism? I think he’d get rather more ‘upticks’ that I do.
“Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you?”
The WEF.
Ignoring the somewhat amazing fact that you didn’t know this, surely it was in any case obvious, given that that’s what the article is about?
As for your arguments about Mussolini not being relevant to the subject, firstly I was pointing out a way in which he actually is relevant. Finding other comparisons in which he differs is irrelevant. Secondly and more importantly, I was merely using Mussolini’s classical definition of fascism to draw a parallel between fascism and the WEF. Whether or not Mussolini exhibited utopian ideals in other contexts is, once again, irrelevant.
Please give a reference or a link to this ridiculous ‘quote’. In fact, it’s a single economist, eight years ago, discussing predictions of possible future scenarious for world technology (i.e, the projected spread of renting things like cars). This has been hyped up into the standard paranoid idiot’s Youtube rant, subsequently going ‘viral’ amongst the more excitable and factually-challenged denizens of the internet.
The WEF is a Capitalist organisation, made up of Capitalist economists and Capitalist corporate leaders; by what conceivable rationale would such an organisation demand the end of private property? How does that even begin to make sense, outside of the fevered imaginings of QAnon?
The usual problem with daft internet conspiracy theories is that they fail to attempt even the vaguest sense of rational probability or inherent logic, in favour of whatever induces the greatest sense of pleasurable hysteria.
And if Mussolini’s putative “utopianism” is “irrelevant”, why did you write “we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do”. Make your mind up.
Please give a reference or a link to this ridiculous ‘quote’. In fact, it’s a single economist, eight years ago, discussing predictions of possible future scenarious for world technology (i.e, the projected spread of renting things like cars). This has been hyped up into the standard paranoid idiot’s Youtube rant, subsequently going ‘viral’ amongst the more excitable and factually-challenged denizens of the internet.
The WEF is a Capitalist organisation, made up of Capitalist economists and Capitalist corporate leaders; by what conceivable rationale would such an organisation demand the end of private property? How does that even begin to make sense, outside of the fevered imaginings of QAnon?
The usual problem with daft internet conspiracy theories is that they fail to attempt even the vaguest sense of rational probability or inherent logic, in favour of whatever induces the greatest sense of pleasurable hysteria.
And if Mussolini’s putative “utopianism” is “irrelevant”, why did you write “we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do”. Make your mind up.
“Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you?”
The WEF.
Ignoring the somewhat amazing fact that you didn’t know this, surely it was in any case obvious, given that that’s what the article is about?
As for your arguments about Mussolini not being relevant to the subject, firstly I was pointing out a way in which he actually is relevant. Finding other comparisons in which he differs is irrelevant. Secondly and more importantly, I was merely using Mussolini’s classical definition of fascism to draw a parallel between fascism and the WEF. Whether or not Mussolini exhibited utopian ideals in other contexts is, once again, irrelevant.
Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you? You can make up random quotes of your own- it’s fun- but as a basis for a rational argument, it’s pointless. You are genuinely telling me that the world’s corporations are planning to destroy the concept of private property? Really?
I’m not aware of anything meaningfully describable as “utopianism” in Mussolini’s ‘ideas’- he was deeply Nationalist, as are most of the commenters here who so despise globalism, and relied on the support of the Catholic Church, who saw him as their chief bulwark against Communism. So anti-Communist, ultra-Nationalist, militaristic and Catholic. Mussolini saw the Fascists as promoting the values of the “Mediterranean-Aryan race” against the “International plutocracy controlled by Jews”, and fetishised the national historical descent from Rome- the fascist state was the “Third Rome”.
How many here promote nationalism, militarism, anti-“internationalism”, traditional gender roles, Church and ethnic historicism? I think he’d get rather more ‘upticks’ that I do.
“Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)-…”
“You will own nothing and be happy”, I suppose, merely represents a wealth grab and in no way contains elements of utopian ambitions, according to you?
You are guilty of precisely the blinkered thinking you assign to others here. The WEF comprises both plutocrats and state apparatchiks. It is a classic Fascist organisation, in the strict definition employed by Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.
And we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do.
Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Holland
1 year ago
A powerful article, though the standard-issue unHerd ideological comments below ignore entirely the corporate, profit-making part of the Davos contingent and obsess solely on the bureaucratic element, to create exactly the kind of unspoken conspiracy narrative that the article dismisses more than once.
This, obviously, enables people to make a very simple and ideologically-convenient story of evil Progressives trying to create a “utopia”- which of course, is balls. Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)- just a straight-forward money and power grab by the vastly wealthy. Who seriously believes that the world’s biggest corporations- oil companies, global ‘food’ semi-monopolies, finance, pharmaceutical giants- are Progressive Utopianists in any meaningful sense of the term? They are rich people using their power to get even richer, and ensuring that civic government and democratic accountability are as weak as possible.
Last edited 1 year ago by John Holland
Tim D
1 year ago
“this… neatly encapsulates the basic philosophy of globalism: insulating policy from democracy by transferring the decision-making process from the national and international level, where citizens theoretically are able to exercise some degree of influence over policy, to the supranational level, by placing a self-selected group of unelected, unaccountable “stakeholders” mainly corporations — in charge of global decisions concerning everything from energy and food production to the media and public health. The underlying undemocratic philosophy is the same one underpinning the philanthrocapitalist approach of people such Bill Gates, himself a long-time partner of the WEF: that non-governmental social and business organisations are best suited to solve the world’s problems than governments and multilateral institutions.”
When I programmed in Fortran, and later visualized more clearly in pre-processor programs (Mortran we used at Bell from Stanford) and later Pascal, the concept of the unrecognized inherent clash between local and global variables dominance became prominent. It is so easy to want the model of top/down corporatism (dictatorial centralized control, the elimination of general bottom/up unless initiated by the top that relies on competent response); or bottom/up communism (governmental) vs capitalism (currency) in the extremes. The illusions of absolutism are powerful inducement. Any of these systems can fail, devolving into the same desire for anarchy problem (no system).
That saying, “to every carpenter” is so insightful, because the default is to know only what we experience unless making conscious effort. Worker bees know in thousands of personal experiences, Academics in millions of words that can be totally representative, or totally devoid of meaning or useful causation.
I see more lately that the idea of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is a maximized dialectic meant to include 50% Economic (money) yet allow for 50% Citizen (collective) choice. Each provides needed checks to power of the other.
Anything beyond a 50/50 Vote can paralyze the Citizens and eventually goes off the cliffs. Elite dominance by any group or person that grabs power (authoritarian, nosay regimes seems to be the choice rigor of the day). I see the need to eliminate Filibuster Vote in the Senate more clearly than ever. However the farce of the “present” vote demonstrated in the House this month shows the flaw that sank European attempts prior to the US: if one can change the number needed to pass by voting present, the vote can be perilously rigged by a few.
My thoughts about that is to split a “present” vote 50/50 to the sides, to more properly weight the meaning of that vs “NO” or “YES”. Obviates the need for a weighted vote (a real problem in the SANDAG organization that is boiling over) or Super Majority machinations.
A vote is a type of statistic, yes/no being linear, but conditionals add non-linear effects that can fester to dominance. Our Statistics suffer from similar flaws (Bayesian “Big Data” Statistics and Polling) that additions illusion to the outcome meaning. An underlying problem is the “ambiguity of the denominator” that equates low-frequency and high-frequency numerator summaries of events.
It appears that sometimes we are prisoners of our technologies (Romans had no zero), with wider and wider engagement of the culture which either resolves the dilemma, or breaks it apart. I believe this issue is a such, with some revisiting the limited priors to strip the newer, functional away as a child swating stack of blocks across the room.
Mark epperson
1 year ago
Heartily disagree! Jill Abramson tagged Davos as a”circle jerk” of the most corrupt and greedy folks on earth, and probably in the history of the Earth (my take). And that is exactly what it is and when you get tagged by a fellow traveler, it is only a matter of time until it will unravel. Thank God!
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Ask yourself: are you a little bit miffed that you’re not invited?
And ask yourself – how come not nearly so much comment about the capture of the Tory party by unelected and anonymously-funded think tanks?
Is that because you like the doctrines being peddled by such think tanks? And so the searchlight of your moral outrage is switched off?
“A secretively funded think tank that propelled Liz Truss’s disastrous rise to prime minister and devastating “mini-budget” quietly met with scores of MPs in the months before she took over, new documents reveal. The Institute of Economic Affairs boasted of securing access to 75 cross-party parliamentarians in its annual accounts for the financial year ending March 2022 published on Companies House earlier this week.”
See: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/institute-of-economic-affairs-liz-truss-2022-accounts/
See also: https://theferret.scot/think-tanks-host-over-forty-events-tory-conference/
That is, these well-funded and unelected people have priority access to MPs. Much more so than any ordinary voter. Implications for democracy lol. And the vacuity of so many modern politicians is such that they are eager to plagiarise and adopt the slick propaganda of these unelected bodies. Instant gravitas.
Modern Tories give a convincing impression of being ciphers for shadowy and anonymously-funded pressure groups. The implications for the British system of representative democracy are obvious.
Yet very little about it on Unherd lol.
Regardless of political preferences, no-one likes having their lives controlled by a small sect of people far-removed from the everyday concerns of ordinary people.
I think that’s fair. If people are going to say the WEF has the capacity to control government, the UK government has been Conservative for some time now. There is some nutters on here that think the WEF is left wing. Lol. That might be why the down votes. They forget that if the characters running the WEF really are unscrupulously controlling government, they aren’t likely to have the scruples to care which side they buy off.
“There is some nutters here who think the WEF is left wing”.
There are some nutters here who are so myopic with ideological rage that they think that literally everything they hate- from global corporations to the laws of atmospheric physics to an over-boiled egg- are left wing.
There’s nothing in their furious minds that can’t be twisted into the most simple-minded story, no matter what tortuous contradictions might be needed to iron-out the complexities of actual reality. Finding real explanations of events or motivations for the multiple drivers of change is of no interest whatsoever- its purely about stoking a simple Manichean ‘Good Fight’. Rationalism was thrown under the bus miles back.
“There is some nutters here who think the WEF is left wing”.
There are some nutters here who are so myopic with ideological rage that they think that literally everything they hate- from global corporations to the laws of atmospheric physics to an over-boiled egg- are left wing.
There’s nothing in their furious minds that can’t be twisted into the most simple-minded story, no matter what tortuous contradictions might be needed to iron-out the complexities of actual reality. Finding real explanations of events or motivations for the multiple drivers of change is of no interest whatsoever- its purely about stoking a simple Manichean ‘Good Fight’. Rationalism was thrown under the bus miles back.
Well I’m open to other suggestions…
I’ve yet to hear any convincing ones, least of all the claims here that she somehow threatened the global financial and ultra free-market elites- quite the opposite, she was their baby. She just happened, unfortunately for them, to be wholly inept.
Well that was the biggest thing that didn’t make sense really to me was that the market didn’t like it, I thought they’d be all for her budget it was pro business, free trade etc. I know they said she’d over done it but still.
I did bother you on a comment above regarding the phone hacking nord stream business that was going on around then. I could be way off on that having anything to do with her having to go though, I accept that.
Yes, it was pro-business/free trade, but it was also about to blow a hole in the budget by decreasing tax income without paying for it with specified spending cuts.
Truss may well have wanted to enact cuts, in line with the standard ‘small-state’ ideology; but she didn’t include anything substantial in the “mini-budget”, and its that which lost her the backing of the financial markets. She lost it by ineptly thinking she could do the tax cuts (the fun part) immediately and deal with the financial repercussions of that later.
Yes, it was pro-business/free trade, but it was also about to blow a hole in the budget by decreasing tax income without paying for it with specified spending cuts.
Truss may well have wanted to enact cuts, in line with the standard ‘small-state’ ideology; but she didn’t include anything substantial in the “mini-budget”, and its that which lost her the backing of the financial markets. She lost it by ineptly thinking she could do the tax cuts (the fun part) immediately and deal with the financial repercussions of that later.
Well that was the biggest thing that didn’t make sense really to me was that the market didn’t like it, I thought they’d be all for her budget it was pro business, free trade etc. I know they said she’d over done it but still.
I did bother you on a comment above regarding the phone hacking nord stream business that was going on around then. I could be way off on that having anything to do with her having to go though, I accept that.
Well I’m open to other suggestions…
I’ve yet to hear any convincing ones, least of all the claims here that she somehow threatened the global financial and ultra free-market elites- quite the opposite, she was their baby. She just happened, unfortunately for them, to be wholly inept.
Regardless of political preferences, no-one likes having their lives controlled by a small sect of people far-removed from the everyday concerns of ordinary people.
I think that’s fair. If people are going to say the WEF has the capacity to control government, the UK government has been Conservative for some time now. There is some nutters on here that think the WEF is left wing. Lol. That might be why the down votes. They forget that if the characters running the WEF really are unscrupulously controlling government, they aren’t likely to have the scruples to care which side they buy off.
If it had been captured by it why is Truss no longer the PM?
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Ask yourself: are you a little bit miffed that you’re not invited?
And ask yourself – how come not nearly so much comment about the capture of the Tory party by unelected and anonymously-funded think tanks?
Is that because you like the doctrines being peddled by such think tanks? And so the searchlight of your moral outrage is switched off?
“A secretively funded think tank that propelled Liz Truss’s disastrous rise to prime minister and devastating “mini-budget” quietly met with scores of MPs in the months before she took over, new documents reveal. The Institute of Economic Affairs boasted of securing access to 75 cross-party parliamentarians in its annual accounts for the financial year ending March 2022 published on Companies House earlier this week.”
See: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/institute-of-economic-affairs-liz-truss-2022-accounts/
See also: https://theferret.scot/think-tanks-host-over-forty-events-tory-conference/
That is, these well-funded and unelected people have priority access to MPs. Much more so than any ordinary voter. Implications for democracy lol. And the vacuity of so many modern politicians is such that they are eager to plagiarise and adopt the slick propaganda of these unelected bodies. Instant gravitas.
Modern Tories give a convincing impression of being ciphers for shadowy and anonymously-funded pressure groups. The implications for the British system of representative democracy are obvious.
Yet very little about it on Unherd lol.
Last edited 1 year ago by Frank McCusker
Andrew Daws
1 year ago
Most of the rhetoric against the WEF talks about the perils of globalisation. No one has yet explained to me why greater cooperation between different governments is inherently bad. It will certainly help to reduce global poverty. We can see that there is a natural antipathy to it, expressed in Brexit, but that doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t make sense.
As with so many political or economic terms, it depends what you understand by ‘globalisation’.
From your post, I would interpret ‘globalisation’ as a benign approach to cooperation around the world. Sounds reasonable.
For others ‘globalisation’ means businesses effectively shifting production and services out of their home country to those parts of the world where the goods and services can be obtained at lowest cost. Nice for the business-owners, nice for the people in poorer countries who have an increased work opportunities. Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.
And at the political level – the central point of the article – ‘globalisation’ means that a minute ultra-powerful elite makes decisions for everyone on the planet … bypassing nations, bypassing democratic legitimacy, bypassing the wishes of the people. Not nice for anyone. Well, unless you are in the stated 6,000 or 7,000, of course.
“Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.”
We end up with an eternally expanding number of increasingly impoverished plebes buying ever shoddier junk from China at the dollar store. But the globalists themselves are doing well and that’s all that matters.
“Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.”
We end up with an eternally expanding number of increasingly impoverished plebes buying ever shoddier junk from China at the dollar store. But the globalists themselves are doing well and that’s all that matters.
I think you may have missed the point. The WEF sets itself above governments which are useful to it only insofar as they adopt its agenda. To the WEF governments answerable to their electorates are a potential obstacle if those electorates don’t want what is good for them (as defined by the WEF).
You dont expect to be fed then? You’re entirely self-sufficent in food production, unlike the greedy, sponging scum in sub-Saharan Africa?
Thanks for that intelligent insight into the modern geopolitical and agricultural situation
You dont expect to be fed then? You’re entirely self-sufficent in food production, unlike the greedy, sponging scum in sub-Saharan Africa?
Thanks for that intelligent insight into the modern geopolitical and agricultural situation
I suppose if it was only about cooperation, many of the objections would go away. Are policies being vigorously debated domestically and then leaders look to the WEF to find ways to cooperate to implement them? Or are the policies being determined by the elites and then imposed on the people? In itself that doesn’t make them wrong. The elites know they are more likely to be right than the people, so this all makes perfect sense on a certain level. It’s only the small problem of the corrupting influence of power. Without proper accountability, the history of the world shows that the power will always be exercised primarily to the benefit of the powerful. Look no further than the yachts and private jets parked outside as they deliberate on how to save the world from carbon dioxide – not theirs of course. Yours.
Its inherantly bad because they think you can bring about beneficial change by force. Human evolution shows this is not true, most beneficial change comes from random discoveries and accidents – guns, germs and steel if you will. The consequence of one entity be it USSR or WEF thinking they hold the key to history and happiness is war with their opponents and deaths of both sides plus a lot of innocent bystanders. WEF look scary in he now BUT with historical perspective i think less so. Stephen Pinker, Jared Diamon et al say it better than i could.
Perhaps for similar reasons to why we have anti trust laws to prevent cartels ? There are clearly different types of “cooperation” and not all are in the general public interest.
It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty. That requires governments to butt out – not interfere.
Nothing at all about leaving the EU means that we must cooperate less with other countries as you appear to imply). Just that we intend to do it differently – and hopefully in a more effective and productive way than the rather bureaucratic, slow moving and protectionist EU does.
As with so many political or economic terms, it depends what you understand by ‘globalisation’.
From your post, I would interpret ‘globalisation’ as a benign approach to cooperation around the world. Sounds reasonable.
For others ‘globalisation’ means businesses effectively shifting production and services out of their home country to those parts of the world where the goods and services can be obtained at lowest cost. Nice for the business-owners, nice for the people in poorer countries who have an increased work opportunities. Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.
And at the political level – the central point of the article – ‘globalisation’ means that a minute ultra-powerful elite makes decisions for everyone on the planet … bypassing nations, bypassing democratic legitimacy, bypassing the wishes of the people. Not nice for anyone. Well, unless you are in the stated 6,000 or 7,000, of course.
I think you may have missed the point. The WEF sets itself above governments which are useful to it only insofar as they adopt its agenda. To the WEF governments answerable to their electorates are a potential obstacle if those electorates don’t want what is good for them (as defined by the WEF).
I suppose if it was only about cooperation, many of the objections would go away. Are policies being vigorously debated domestically and then leaders look to the WEF to find ways to cooperate to implement them? Or are the policies being determined by the elites and then imposed on the people? In itself that doesn’t make them wrong. The elites know they are more likely to be right than the people, so this all makes perfect sense on a certain level. It’s only the small problem of the corrupting influence of power. Without proper accountability, the history of the world shows that the power will always be exercised primarily to the benefit of the powerful. Look no further than the yachts and private jets parked outside as they deliberate on how to save the world from carbon dioxide – not theirs of course. Yours.
Its inherantly bad because they think you can bring about beneficial change by force. Human evolution shows this is not true, most beneficial change comes from random discoveries and accidents – guns, germs and steel if you will. The consequence of one entity be it USSR or WEF thinking they hold the key to history and happiness is war with their opponents and deaths of both sides plus a lot of innocent bystanders. WEF look scary in he now BUT with historical perspective i think less so. Stephen Pinker, Jared Diamon et al say it better than i could.
Perhaps for similar reasons to why we have anti trust laws to prevent cartels ? There are clearly different types of “cooperation” and not all are in the general public interest.
It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty. That requires governments to butt out – not interfere.
Nothing at all about leaving the EU means that we must cooperate less with other countries as you appear to imply). Just that we intend to do it differently – and hopefully in a more effective and productive way than the rather bureaucratic, slow moving and protectionist EU does.
Andrew Daws
1 year ago
Most of the rhetoric against the WEF talks about the perils of globalisation. No one has yet explained to me why greater cooperation between different governments is inherently bad. It will certainly help to reduce global poverty. We can see that there is a natural antipathy to it, expressed in Brexit, but that doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t make sense.
Bold prediction based on nothing more than gut instinct and maybe wishful thinking: the WEF has reached peak insanity and will be weaker and less influential by the end of this week.
These clowns have made hay operating in the shadows, but people are starting to wake up and see what the WEF really is – a malignant cancer that will kill democracy if allowed to grow unchecked.
Like the author, I don’t consider it a secret cabal plotting to take over the world. It’s nothing more than a group of wealthy, entitled upper level bureaucrats so convinced of their superiority they actually believe they can plan the future utopia.
No doubt they have power and influence now. Despite this wealth and power, bureaucrats will always fail. They’re not smart enough, creative enough or humble enough to build anything – let alone take over the world. Their malignant role was exposed during Covid, but ESG will be their ultimate demise.
State governors are wise to this garbage. Many are pulling out pension funds with investment firms that support ESG. In Canada, the federal Conservative Party, and some of its provincial counterparts, have forbidden its members from joining the WEF.
The hubris of the WEF is staggering. To think for even a moment they can remake the world is mind blowing. It can only end in failure. Like every planned economy before this, bureaucrats have proved utterly inept at implementing their grandiose ideas.
But having said all this, bureaucrats are good at wrecking things and the WEF could inflict substantial damage before it is burned to the ground. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I just don’t see this happening.
You dont see this happening? Oh my.
That’s what he said…
That’s what he said…
“the WEF has reached peak insanity”
That seems rather hyperbolic.
In what way(s) is the WEF “insane”?
Please list, with supporting evidence, corroboration of your position.
ESG. This policy doesn’t help anyone and will only drag down the govts and businesses that support it. Adding an entire new level of regulation and bureaucracy will reduce profits and make business less competitive.
You are mistaken. It helps the professional managerial class, by giving them an excuse to pay each other fat bonuses for things easier to accomplish than delivering value to their shareholders. They don’t care about profits. They care about their own pay-packets, and finding a way to decouple those from actually doing the job that in theory the shareholders hired them to do, to wit turn a profit, is something they very much want (I said in theory, because in practice, they were hired by other professional managers, since most controlling shares in companies are no longer voted by the actual capitalists, but by fund managers).
Capitalism, aside from privately held firms, is quite dead, replaced by what James Burnham called “managerialism”, and the Davos set represent not capital, but the managerial class, in finance, commerce, government and the non-profit sector.
Non profit?
Who needs a profit-share or dividends, if you earn over $1m?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10075789/David-Miliband-brushes-aside-outrage-MPs-seven-figure-salary-claim-20-000-pay-rise.html
The managerial class extends into things like universities (where, at least in the U.S. the number and pay packets of administrators grow faster than inflation even as professorial salaries lag inflation), quangos, proper NGOs, charitable foundations and the like.
Who needs a profit-share or dividends, if you earn over $1m?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10075789/David-Miliband-brushes-aside-outrage-MPs-seven-figure-salary-claim-20-000-pay-rise.html
The managerial class extends into things like universities (where, at least in the U.S. the number and pay packets of administrators grow faster than inflation even as professorial salaries lag inflation), quangos, proper NGOs, charitable foundations and the like.
Non profit?
You are mistaken. It helps the professional managerial class, by giving them an excuse to pay each other fat bonuses for things easier to accomplish than delivering value to their shareholders. They don’t care about profits. They care about their own pay-packets, and finding a way to decouple those from actually doing the job that in theory the shareholders hired them to do, to wit turn a profit, is something they very much want (I said in theory, because in practice, they were hired by other professional managers, since most controlling shares in companies are no longer voted by the actual capitalists, but by fund managers).
Capitalism, aside from privately held firms, is quite dead, replaced by what James Burnham called “managerialism”, and the Davos set represent not capital, but the managerial class, in finance, commerce, government and the non-profit sector.
Mr Veenbass is not sitting an exam for you. Write your own lists, numbskull.
ESG. This policy doesn’t help anyone and will only drag down the govts and businesses that support it. Adding an entire new level of regulation and bureaucracy will reduce profits and make business less competitive.
Mr Veenbass is not sitting an exam for you. Write your own lists, numbskull.
I would certainly agree with your general thrust, that these hubristic sociopaths are not nearly clever (or rather, wise) enough to create a utopia of any kind.
Having said that, the idea that they’ve reached the peak of their insane policy pushing, or that they’re about to unravel, sadly I don’t see any evidence of that at all.
As the article notes, they’ve become massively empowered by their formalising of a ‘partnership’ with the UN and it’s satellite organisations. The bankrupting grift called Net Zero has been signed into law, and policy is flowing in this direction no matter the public pushback or consequences. Laws (clearly cut/paste ones handed down from above) are making their way thru Parliaments from Britain to Canada stripping back basic rights, reordering policing powers, restricting speech and expression, and setting up the frameworks for CBDCs and digital enslavement. They had a major hand in the Covid response (evidenced by almost every world leader suddenly chanting Klaus’ slogan “Build Back Better” in unison), and that facilitated the largest upward transfer of wealth ever recorded.
Flush with success [and cash] they have hired a bumper 5,000 troops to protect them as they meet this week. They know the public are angry, but for psychopaths that is simply a practical issue to be resolved by fortifying the palace with more guards until all the desired laws and systems are in place, at which point the state has been fully weaponised and will subdue their populations by force if necessary, to protect and advance the WEF’s agenda (which is now the state’s agenda, by law).
If that isn’t smashing success in the realm of global coups, I don’t know what is!
Maybe I’m being a bit optimistic, maybe the WEF will become even stronger. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.
I think net zero is the type of drivel that will drive this group to extinction. It might be all the rage in the west, but countries like India and China simply don’t buy into this garbage.
I’m hopeful politicians and people will push back before serious damage is done. Maybe I’m wrong, but we see it already with Republican governors in the US. And while the Trudeau govt is the poster boy for the WEF, there is some serious opposition developing in Canada as well.
It’s already happening. They are dropping the ‘new boiler’ agenda. People know that as we produce but 2% of the planet’s carbon footprint if we reach net zero it will have zero impact. So they will be asking themselves why the enforced regulations?
“2% of the planet’s carbon footprint” Meaningless drivel.
“2% of the planet’s carbon footprint” Meaningless drivel.
It’s already happening. They are dropping the ‘new boiler’ agenda. People know that as we produce but 2% of the planet’s carbon footprint if we reach net zero it will have zero impact. So they will be asking themselves why the enforced regulations?
Orwell’s big Brother could not have succeeded any better! But max insanity is still a ways off, North Korean Jang Jin-Sung’s Dear Leader shows where we’re headed
I fear you are right. It’s going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better. Mainly because the constant cycles of chaos (that the media generate and amplify) keep the public distracted from the quiet and thorough infiltration and reordering of the political, legal and financial systems.
Just at the point that people seemed to be surfacing from the shell-shock state of the Covid years, beginning to ask questions, then they hit us with the next proxy war and it seemed to just suck all that angst, fear and emotion into a new distraction. No time left for questioning what the hell just happened for the past 2 years, and where all our money and rights went …there’s a war going on, don’t you know! …and there’s a climate crisis, and it’s an EMERGENCY!
The power brokers long ago worked out that emergencies are very handing for scooping up power and money, so now they specialise in creating emergencies, for exactly this purpose. The public as a whole need to get much savvier about this very fast. We are on the fast track to dystopia right now and it would be nice to stop this bullet train before it drops us all off in North Korea.
I fear you are right. It’s going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better. Mainly because the constant cycles of chaos (that the media generate and amplify) keep the public distracted from the quiet and thorough infiltration and reordering of the political, legal and financial systems.
Just at the point that people seemed to be surfacing from the shell-shock state of the Covid years, beginning to ask questions, then they hit us with the next proxy war and it seemed to just suck all that angst, fear and emotion into a new distraction. No time left for questioning what the hell just happened for the past 2 years, and where all our money and rights went …there’s a war going on, don’t you know! …and there’s a climate crisis, and it’s an EMERGENCY!
The power brokers long ago worked out that emergencies are very handing for scooping up power and money, so now they specialise in creating emergencies, for exactly this purpose. The public as a whole need to get much savvier about this very fast. We are on the fast track to dystopia right now and it would be nice to stop this bullet train before it drops us all off in North Korea.
Fear always makes things seem larger than they are, and there is plenty of evidence that they aren’t just getting their way unopposed any longer. Populist movements in Europe, Orban and Meloni. A realigned populist Republican party in the US pushing out the old guard. Trump’s victory over Clinton. Sanders almost victory over Clinton and then Biden. China and India not playing this game but instead pursuing overtly nationalist agendas. The growing Cold War between the US and China. The divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd. Cracks before the flood, IMHO.
I do hope you’re right Steve
They will not relinquish power quietly no matter how much these authoritarian technocrats go on and on about “democracy”.
They will not relinquish power quietly no matter how much these authoritarian technocrats go on and on about “democracy”.
Good post, Steve, and I agree. Curious about your line on ‘the divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd’, though. How so? They seem to be to be aligned, at least to the extent that both benefit from the post-2001 Forever Wars, not only by impoverishing the western taxpayer and increasing US-Corporate world political dominance (at least in the short term) but also, most recently, in artificially raising the cost of energy.
Is there a divergence I’m missing?
I do hope you’re right Steve
Good post, Steve, and I agree. Curious about your line on ‘the divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd’, though. How so? They seem to be to be aligned, at least to the extent that both benefit from the post-2001 Forever Wars, not only by impoverishing the western taxpayer and increasing US-Corporate world political dominance (at least in the short term) but also, most recently, in artificially raising the cost of energy.
Is there a divergence I’m missing?
Maybe I’m being a bit optimistic, maybe the WEF will become even stronger. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.
I think net zero is the type of drivel that will drive this group to extinction. It might be all the rage in the west, but countries like India and China simply don’t buy into this garbage.
I’m hopeful politicians and people will push back before serious damage is done. Maybe I’m wrong, but we see it already with Republican governors in the US. And while the Trudeau govt is the poster boy for the WEF, there is some serious opposition developing in Canada as well.
Orwell’s big Brother could not have succeeded any better! But max insanity is still a ways off, North Korean Jang Jin-Sung’s Dear Leader shows where we’re headed
Fear always makes things seem larger than they are, and there is plenty of evidence that they aren’t just getting their way unopposed any longer. Populist movements in Europe, Orban and Meloni. A realigned populist Republican party in the US pushing out the old guard. Trump’s victory over Clinton. Sanders almost victory over Clinton and then Biden. China and India not playing this game but instead pursuing overtly nationalist agendas. The growing Cold War between the US and China. The divergence of interests that is happening between the US military industrial complex and the DAVOS crowd. Cracks before the flood, IMHO.
I agree – as i often point out only $100 trn of the worlds c £400 trn assets are traded on the stock markets.Of that $100 trn half is real money EG Shell, Diageo, QGPC, not the “debt as asset” stuff like Musk or Fakebook. To steal and control all these assets WEF will need a lot of guns, time and money. I can’t see them winning in the Yangtse water margins, Russian forests or the Mexican Altiplano. The only ppl they can really hurt are the worlds landless por in Bangla, Yemen and Africa plus the poorest 50% of the West. They are classic Bond villains whose reach way exceeds their grasp.
I agree with this. The cat’s out of the bag. The populist fever has already captured one of the American parties and it’s only a matter of time and enough election losses before it also captures the other. Anti-elite sentiment is at an all time high and I don’t think they can virtue signal enough to overcome the basic human trait that people don’t like being ruled by unaccountable overlords. If they managed to bring world governments far enough down this road, they’d end up triggering violent revolutions long before they succeeded and I doubt many of them have the stomach or the skills to win that sort of conflict. They’ve lost, and just haven’t realized it yet. They lost when Trump beat Clinton. They lost when Brexit passed. They lost when Xi turned China from corporate playground into aspiring global power. They lost when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off the gas to Europe. They’re losing elections left and right in Europe. Most of the powerful nations outside of Europe are led by fierce nationalists like Modi or Erdogan. The fact that they have to hire a small army to defend their summit should be a clue that things are not going their way, but they appear to be too thick to get the message.
Go Putin! Go Xi! Go Iran! Up the People!
Maybe they’re not quite as black as the WEF’s agenda-mongering stooge MSM media paint them, John. Have you considered that possibility?
But clearly you’re a fan of the likes of Turdeau, Arden and Rutte. Well, whoever they represent, it isn’t the people in the ‘local’ political entities they were elected and paid to.
Maybe they’re not quite as black as the WEF’s agenda-mongering stooge MSM media paint them, John. Have you considered that possibility?
But clearly you’re a fan of the likes of Turdeau, Arden and Rutte. Well, whoever they represent, it isn’t the people in the ‘local’ political entities they were elected and paid to.
They do not care who wins or looses an election as far as they can buy, blackmail or make the winners bleed after the elections.
They did not loose when Russia invaded Ukraine. That pushed interest rates up and increased profits for bankers, arm dealers and commodity traders. Inflation hits the low and middle classes harder than the upper ones.
Go Putin! Go Xi! Go Iran! Up the People!
They do not care who wins or looses an election as far as they can buy, blackmail or make the winners bleed after the elections.
They did not loose when Russia invaded Ukraine. That pushed interest rates up and increased profits for bankers, arm dealers and commodity traders. Inflation hits the low and middle classes harder than the upper ones.
Thanks for your comments. How far down the road to hell will we be forced to go before they are toppled? How much destruction ?
I like Ferlinghetti’s poem about these awful people.
It ends like this
‘You’re all in the computer.We’ve got all
your numbers.Except one
Unidentified flying @@@hole.
On the radar screen.
Some dumb bird.
Every time I shoot it down
it rises’
To paraphrase a line from a famous film
‘2000 years of civilisation and what did the Swiss produce?
Davos man and Davos days.
You dont see this happening? Oh my.
“the WEF has reached peak insanity”
That seems rather hyperbolic.
In what way(s) is the WEF “insane”?
Please list, with supporting evidence, corroboration of your position.
I would certainly agree with your general thrust, that these hubristic sociopaths are not nearly clever (or rather, wise) enough to create a utopia of any kind.
Having said that, the idea that they’ve reached the peak of their insane policy pushing, or that they’re about to unravel, sadly I don’t see any evidence of that at all.
As the article notes, they’ve become massively empowered by their formalising of a ‘partnership’ with the UN and it’s satellite organisations. The bankrupting grift called Net Zero has been signed into law, and policy is flowing in this direction no matter the public pushback or consequences. Laws (clearly cut/paste ones handed down from above) are making their way thru Parliaments from Britain to Canada stripping back basic rights, reordering policing powers, restricting speech and expression, and setting up the frameworks for CBDCs and digital enslavement. They had a major hand in the Covid response (evidenced by almost every world leader suddenly chanting Klaus’ slogan “Build Back Better” in unison), and that facilitated the largest upward transfer of wealth ever recorded.
Flush with success [and cash] they have hired a bumper 5,000 troops to protect them as they meet this week. They know the public are angry, but for psychopaths that is simply a practical issue to be resolved by fortifying the palace with more guards until all the desired laws and systems are in place, at which point the state has been fully weaponised and will subdue their populations by force if necessary, to protect and advance the WEF’s agenda (which is now the state’s agenda, by law).
If that isn’t smashing success in the realm of global coups, I don’t know what is!
I agree – as i often point out only $100 trn of the worlds c £400 trn assets are traded on the stock markets.Of that $100 trn half is real money EG Shell, Diageo, QGPC, not the “debt as asset” stuff like Musk or Fakebook. To steal and control all these assets WEF will need a lot of guns, time and money. I can’t see them winning in the Yangtse water margins, Russian forests or the Mexican Altiplano. The only ppl they can really hurt are the worlds landless por in Bangla, Yemen and Africa plus the poorest 50% of the West. They are classic Bond villains whose reach way exceeds their grasp.
I agree with this. The cat’s out of the bag. The populist fever has already captured one of the American parties and it’s only a matter of time and enough election losses before it also captures the other. Anti-elite sentiment is at an all time high and I don’t think they can virtue signal enough to overcome the basic human trait that people don’t like being ruled by unaccountable overlords. If they managed to bring world governments far enough down this road, they’d end up triggering violent revolutions long before they succeeded and I doubt many of them have the stomach or the skills to win that sort of conflict. They’ve lost, and just haven’t realized it yet. They lost when Trump beat Clinton. They lost when Brexit passed. They lost when Xi turned China from corporate playground into aspiring global power. They lost when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off the gas to Europe. They’re losing elections left and right in Europe. Most of the powerful nations outside of Europe are led by fierce nationalists like Modi or Erdogan. The fact that they have to hire a small army to defend their summit should be a clue that things are not going their way, but they appear to be too thick to get the message.
Thanks for your comments. How far down the road to hell will we be forced to go before they are toppled? How much destruction ?
I like Ferlinghetti’s poem about these awful people.
It ends like this
‘You’re all in the computer.We’ve got all
your numbers.Except one
Unidentified flying @@@hole.
On the radar screen.
Some dumb bird.
Every time I shoot it down
it rises’
To paraphrase a line from a famous film
‘2000 years of civilisation and what did the Swiss produce?
Davos man and Davos days.
Bold prediction based on nothing more than gut instinct and maybe wishful thinking: the WEF has reached peak insanity and will be weaker and less influential by the end of this week.
These clowns have made hay operating in the shadows, but people are starting to wake up and see what the WEF really is – a malignant cancer that will kill democracy if allowed to grow unchecked.
Like the author, I don’t consider it a secret cabal plotting to take over the world. It’s nothing more than a group of wealthy, entitled upper level bureaucrats so convinced of their superiority they actually believe they can plan the future utopia.
No doubt they have power and influence now. Despite this wealth and power, bureaucrats will always fail. They’re not smart enough, creative enough or humble enough to build anything – let alone take over the world. Their malignant role was exposed during Covid, but ESG will be their ultimate demise.
State governors are wise to this garbage. Many are pulling out pension funds with investment firms that support ESG. In Canada, the federal Conservative Party, and some of its provincial counterparts, have forbidden its members from joining the WEF.
The hubris of the WEF is staggering. To think for even a moment they can remake the world is mind blowing. It can only end in failure. Like every planned economy before this, bureaucrats have proved utterly inept at implementing their grandiose ideas.
But having said all this, bureaucrats are good at wrecking things and the WEF could inflict substantial damage before it is burned to the ground. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I just don’t see this happening.
Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a WEF Board Member which helps explain why Canada is now starting an attack on our farming industry similar to the Netherlands. It also explains the seizing of bank accounts of supporters of the convoy – which is clearly a blueprint for future control of the population. Our government is, of course pushing for digital money, seizing firearms and has legislation in process to censor the internet. Of course I am a mouth breathing conspiracy theorist for making these connections – even though as the author points out all this creepy authoritarian policy is right out there on the WEF website.
Oh ya, the Liberals are true believers. Trudeau was in the global leaders program, along with a bunch of MPs. They are the elitist, upper level bureaucrats who think they have it all figured out.
The Conservative Party was the same too, until they elected what might be a populist leader. He has a very negative opinion of the WEF.
Are you talking about Boris Johnson? I’m pretty sure he was in the WEF-youth. More to the point, he’s the most nakedly self-interested ligger I can think of. You can almost smell his desperation to get into the purplest of circles, where everything is free & no one is accountable.
I think he means the Canadian one. As to Boris, maybe he showed signs of going rogue, as, of course, did Truss. In any case, “they” went all out, with the collusion of the media, civil service, etc., etc. to get rid of Boris and Truss and install the reliable DAVOS clone that is Sunak to ensure that Britain, at least, would not fall back into the hands of its people.
Starmer is now being lined up to replace him, apparently with the intention of altering the electoral system in the UK to preclude any possibility of a restored democratic process “taking back control” here.
I do wonder, with the Evil Emperor Swab’s open boasts about how many governments he has successfully “penetrated” (shudder), how this power grab can be reversed. It’s amazing what money can buy.
Kier and a number of Labour party folks are headed to Davos this year, but Kier has been a globalist for a long time, evidenced by his membership of the Trilateral Commission.
They’re absolutely as rotten as the WEF, just more covert about their activities.
This article is odd. I really do not see any threat from a talking shop involving corporations and global poseurs. All of greatest threats to the stability of our society – all part of the Blairite progressive revoution – lie in the dogmas and governing structures he bequeathed. It is our own unelected national technocracy or NMIs who threaten our prosperity – not Diageo or BP who employ real workers and actually fund the ever expanding Blob (thats right – your magic money tree theory WAS bollox). Corporations do not threaten us. It is the nihilistic insanity of Skidamore and Net Zero fanatics within our Government who do; how casual he is in wishing away the livelihoods of hundreds of workers in that new coal mine today. We are threatened by a dark growing pol potty cult of degrowth; high tax gigh benefits no mobility massive regulation naked hostility to enterprise – all woven into the warped dogmas of our media and governing class. Who cares about Davos and globalists! Look what these pygmies are doing to us here!!
Things like Net Zero and the Online Harms
BSBill did not emanate from our government. These are ‘above’ policies.The way to tell if something is an ‘above policy’ is: Can you vote against it?
…if not, very strong chance it’s an above policy, decided way above the pay grade of our government, by a consortium much more powerful. Net Zero is a really obvious one. The global power players and banking class are heavily invested in renewables, and in shifting the economy towards a carbon-based monetary system, which would give them ultimate control over wealth creation (strangling competition with Net Zero regulation), as well as a direct connection to the fire hose of public tax money (use govts to extort huge carbon taxes on the populous; act as contractors to the govt to mop up that money, all brokered in secret at gatherings like WEF). There is currently no party in government that you could vote for to divert this agenda, all 3 are all in. Above policy.
Global minimum tax rates (and higher taxes in general) is another one. Truss was elected on a platform of cutting taxes. Setting aside how she handled the delivery of the budget, the IMF and BoE gave strong signals that she was out on her own, and someone was clearly sent to forcibly reshuffle her cabinet, replacing her Chancellor with obedient Davos-man, Hunt. The traders received the signal and shorted the heck out of various markets, until she was flattened, and Davos-man Rishi could be manoeuvred back in, where they wanted him before. He immediately reverses the policies. Within weeks, he goes to G20 and the agenda summary reveals that he committed us to global minimum tax rates, among a number of other evils. So that global level agenda had been in motion for months, and there was no way Truss would be allowed to go in another direction, because that’s above policy — above her pay grade. Rishi got things back onto the above track, and the G20 revealed a bit about why the Truss situation happened, and happened so swiftly and brutally. It had to be done before G20.
I agree there is an above politics. I just see it WITHIN our hopeless corrupted UK elite. I do not see net zero as an idea imposed by globalist/corporatists. It is a virtue signalling cult like Lomdon groupthink credo which our vain weak and hoplessly ignorant Blob & politicians have bowed to without any Davos push. It is utterly shambolic, all emanating from a Latvian ex commie schoolteacher nutcase who naturally was asked by the EU to frame the continents war on fossil fuels. Thanks to idiots like Milliband and the German Norstream appeasers, this has has led to an energy crisis which will last for 2 decades. The rogues and fools are the popularity seeking Johnsons amd Mays and this deranged twit Skidamore (Tories???) who could not effect a global conspiracy if they tried. They are failed charlatans, riding the tide of a dangerous degrowth cult they do not even recognise, running us off a cliff – not conspiring cleverly to bring about some Rollerball Great Reset.
I take your point, but I don’t think Net Zero has anything to do with the climate, it is the vehicle chosen by the Club of Rome types (who themselves cribbed off the ideas of folks like Huxley and Russell), and it’s about control and money …mainly control.
The front end presentation of this agenda certainly resembles a religion/cult, and has all the necessary elements (shibboleths and dogmas, articles of faith, a child saint, much rending of garments and public performance of virtue and sacrifice, burning/shaming/casting out of heretics, etc). These people are just useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda they do not understand, at all.
Net Zero is about creating a world where 1 group of people (self appointed) control the division and use of all resources. It’s a central administration project for one world govt by ‘experts’. The people who want this to happen have been building this framework (and making the investments) for decades, it’s a long game. Larry Fink and David Rockefeller don’t give a shit about the polar bears. There may be some genuine tree-huggers among this ‘elite’ cast, but the ones that actual hold power are not hippies, they’re technocrats and psychopaths who are implementing a very detailed, very lucrative, plan. The Swedish Doom Goblin is mere window dressing and diversion, and the Ed Milibands are similarly useful idiots.
Well explained (and I would have multiple up-ticked both your posts were it permitted). One of the other “above” policies that is being enforced against the express wishes of the electorate is unlimited and indiscriminate immigration, without integration, with its concomitant parallel societies, laws and cultures, leading to distressing outcomes for all.
As with most failing, and failed, states, the UK now seems to have a black economy that thrives whilst the official one disintegrates and an underclass with completely different societal norms and laws, policed by private armies.
Yes, very true. It’s like normal/existing Britain and shadow/new Britain are bifurcating and operating more and more independently from one another.
Shadow Britain is growing, and is a weird alliance of the captured institutions (the heights of power, right up to the monarchy), with the illegals and welfare class (the beneficiaries/clients). Normal Britain is still left as the slice in the middle, shrinking, sucked dry by parasitism from both sides.
Very true about immigration. Over decades, no matter who we vote for or what they promise, we get higher immigration, particularly 3rd world and illegal immigration. In one administration you could call that incompetence or mischief. In every single one, despite varying tie colours and manifesto promises …that’s institutional capture. Shadow governance at work, delivering on their above policy agenda.
I did upvote you, but someone else downvoted, so it’s cancelled out. I assume the “i” word has triggered the usual Pavlovian reaction from the usual quarters..
Haha, thanks anyway, can’t be helped!
At least sugar gliders seem to be free thinking creatures
Haha, thanks anyway, can’t be helped!
At least sugar gliders seem to be free thinking creatures
The crucial tipping point for uncontrolled immigration, as far as the UK is concerned was 2004-05. That was the point when Blair realised that the Conservstive Party was beyond saving following its electoral disaster of 1997and that Cameron would be the new leader, meaning that the two-party state kept in check by meaningful opposition was at an end
I did upvote you, but someone else downvoted, so it’s cancelled out. I assume the “i” word has triggered the usual Pavlovian reaction from the usual quarters..
The crucial tipping point for uncontrolled immigration, as far as the UK is concerned was 2004-05. That was the point when Blair realised that the Conservstive Party was beyond saving following its electoral disaster of 1997and that Cameron would be the new leader, meaning that the two-party state kept in check by meaningful opposition was at an end
Yes, very true. It’s like normal/existing Britain and shadow/new Britain are bifurcating and operating more and more independently from one another.
Shadow Britain is growing, and is a weird alliance of the captured institutions (the heights of power, right up to the monarchy), with the illegals and welfare class (the beneficiaries/clients). Normal Britain is still left as the slice in the middle, shrinking, sucked dry by parasitism from both sides.
Very true about immigration. Over decades, no matter who we vote for or what they promise, we get higher immigration, particularly 3rd world and illegal immigration. In one administration you could call that incompetence or mischief. In every single one, despite varying tie colours and manifesto promises …that’s institutional capture. Shadow governance at work, delivering on their above policy agenda.
Well explained (and I would have multiple up-ticked both your posts were it permitted). One of the other “above” policies that is being enforced against the express wishes of the electorate is unlimited and indiscriminate immigration, without integration, with its concomitant parallel societies, laws and cultures, leading to distressing outcomes for all.
As with most failing, and failed, states, the UK now seems to have a black economy that thrives whilst the official one disintegrates and an underclass with completely different societal norms and laws, policed by private armies.
Good comments Mr marvell.
Yes the biggest problem with this mega Corp conspiracy is it forgets that business generally, wants stability. It doesn’t want disruption, political chaos or lockdowns. (one of the old fringe type theories was centrist politics was maintained for that very reason, stop any extreme crazy kicking off) All of those things are very bad for business.
People I think need to come to terms with the fact the ‘pax Americana’ is probably over. All the benefits that came with that are under threat. Cheap goods, cheap energy, cheap food. The conflict between America and the East has been coming for a long time, they’ve all been gearing up for it. What we are living is not the result of a mega Corp conspiracy, we are living a big east west confrontation in my opinion.
Net zero may have something to do with decreasing our dependency on Russian energy. Just saying.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/morgan-stanley-we-are-focusing-these-three-key-global-transitions
Good points. Tbh, there are deeper convulsions shaking our national body in ER that trouble me even more than the energy disaster and the Net Zero madness. Again, all stem from the Blair/Brown Revolution. Problem A – mass uncontrolled movement of peoples was buried by the media but eventually came to surface (though the media will never connect 8m unexpected new faces to the implosion of public services). Problem B – the hidden extension of welfarism via the madness of tax credits & the redistribution only tax policy. Still not unmasked. We were told it was sorted. It is not, locking the underclass in dependency. Problem C – their Soviet drive to free and mass feminize the new service workforce.
Numbers wise, a revolution and success- 1m of 1.2m NHS workers are women. But – hello – we have totally inadequate childcare… so guess what? NHS work is deemed ‘anti women’ and impossible so forget a 24/7 health service. There is a hidden gender wall. Will anyone discuss this? Na. Problem D. Another catastrophic social engineering project that has seen ypung peoples educational standards torched on the altar of the 50% at uni goal. All of this – and toxic identitarianism and the nihilistic equality cult – are the direct consequences of New Labour and their EU think. Home grown poison. No Bond globo villains in Davos could ever shatter and harm a society as much as New Labour.
You’ve gone off on a bit of tangent on that lol. I do think very bad things happened under new Labour last time. The supreme Court and the whole Iraq debacle being the main ones for me.
Regarding the feminism stuff. As far as I’m concerned much of the trans/gender/feminist debate has been imported from America. I have to say I think the general public (myself included) are only just realising how far some of this stuff has gone, I have to say the extent to which it seems to have captured and disrupted some universities is slightly disturbing, not because I have anything against debating the issue but the way in which the debate seems to have happened, with professors getting lynched, it’s all got a bit militant etc.
However, I think when it comes down to it there will be a push back. We will see how far sturgeon gets I suppose, there’s a woman that knows how to cause a stir. She kept jumping boris on the covid restrictions too.
Tbh Mr marvell I don’t know what equality quotas the NHS has, any quota like that though I imagine is counter productive. We need to hire people on performance, capability, competence not on what a quota says. From a business perspective quotas like that would be a nightmare I imagine. And not really fair, I wouldn’t care what race/gender etc. as long as the person is the right person for the job.
Regarding the ‘underclass’. I hate that term. I normally swear at posters on here that use it. It assumes every benefit claiment is somehow below or apart from, normal society. I’m not sure on tax credits etc. I do limited company, self employed type tax, we don’t use the system for benefits so I don’t know. Or about it locking people into dependency. Life at the bottom can be very fu**ing complicated. I will say that.
Net zero like I say might have more to do with the actual global energy situation than just being kind to nature. We will see.
You’ve gone off on a bit of tangent on that lol. I do think very bad things happened under new Labour last time. The supreme Court and the whole Iraq debacle being the main ones for me.
Regarding the feminism stuff. As far as I’m concerned much of the trans/gender/feminist debate has been imported from America. I have to say I think the general public (myself included) are only just realising how far some of this stuff has gone, I have to say the extent to which it seems to have captured and disrupted some universities is slightly disturbing, not because I have anything against debating the issue but the way in which the debate seems to have happened, with professors getting lynched, it’s all got a bit militant etc.
However, I think when it comes down to it there will be a push back. We will see how far sturgeon gets I suppose, there’s a woman that knows how to cause a stir. She kept jumping boris on the covid restrictions too.
Tbh Mr marvell I don’t know what equality quotas the NHS has, any quota like that though I imagine is counter productive. We need to hire people on performance, capability, competence not on what a quota says. From a business perspective quotas like that would be a nightmare I imagine. And not really fair, I wouldn’t care what race/gender etc. as long as the person is the right person for the job.
Regarding the ‘underclass’. I hate that term. I normally swear at posters on here that use it. It assumes every benefit claiment is somehow below or apart from, normal society. I’m not sure on tax credits etc. I do limited company, self employed type tax, we don’t use the system for benefits so I don’t know. Or about it locking people into dependency. Life at the bottom can be very fu**ing complicated. I will say that.
Net zero like I say might have more to do with the actual global energy situation than just being kind to nature. We will see.
Good points. Tbh, there are deeper convulsions shaking our national body in ER that trouble me even more than the energy disaster and the Net Zero madness. Again, all stem from the Blair/Brown Revolution. Problem A – mass uncontrolled movement of peoples was buried by the media but eventually came to surface (though the media will never connect 8m unexpected new faces to the implosion of public services). Problem B – the hidden extension of welfarism via the madness of tax credits & the redistribution only tax policy. Still not unmasked. We were told it was sorted. It is not, locking the underclass in dependency. Problem C – their Soviet drive to free and mass feminize the new service workforce.
Numbers wise, a revolution and success- 1m of 1.2m NHS workers are women. But – hello – we have totally inadequate childcare… so guess what? NHS work is deemed ‘anti women’ and impossible so forget a 24/7 health service. There is a hidden gender wall. Will anyone discuss this? Na. Problem D. Another catastrophic social engineering project that has seen ypung peoples educational standards torched on the altar of the 50% at uni goal. All of this – and toxic identitarianism and the nihilistic equality cult – are the direct consequences of New Labour and their EU think. Home grown poison. No Bond globo villains in Davos could ever shatter and harm a society as much as New Labour.
I take your point, but I don’t think Net Zero has anything to do with the climate, it is the vehicle chosen by the Club of Rome types (who themselves cribbed off the ideas of folks like Huxley and Russell), and it’s about control and money …mainly control.
The front end presentation of this agenda certainly resembles a religion/cult, and has all the necessary elements (shibboleths and dogmas, articles of faith, a child saint, much rending of garments and public performance of virtue and sacrifice, burning/shaming/casting out of heretics, etc). These people are just useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda they do not understand, at all.
Net Zero is about creating a world where 1 group of people (self appointed) control the division and use of all resources. It’s a central administration project for one world govt by ‘experts’. The people who want this to happen have been building this framework (and making the investments) for decades, it’s a long game. Larry Fink and David Rockefeller don’t give a shit about the polar bears. There may be some genuine tree-huggers among this ‘elite’ cast, but the ones that actual hold power are not hippies, they’re technocrats and psychopaths who are implementing a very detailed, very lucrative, plan. The Swedish Doom Goblin is mere window dressing and diversion, and the Ed Milibands are similarly useful idiots.
Good comments Mr marvell.
Yes the biggest problem with this mega Corp conspiracy is it forgets that business generally, wants stability. It doesn’t want disruption, political chaos or lockdowns. (one of the old fringe type theories was centrist politics was maintained for that very reason, stop any extreme crazy kicking off) All of those things are very bad for business.
People I think need to come to terms with the fact the ‘pax Americana’ is probably over. All the benefits that came with that are under threat. Cheap goods, cheap energy, cheap food. The conflict between America and the East has been coming for a long time, they’ve all been gearing up for it. What we are living is not the result of a mega Corp conspiracy, we are living a big east west confrontation in my opinion.
Net zero may have something to do with decreasing our dependency on Russian energy. Just saying.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/morgan-stanley-we-are-focusing-these-three-key-global-transitions
I agree there is an above politics. I just see it WITHIN our hopeless corrupted UK elite. I do not see net zero as an idea imposed by globalist/corporatists. It is a virtue signalling cult like Lomdon groupthink credo which our vain weak and hoplessly ignorant Blob & politicians have bowed to without any Davos push. It is utterly shambolic, all emanating from a Latvian ex commie schoolteacher nutcase who naturally was asked by the EU to frame the continents war on fossil fuels. Thanks to idiots like Milliband and the German Norstream appeasers, this has has led to an energy crisis which will last for 2 decades. The rogues and fools are the popularity seeking Johnsons amd Mays and this deranged twit Skidamore (Tories???) who could not effect a global conspiracy if they tried. They are failed charlatans, riding the tide of a dangerous degrowth cult they do not even recognise, running us off a cliff – not conspiring cleverly to bring about some Rollerball Great Reset.
Uptick for “global poseurs”. A label that captures it perfectly and deserves to stick.
Things like Net Zero and the Online Harms
BSBill did not emanate from our government. These are ‘above’ policies.The way to tell if something is an ‘above policy’ is: Can you vote against it?
…if not, very strong chance it’s an above policy, decided way above the pay grade of our government, by a consortium much more powerful. Net Zero is a really obvious one. The global power players and banking class are heavily invested in renewables, and in shifting the economy towards a carbon-based monetary system, which would give them ultimate control over wealth creation (strangling competition with Net Zero regulation), as well as a direct connection to the fire hose of public tax money (use govts to extort huge carbon taxes on the populous; act as contractors to the govt to mop up that money, all brokered in secret at gatherings like WEF). There is currently no party in government that you could vote for to divert this agenda, all 3 are all in. Above policy.
Global minimum tax rates (and higher taxes in general) is another one. Truss was elected on a platform of cutting taxes. Setting aside how she handled the delivery of the budget, the IMF and BoE gave strong signals that she was out on her own, and someone was clearly sent to forcibly reshuffle her cabinet, replacing her Chancellor with obedient Davos-man, Hunt. The traders received the signal and shorted the heck out of various markets, until she was flattened, and Davos-man Rishi could be manoeuvred back in, where they wanted him before. He immediately reverses the policies. Within weeks, he goes to G20 and the agenda summary reveals that he committed us to global minimum tax rates, among a number of other evils. So that global level agenda had been in motion for months, and there was no way Truss would be allowed to go in another direction, because that’s above policy — above her pay grade. Rishi got things back onto the above track, and the G20 revealed a bit about why the Truss situation happened, and happened so swiftly and brutally. It had to be done before G20.
Uptick for “global poseurs”. A label that captures it perfectly and deserves to stick.
This article is odd. I really do not see any threat from a talking shop involving corporations and global poseurs. All of greatest threats to the stability of our society – all part of the Blairite progressive revoution – lie in the dogmas and governing structures he bequeathed. It is our own unelected national technocracy or NMIs who threaten our prosperity – not Diageo or BP who employ real workers and actually fund the ever expanding Blob (thats right – your magic money tree theory WAS bollox). Corporations do not threaten us. It is the nihilistic insanity of Skidamore and Net Zero fanatics within our Government who do; how casual he is in wishing away the livelihoods of hundreds of workers in that new coal mine today. We are threatened by a dark growing pol potty cult of degrowth; high tax gigh benefits no mobility massive regulation naked hostility to enterprise – all woven into the warped dogmas of our media and governing class. Who cares about Davos and globalists! Look what these pygmies are doing to us here!!
Kier and a number of Labour party folks are headed to Davos this year, but Kier has been a globalist for a long time, evidenced by his membership of the Trilateral Commission.
They’re absolutely as rotten as the WEF, just more covert about their activities.
Pierre Poilievre
Apologies. On re-reading it should’ve been obvious you were talking about Canada
Apologies. On re-reading it should’ve been obvious you were talking about Canada
I think he means the Canadian one. As to Boris, maybe he showed signs of going rogue, as, of course, did Truss. In any case, “they” went all out, with the collusion of the media, civil service, etc., etc. to get rid of Boris and Truss and install the reliable DAVOS clone that is Sunak to ensure that Britain, at least, would not fall back into the hands of its people.
Starmer is now being lined up to replace him, apparently with the intention of altering the electoral system in the UK to preclude any possibility of a restored democratic process “taking back control” here.
I do wonder, with the Evil Emperor Swab’s open boasts about how many governments he has successfully “penetrated” (shudder), how this power grab can be reversed. It’s amazing what money can buy.
Pierre Poilievre
Trudeau has quite openly professed his admiration for the Chinese model of government, talking about how efficiently it works in getting people to behave & do what they’re told. As evidenced by his sledgehammer tactics during Covid. He embodies everything that is terrifying about the WEF & its fostering of of a class of ambitious, arrogant, elitist sociopaths.
Are you talking about Boris Johnson? I’m pretty sure he was in the WEF-youth. More to the point, he’s the most nakedly self-interested ligger I can think of. You can almost smell his desperation to get into the purplest of circles, where everything is free & no one is accountable.
Trudeau has quite openly professed his admiration for the Chinese model of government, talking about how efficiently it works in getting people to behave & do what they’re told. As evidenced by his sledgehammer tactics during Covid. He embodies everything that is terrifying about the WEF & its fostering of of a class of ambitious, arrogant, elitist sociopaths.
Oh ya, the Liberals are true believers. Trudeau was in the global leaders program, along with a bunch of MPs. They are the elitist, upper level bureaucrats who think they have it all figured out.
The Conservative Party was the same too, until they elected what might be a populist leader. He has a very negative opinion of the WEF.
Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a WEF Board Member which helps explain why Canada is now starting an attack on our farming industry similar to the Netherlands. It also explains the seizing of bank accounts of supporters of the convoy – which is clearly a blueprint for future control of the population. Our government is, of course pushing for digital money, seizing firearms and has legislation in process to censor the internet. Of course I am a mouth breathing conspiracy theorist for making these connections – even though as the author points out all this creepy authoritarian policy is right out there on the WEF website.
Seriously, how is Davos still a thing? And who, in the name of Love, invites Bono? What is he supposed to bring to the discussion?
I wonder if there were similar inklings of fear and trepidation among the ‘superclass’ at Versailles at the start of 1789? A feeling that the future was not looking quite so rosy – but still a godlike belief in their right to rule, a messianic adherence to the agenda they’ve agreed on for the last 20 years and a total misreading of the reasons the peasants seem more revolting than usual for the time of year.
Among the talks on Global Capitalism and the Green New Deal and how it will benefit them, there’ll no doubt be concerns raised at the rising tide of resentment among the over-taxed and multi-vaxxed plebs at being forced to live in Matrix pods and eat bugs, and our growing mistrust of the useful idiots in the media who promote this neo-liberal, dystopian agenda.
But, of course, it’s always a lot easier to muse on the foibles of the minions whilst perched on a Swiss mountain-top, in a lair full of wanna-be Bond villains. Yet never once having the self-awareness to recognise what the rest of us can see quite plainly, ‘Yes, when discussing the problems we face, it is you and your cohort of globalists who’ve brought most of this about. That your certainty about the future was unfounded and your ideas detrimental to the common-good.’
Hopefully some young entrepreneur is doing a Dragon’s Den style pitch to some of them, “I’m looking for investors into my little company, we make torches and pitchforks. I think we’re set for a big few years. You might want to get in early …”
We know what’s good for the world; let’s cut food production 30% and force people to drive EVs while simultaneously destroying the electrical grid. As a sweetener, we will crush small business with ESG. What could go wrong? They’re pompous fools.
Dangerously arrogant pompous fools
Dangerously arrogant pompous fools
I see what you did there…
You too, Dave? You too?
Yes, I was just trying to elicit a cheap laugh from all and sundry, …… bloody sundry.
And did it again, bless you!
And did it again, bless you!
You too, Dave? You too?
Yes, I was just trying to elicit a cheap laugh from all and sundry, …… bloody sundry.
Ah yes… Anyone have a pitchfork I can borrow? Better living through socialism. Central planning never works. Simply too many moving parts. The invisible hand is always working, and unless these NGO groups strip the entire world of the power to influence the free market, the invisible hand will eventually swipe them out of the way, or we’ll descend into total tyranny.
For those becoming better aware of this issue, good for you. Unfortunately, we can’t boycott these multi national corporations twice. Now it’s your turn. Vote with your wallet, vote with your feet.
Did you miss the piano wire and lamposts (from the Dragon’s Den pitch) ?
Musk declined to join. Said today that the WEF gives him the willies. (Précis).
A good egg. I just wish he didn’t want to enmesh the earth with satellites (so not quite a double yolker, as such).
But he makes EVs, which are Evil.
But he makes EVs, which are Evil.
A good egg. I just wish he didn’t want to enmesh the earth with satellites (so not quite a double yolker, as such).
We know what’s good for the world; let’s cut food production 30% and force people to drive EVs while simultaneously destroying the electrical grid. As a sweetener, we will crush small business with ESG. What could go wrong? They’re pompous fools.
I see what you did there…
Ah yes… Anyone have a pitchfork I can borrow? Better living through socialism. Central planning never works. Simply too many moving parts. The invisible hand is always working, and unless these NGO groups strip the entire world of the power to influence the free market, the invisible hand will eventually swipe them out of the way, or we’ll descend into total tyranny.
For those becoming better aware of this issue, good for you. Unfortunately, we can’t boycott these multi national corporations twice. Now it’s your turn. Vote with your wallet, vote with your feet.
Did you miss the piano wire and lamposts (from the Dragon’s Den pitch) ?
Musk declined to join. Said today that the WEF gives him the willies. (Précis).
Seriously, how is Davos still a thing? And who, in the name of Love, invites Bono? What is he supposed to bring to the discussion?
I wonder if there were similar inklings of fear and trepidation among the ‘superclass’ at Versailles at the start of 1789? A feeling that the future was not looking quite so rosy – but still a godlike belief in their right to rule, a messianic adherence to the agenda they’ve agreed on for the last 20 years and a total misreading of the reasons the peasants seem more revolting than usual for the time of year.
Among the talks on Global Capitalism and the Green New Deal and how it will benefit them, there’ll no doubt be concerns raised at the rising tide of resentment among the over-taxed and multi-vaxxed plebs at being forced to live in Matrix pods and eat bugs, and our growing mistrust of the useful idiots in the media who promote this neo-liberal, dystopian agenda.
But, of course, it’s always a lot easier to muse on the foibles of the minions whilst perched on a Swiss mountain-top, in a lair full of wanna-be Bond villains. Yet never once having the self-awareness to recognise what the rest of us can see quite plainly, ‘Yes, when discussing the problems we face, it is you and your cohort of globalists who’ve brought most of this about. That your certainty about the future was unfounded and your ideas detrimental to the common-good.’
Hopefully some young entrepreneur is doing a Dragon’s Den style pitch to some of them, “I’m looking for investors into my little company, we make torches and pitchforks. I think we’re set for a big few years. You might want to get in early …”
The WEF is indeed not a conspiracy but reflects where much economic and social power already lies. Successful authoritarian actors are usually good explaining their plans in a way that is superficially enhancing to the lives of a sufficient portion of the population to be accepted and supported. The public/private partnership certainly produced anti-covid vaccines much quicker than was generally expected from previous vaccine rollouts.In that sense it was a success. What was less successful was the pre-vaccine measures to control the spread of covid consisting of masking and the shutting down of large sectors of the economy that had little scientific justification when all factors were taken into account.The fact that existing medicos to ameliorate the effects of the infection were never properly explored was a social policy failure.
The problem with any authoritarian system, however theoretically well-intentions is that it produces groupthink solutions with a bias to the interests of the elite class. Democracy is mediated during settled times through bureaucratic parties that are easily captured by such elite thinking. The Canadian government is perhaps the worst example of WEF ideological capture among traditional democracies. Let us hope sufficient numbers of the population cease to support the government so that its nefarious policies receive a rebuff from the electorate.
I certainly don’t dispute the point that you or the article are making – but perhaps an addition. Generally speaking I am loathe to blame the media – it’s normally just a cop out. But I do wonder at the ongoing reluctance of the media to really talk in depth about the interaction between national politicians and the various international organisations – surely this is ‘news.’ I’m not sure why it is: it may not be a conspiracy of silence, I suspect many journos simply don’t understand it or it’s too much like hard work. But the media really hasn’t kept up with the trends where governments have signed up to international deals at the expense of increasingly-severe constitutional deficits. There is social media coverage of course, but that is somewhat hit and miss.
You mention covid and all too often the media’s line on covid was, ‘that country is doing X so why aren’t you.’ This of course played very much to the agenda of minimising national governments and maximising a sense of drama that subsumed national politicians into a globalised mush.
Indeed the one recent time I can think of where there was some serious coverage of intergovernmental/supranationals was the single currency crisis where the issue was too big to ignore. But even there the coverage was pretty weak and had a ‘going through the motions’ feel about it. There was coverage of Brexit of course – but again that coverage (particularly the BBC) had an undertone of, ‘you the public are too dumb to understand this.’
I’m not entirely sure what the answer on this is. Inevitably when blaming the media one response is that we the public need to wise up. Another problem is the lack of viewpoint diversity amongst commentariat academics and journalists but undoubtedly these problems are rather easier to state than are solutions.
The regime media is part of the professional managerial class that absolutely loves globalism and the WEF. Thankfully, the regime media is just about dead. Without the support of billionaires like Bloomberg and Bezos, and direct govt funding, the regime media would be dead already. Ultimately, these orgs need to actually make money and that ain’t happening.
Bear in mind the media in the UK (excepting PEye) never talked about the cartel of right-wing bias that existed 1960s to late 80s and poss before though i wasn’t old enough to observe. The security apparatus, media (Today programme c 1979 anyone?) civil service, judiciary and even the UVF were hand in glove for the most part. It was a safe and stable time to be British BUT not if you chose to pick a fight with the state. I doubt the WEF will ever have that kind of power, even in Canada.
Indeed – there never was a golden age of the media and anyone who thinks there was simply asks to be deceived.
But what concerns me perhaps is not only the possibility or likelihood of the WEF (or others) having the sort of power that right or wrong should be the preserve of states it is that the media are simply not talking about it. As I say I do realise that some in the media don’t understand the current trends or that it’s just easier to churn out the same attack piece at a national minister.
But, for example, the media has been near-totally silent about central bank digital currencies. That is a level of surveillance that absolutely would give these international organisations tremendous power. The media has had extraordinarily little to say about the mechanics of the single currency and single market or ever more complex trade deals (with private court systems) that absolutely affect all our lives. To be clear here, I’m not simply blaming the ‘mainstream media.’ The more academic end of the media spectrum can not claim either ignorance or disinclination. The trade press are similarly quiet on for example the place of big tech.
Twenty years ago many people simply accepted social media in a very blase way and I see the same mistakes that were made then being made now.
Indeed one thing that covid showed up was how reliant some countries are on global charitable foundations to procure vaccines. The debate about the shrivelled role of the state in basic healthcare procurement is absolutely not some conspiracy theory.
Are we the public to blame for lapping up what the current media offers or are the media to blame for dumbing us all down. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But what ever the reality it’s not healthy for anyone.
You’re right. There never was a golden age of journalism, but the industry has underwent fundamental restructuring over the last two decades. Bottom line. They don’t make money anymore.
So they either cater to the bias of their subscribers, or the ideology of their benefactors, like Bloomberg or Bezos. In some countries like Canada, the govt actually funds the regime media, picking outlets that are eligible for grants and those that aren’t.
Another factor is the education of journalists. Back in the day, most reporters didn’t have a post-secondary education. They often came from the working class and spoke truth to power. Journalists now come from the same universities as the politicians they report on. They are connected to the professional managerial class and have little in common with the working class.
There’s actually a lot of research out there detailing the restructuring of the news industry, and how it has impacted news coverage.
You’re right. There never was a golden age of journalism, but the industry has underwent fundamental restructuring over the last two decades. Bottom line. They don’t make money anymore.
So they either cater to the bias of their subscribers, or the ideology of their benefactors, like Bloomberg or Bezos. In some countries like Canada, the govt actually funds the regime media, picking outlets that are eligible for grants and those that aren’t.
Another factor is the education of journalists. Back in the day, most reporters didn’t have a post-secondary education. They often came from the working class and spoke truth to power. Journalists now come from the same universities as the politicians they report on. They are connected to the professional managerial class and have little in common with the working class.
There’s actually a lot of research out there detailing the restructuring of the news industry, and how it has impacted news coverage.
Indeed – there never was a golden age of the media and anyone who thinks there was simply asks to be deceived.
But what concerns me perhaps is not only the possibility or likelihood of the WEF (or others) having the sort of power that right or wrong should be the preserve of states it is that the media are simply not talking about it. As I say I do realise that some in the media don’t understand the current trends or that it’s just easier to churn out the same attack piece at a national minister.
But, for example, the media has been near-totally silent about central bank digital currencies. That is a level of surveillance that absolutely would give these international organisations tremendous power. The media has had extraordinarily little to say about the mechanics of the single currency and single market or ever more complex trade deals (with private court systems) that absolutely affect all our lives. To be clear here, I’m not simply blaming the ‘mainstream media.’ The more academic end of the media spectrum can not claim either ignorance or disinclination. The trade press are similarly quiet on for example the place of big tech.
Twenty years ago many people simply accepted social media in a very blase way and I see the same mistakes that were made then being made now.
Indeed one thing that covid showed up was how reliant some countries are on global charitable foundations to procure vaccines. The debate about the shrivelled role of the state in basic healthcare procurement is absolutely not some conspiracy theory.
Are we the public to blame for lapping up what the current media offers or are the media to blame for dumbing us all down. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But what ever the reality it’s not healthy for anyone.
The regime media is part of the professional managerial class that absolutely loves globalism and the WEF. Thankfully, the regime media is just about dead. Without the support of billionaires like Bloomberg and Bezos, and direct govt funding, the regime media would be dead already. Ultimately, these orgs need to actually make money and that ain’t happening.
Bear in mind the media in the UK (excepting PEye) never talked about the cartel of right-wing bias that existed 1960s to late 80s and poss before though i wasn’t old enough to observe. The security apparatus, media (Today programme c 1979 anyone?) civil service, judiciary and even the UVF were hand in glove for the most part. It was a safe and stable time to be British BUT not if you chose to pick a fight with the state. I doubt the WEF will ever have that kind of power, even in Canada.
The fact that Event 201 was perpetrated by this group a mere two months before the Covid outbreak tells us the entire exercise was a success – for them. It was a fire drill conducted by arsonists and our supposed democratic governments were all in. We’re going to need a lot more than hope to survive what they’re planning.
The WEF has been supported by the rise of the professional managerial class. Their supporters come the private and public sector bureaucracy, the NGOs, the think tanks etc., but this class is doomed IMO. They don’t directly contribute to economic growth and will crumble by their massive drag on the economy. At least I hope so. Big tech and finance is dominated by this class and massive layoffs are coming to both industries.
You could say the same of the mediaeval priesthood, but they lasted about a millennium. Breaking their power in Europe took up to 250 years (more like 450 in Ireland), and that’s not counting a couple of false starts (the Lollards, the Albigensenists…).
It might take a US President to do to that 6,000 what (the horrible) MBS did to Saudi’s elite: lock them in the Hilton, guard them with hired goons and starve them till they sign away their loot.
You could say the same of the mediaeval priesthood, but they lasted about a millennium. Breaking their power in Europe took up to 250 years (more like 450 in Ireland), and that’s not counting a couple of false starts (the Lollards, the Albigensenists…).
It might take a US President to do to that 6,000 what (the horrible) MBS did to Saudi’s elite: lock them in the Hilton, guard them with hired goons and starve them till they sign away their loot.
I certainly don’t dispute the point that you or the article are making – but perhaps an addition. Generally speaking I am loathe to blame the media – it’s normally just a cop out. But I do wonder at the ongoing reluctance of the media to really talk in depth about the interaction between national politicians and the various international organisations – surely this is ‘news.’ I’m not sure why it is: it may not be a conspiracy of silence, I suspect many journos simply don’t understand it or it’s too much like hard work. But the media really hasn’t kept up with the trends where governments have signed up to international deals at the expense of increasingly-severe constitutional deficits. There is social media coverage of course, but that is somewhat hit and miss.
You mention covid and all too often the media’s line on covid was, ‘that country is doing X so why aren’t you.’ This of course played very much to the agenda of minimising national governments and maximising a sense of drama that subsumed national politicians into a globalised mush.
Indeed the one recent time I can think of where there was some serious coverage of intergovernmental/supranationals was the single currency crisis where the issue was too big to ignore. But even there the coverage was pretty weak and had a ‘going through the motions’ feel about it. There was coverage of Brexit of course – but again that coverage (particularly the BBC) had an undertone of, ‘you the public are too dumb to understand this.’
I’m not entirely sure what the answer on this is. Inevitably when blaming the media one response is that we the public need to wise up. Another problem is the lack of viewpoint diversity amongst commentariat academics and journalists but undoubtedly these problems are rather easier to state than are solutions.
The fact that Event 201 was perpetrated by this group a mere two months before the Covid outbreak tells us the entire exercise was a success – for them. It was a fire drill conducted by arsonists and our supposed democratic governments were all in. We’re going to need a lot more than hope to survive what they’re planning.
The WEF has been supported by the rise of the professional managerial class. Their supporters come the private and public sector bureaucracy, the NGOs, the think tanks etc., but this class is doomed IMO. They don’t directly contribute to economic growth and will crumble by their massive drag on the economy. At least I hope so. Big tech and finance is dominated by this class and massive layoffs are coming to both industries.
The WEF is indeed not a conspiracy but reflects where much economic and social power already lies. Successful authoritarian actors are usually good explaining their plans in a way that is superficially enhancing to the lives of a sufficient portion of the population to be accepted and supported. The public/private partnership certainly produced anti-covid vaccines much quicker than was generally expected from previous vaccine rollouts.In that sense it was a success. What was less successful was the pre-vaccine measures to control the spread of covid consisting of masking and the shutting down of large sectors of the economy that had little scientific justification when all factors were taken into account.The fact that existing medicos to ameliorate the effects of the infection were never properly explored was a social policy failure.
The problem with any authoritarian system, however theoretically well-intentions is that it produces groupthink solutions with a bias to the interests of the elite class. Democracy is mediated during settled times through bureaucratic parties that are easily captured by such elite thinking. The Canadian government is perhaps the worst example of WEF ideological capture among traditional democracies. Let us hope sufficient numbers of the population cease to support the government so that its nefarious policies receive a rebuff from the electorate.
The Davos people seem to have a keen appreciation of their popularity.
The Davos people seem to have a keen appreciation of their popularity.
A better example of hubris would be hard to find. Marc Rutte dismisses fears about the sidelining of democracy as being the product of a fevered mind. As if to emphasise the , hhe and 6 other member of the cabinet will attend this years jamboree. Two of of the group will be vice-premiers one of whom will be Sigrid Kaag who is ironically leader of the Democracy 66 party but has shown little appetite for the original aims of the party to have more, not less, democracy such as elected mayors, plebiscites and people councils. Moreover they all view national policies as being subservient to the global agenda advanced by the WEF. Needless to say they are driving the voters into the camp of the radical right who are, at least, speaking up for democracy and haven so since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
A better example of hubris would be hard to find. Marc Rutte dismisses fears about the sidelining of democracy as being the product of a fevered mind. As if to emphasise the , hhe and 6 other member of the cabinet will attend this years jamboree. Two of of the group will be vice-premiers one of whom will be Sigrid Kaag who is ironically leader of the Democracy 66 party but has shown little appetite for the original aims of the party to have more, not less, democracy such as elected mayors, plebiscites and people councils. Moreover they all view national policies as being subservient to the global agenda advanced by the WEF. Needless to say they are driving the voters into the camp of the radical right who are, at least, speaking up for democracy and haven so since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
Any leader going against the globalist policies of the WEF, for the good of their own country, is hounded and punished by WEF lackeys – the Main Stream Media and the Financial Markets.
Liz Truss discovered this the hard way.
What did Truss do that in any way went against the global corporate agenda? Reduce taxes on the wealthy? Reduce industrial regulation? Which of her policies went against the interests of the WEF?
There’s loads in the press atm about China tracking our governments cars, do we think truss really had to go because of the phone hack nord stream business? Russia summoned our ambassador and said they had proof the UK did it, after that the news went dead. Truss left. Any thoughts on that anyone?
There’s loads in the press atm about China tracking our governments cars, do we think truss really had to go because of the phone hack nord stream business? Russia summoned our ambassador and said they had proof the UK did it, after that the news went dead. Truss left. Any thoughts on that anyone?
I don’t know about the Tin Woman Truss, but that’s certainly true of Trump, Corbyn, Bolsonaro and Orban.
What did Truss do that in any way went against the global corporate agenda? Reduce taxes on the wealthy? Reduce industrial regulation? Which of her policies went against the interests of the WEF?
I don’t know about the Tin Woman Truss, but that’s certainly true of Trump, Corbyn, Bolsonaro and Orban.
Any leader going against the globalist policies of the WEF, for the good of their own country, is hounded and punished by WEF lackeys – the Main Stream Media and the Financial Markets.
Liz Truss discovered this the hard way.
The central enthusiasm of the WEF is globalisation which has, to be fair, spread prosperity since the 1990s to hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians and others. Unfortunately, it has been at the expense of tens of millions of workers in the West who have seen their real incomes stagnate or fall in the same period – in contrast to the growth in their incomes 1950-90.
One could argue that this is fair enough and Capitalism / Free Trade is just producing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” as advertised but this ignores the growing political backlash in western states from the economically marginalised.
Trump was elected by the victims of globalisation and by inhibiting trade with China (i.e. protectionism in disguise) was successfully boosting incomes before Covid struck. Biden has not reversed his policies. The UK’s inability to get a trade deal with the US post Brexit is another data point in this incipient trend.
Globalisation needs to be deliberately slowed down if it is to survive. Pursuing it without modification risks ironically a slide to 1930s style trading blocs. Even if one is convinced of the long term benefits of globalisation, the WEF consensus is short sighted.
The underlying structural problem is not, however, the WEF per se but a broader growth of excessive corporate influence on government decision making since the 1980s.
Corporate lobbying has a useful place but it is too powerful at present. It is debatable if the US Congress is still a democratic institution in any meaningful sense given the priority attached to raising campaign finance. London may be less corrupt currently than Washington, but insiders are clearly alarmed by trends in the last five years and the direction of travel is all too clear: “Washington on the Thames”. Brussels has equivalent challenges.
The Anglo-Saxon legal definition of corruption is very narrow. We need a sustained attack on corporate influence peddling more broadly defined. Many of the mechanisms are well known: political contributions, mercenary think tanks, well paid retirement jobs for politicians, civil servants and generals, appointment of sympathetic individuals to regulatory posts (leading sometimes to outright agency capture), etc etc
If Corporate influence was reduced overall to sensible levels then I doubt we would continue to be exercised by any consensus at Davos since its impact would be far less.
Agree in general, with one note.
US policy towards China is actually about a lot more than protectionism. China essentially has no respect for the international rules on things like IP ownership and protection and has also been engaged in industrial scale industrial espionage and IP theft. The US is quite rightly acting against this – as should we.
A relief to read an intelligent, rational post here.
Agree in general, with one note.
US policy towards China is actually about a lot more than protectionism. China essentially has no respect for the international rules on things like IP ownership and protection and has also been engaged in industrial scale industrial espionage and IP theft. The US is quite rightly acting against this – as should we.
A relief to read an intelligent, rational post here.
The central enthusiasm of the WEF is globalisation which has, to be fair, spread prosperity since the 1990s to hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians and others. Unfortunately, it has been at the expense of tens of millions of workers in the West who have seen their real incomes stagnate or fall in the same period – in contrast to the growth in their incomes 1950-90.
One could argue that this is fair enough and Capitalism / Free Trade is just producing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” as advertised but this ignores the growing political backlash in western states from the economically marginalised.
Trump was elected by the victims of globalisation and by inhibiting trade with China (i.e. protectionism in disguise) was successfully boosting incomes before Covid struck. Biden has not reversed his policies. The UK’s inability to get a trade deal with the US post Brexit is another data point in this incipient trend.
Globalisation needs to be deliberately slowed down if it is to survive. Pursuing it without modification risks ironically a slide to 1930s style trading blocs. Even if one is convinced of the long term benefits of globalisation, the WEF consensus is short sighted.
The underlying structural problem is not, however, the WEF per se but a broader growth of excessive corporate influence on government decision making since the 1980s.
Corporate lobbying has a useful place but it is too powerful at present. It is debatable if the US Congress is still a democratic institution in any meaningful sense given the priority attached to raising campaign finance. London may be less corrupt currently than Washington, but insiders are clearly alarmed by trends in the last five years and the direction of travel is all too clear: “Washington on the Thames”. Brussels has equivalent challenges.
The Anglo-Saxon legal definition of corruption is very narrow. We need a sustained attack on corporate influence peddling more broadly defined. Many of the mechanisms are well known: political contributions, mercenary think tanks, well paid retirement jobs for politicians, civil servants and generals, appointment of sympathetic individuals to regulatory posts (leading sometimes to outright agency capture), etc etc
If Corporate influence was reduced overall to sensible levels then I doubt we would continue to be exercised by any consensus at Davos since its impact would be far less.
I seem to recall an Italian gentleman a while back liked the idea of public-private cooperation, or as he described it “the union of state and corporate power”. Now what was the name of that movement he lead to implement the idea, let me see… Oh! I remember: Fascism!
I seem to recall an Italian gentleman a while back liked the idea of public-private cooperation, or as he described it “the union of state and corporate power”. Now what was the name of that movement he lead to implement the idea, let me see… Oh! I remember: Fascism!
There was a time when the left had a huge problem with the WEF and what it represents. Nowadays however, a leftist who draws attention to the WEF is sometimes accused of being in bed with right-wing conspiracy nutters.
There was a time when the left had a huge problem with the WEF and what it represents. Nowadays however, a leftist who draws attention to the WEF is sometimes accused of being in bed with right-wing conspiracy nutters.
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member or associate of the WEF or WEF-YGL-Initiative?”.
What do you do about a stealth coup d’etat?
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member or associate of the WEF or WEF-YGL-Initiative?”.
What do you do about a stealth coup d’etat?
I see most people below realise that WEF is overall a bad thing, but seem divided as to what level of threat it poses to established Western political and social systems. (Note WEF is a competitor AGAINST, not a threat TO China, the Taliban, Putin, the Mafia etc) Our system is uniquely vulnerable to attacks on open societies precisely because it is open. WEF clowns are one amongst many who seek to rule the world according their own template, and no one group has ever succeeded. Sure they’ll do damage as did the Roman, British and Soviet Empires BUT unlike those would be “World Kings” WEF has minimal to zero redeeming qualities. Whatever happens the tides of history and evolution will wash them and their influence away. They are a feature of “end of empire” for the West as Caligula & Nero were for Rome. Even then the transgenderism, bestiality etc of c50Ad Rome wasn’t the end of Empire, just it’s Claudio-Julian phase.
I see most people below realise that WEF is overall a bad thing, but seem divided as to what level of threat it poses to established Western political and social systems. (Note WEF is a competitor AGAINST, not a threat TO China, the Taliban, Putin, the Mafia etc) Our system is uniquely vulnerable to attacks on open societies precisely because it is open. WEF clowns are one amongst many who seek to rule the world according their own template, and no one group has ever succeeded. Sure they’ll do damage as did the Roman, British and Soviet Empires BUT unlike those would be “World Kings” WEF has minimal to zero redeeming qualities. Whatever happens the tides of history and evolution will wash them and their influence away. They are a feature of “end of empire” for the West as Caligula & Nero were for Rome. Even then the transgenderism, bestiality etc of c50Ad Rome wasn’t the end of Empire, just it’s Claudio-Julian phase.
Davos. The place where our elected leaders go to be told what to do and how to run our country by people who we have not elected.
Davos. The place where our elected leaders go to be told what to do and how to run our country by people who we have not elected.
It comes to something when a dullard Dublin pub singer has the presumption to tell us all where we’re going wrong. This is the elite?
It comes to something when a dullard Dublin pub singer has the presumption to tell us all where we’re going wrong. This is the elite?
Im thinking back in time to say,1970. I’m thinking of a whole ot children,teenagers,and young adults let’s say age range 5 – 25. Every nature show on tv,and there were a lot then ends with a warning that the enchanting creature featured is imperilled due to it’s habitat vanishing to to human pressure. Now SOME of those kids had a talent for the new then hippie and alternative computer science. They ended up rich beyond imagination and realised that their wealth gave them the power and influence to SAVE THE PLANET. And they knew what was needed to do it. And they had seen in their lifetimes how well intentioned schemes always foundered on most people’s laziness and intransigence. They realized that,”WE HAVE TO CONTROL PEOPLE” the very words stary eyed George Monbiot spoke to camera,in chilling close up at the end of a tv documentary he wrote and fronted,that I saw on the BBC over 20 years ago about the unregulated and over abundant car traffic – in Oxford.
Im thinking back in time to say,1970. I’m thinking of a whole ot children,teenagers,and young adults let’s say age range 5 – 25. Every nature show on tv,and there were a lot then ends with a warning that the enchanting creature featured is imperilled due to it’s habitat vanishing to to human pressure. Now SOME of those kids had a talent for the new then hippie and alternative computer science. They ended up rich beyond imagination and realised that their wealth gave them the power and influence to SAVE THE PLANET. And they knew what was needed to do it. And they had seen in their lifetimes how well intentioned schemes always foundered on most people’s laziness and intransigence. They realized that,”WE HAVE TO CONTROL PEOPLE” the very words stary eyed George Monbiot spoke to camera,in chilling close up at the end of a tv documentary he wrote and fronted,that I saw on the BBC over 20 years ago about the unregulated and over abundant car traffic – in Oxford.
There is little on the face of WEF’s ideas that is unacceptable, but at times like this I recall Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
There is little on the face of WEF’s ideas that is unacceptable, but at times like this I recall Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
It’s not just national boundaries that the archetypal psychopath that is Davos Man can’t abide, its limits in general and in particular limits to his ability to exert his control. He’ll go to any length to try and defy those limits and his membership of a class of temporary candles in the wind. The class of Global Leaders of Tomorrow ‘92 are now yesterday’s men whose heart problems are now real as they are metaphorical; their mentors are falling into a decaying old age if they have not already succumbed to the inevitable. Davos Man looks at the hyper-rational, infinitely lived agent of their simplistic economic theories with envy, or as a role model. To them, the universe dies when they die and so they rage against the dying of their light – at whatever the cost for the useless eaters that surround them, they don’t matter.
Neuralink, mRNA interventions, Crispr, all offer the soulless Davos Man the alchemical moonshot of redemption. They know that experiments will need to be done, they know the tech needs a lot of work and huge amounts of money, and they know their time is running out. Can it be done in time, or not? To be or not to be, that’s the only question that matters to him, that’s his real tragedy of the horizon. Remember Davos Man is not like most of us: zero empathy and a ruthless ability remorse or to lie and cheat got him to where he is, after all. It’s all just a means to an end for him. Trying to understand him is like trying understand a heroin addict.
This is, of course, just a sketch. Davos Man is as hypothetical as the perfectly utilitarian rational agent. Almost all of the people chomping on canapés and sipping wine under the protection of 5,000 well-trained and obedient Guardians in Davos have emotions, kids, families, people they care about. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not a useful analytical tool to use to understand some of the power dynamics going on in our world; or that, in a very small number cases, sadly – for them and for the rest of us – I believe it’s not an entirely inaccurate way to describe some real living people.
It’s not just national boundaries that the archetypal psychopath that is Davos Man can’t abide, its limits in general and in particular limits to his ability to exert his control. He’ll go to any length to try and defy those limits and his membership of a class of temporary candles in the wind. The class of Global Leaders of Tomorrow ‘92 are now yesterday’s men whose heart problems are now real as they are metaphorical; their mentors are falling into a decaying old age if they have not already succumbed to the inevitable. Davos Man looks at the hyper-rational, infinitely lived agent of their simplistic economic theories with envy, or as a role model. To them, the universe dies when they die and so they rage against the dying of their light – at whatever the cost for the useless eaters that surround them, they don’t matter.
Neuralink, mRNA interventions, Crispr, all offer the soulless Davos Man the alchemical moonshot of redemption. They know that experiments will need to be done, they know the tech needs a lot of work and huge amounts of money, and they know their time is running out. Can it be done in time, or not? To be or not to be, that’s the only question that matters to him, that’s his real tragedy of the horizon. Remember Davos Man is not like most of us: zero empathy and a ruthless ability remorse or to lie and cheat got him to where he is, after all. It’s all just a means to an end for him. Trying to understand him is like trying understand a heroin addict.
This is, of course, just a sketch. Davos Man is as hypothetical as the perfectly utilitarian rational agent. Almost all of the people chomping on canapés and sipping wine under the protection of 5,000 well-trained and obedient Guardians in Davos have emotions, kids, families, people they care about. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not a useful analytical tool to use to understand some of the power dynamics going on in our world; or that, in a very small number cases, sadly – for them and for the rest of us – I believe it’s not an entirely inaccurate way to describe some real living people.
One thing missing from this article is that the EU was ripe for penetration; it was already rotten with Trotskyist and Maoist entryists working to subvert democracy for ideological reasons, and had always recognised that its aims could not be achieved democratically, but rather by a series of engineered crises leading to pre-determined outcomes.
One thing missing from this article is that the EU was ripe for penetration; it was already rotten with Trotskyist and Maoist entryists working to subvert democracy for ideological reasons, and had always recognised that its aims could not be achieved democratically, but rather by a series of engineered crises leading to pre-determined outcomes.
Adam Smith nailed the WEF in 1776 when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.
Certainly, the oligarchic class should have the right to meet and nothing can stop them, anyway*, but the other 99.9999% of us do not have to be deluded into thinking they have our interests at heart.
*though, reviving real anti-trust enforcement against conspiracy in restraint of trade would be a useful step 🙂
Adam Smith nailed the WEF in 1776 when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.
Certainly, the oligarchic class should have the right to meet and nothing can stop them, anyway*, but the other 99.9999% of us do not have to be deluded into thinking they have our interests at heart.
*though, reviving real anti-trust enforcement against conspiracy in restraint of trade would be a useful step 🙂
They’re coming late to the game. In the early 1900s, a vicar in Maidenhead set up a conservative evangelical organisation specifically aimed at infiltrating the government, the church, and industry with right-thinking evangelicals, to usher in God’s kingdom on Earth. His organisation included the infamous John Smyth, who used to invite male teenagers to his home for extensive beating sessions, and their malign influence is still felt in a number of churches today. He was appealing to a deep felt instinct in all of us to belong to a tribe, and to exercise control over everyone else
They’re coming late to the game. In the early 1900s, a vicar in Maidenhead set up a conservative evangelical organisation specifically aimed at infiltrating the government, the church, and industry with right-thinking evangelicals, to usher in God’s kingdom on Earth. His organisation included the infamous John Smyth, who used to invite male teenagers to his home for extensive beating sessions, and their malign influence is still felt in a number of churches today. He was appealing to a deep felt instinct in all of us to belong to a tribe, and to exercise control over everyone else
It’d be fun to have all 6,000 members in this elite club take Dr. Dutton’s psychopath test and see what percentage of them score in the upper range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17g48e55C9E&list=WL&index=19&t=12s
It’d be fun to have all 6,000 members in this elite club take Dr. Dutton’s psychopath test and see what percentage of them score in the upper range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17g48e55C9E&list=WL&index=19&t=12s
They must have just LOVED Brexit…….
They must have just LOVED Brexit…….
Come on… It’s just a classic corporate free loader p**s up replete with free food and drink plus coke and hookers?! so.. whats new?… I am amazed that some tribe of terrorists hasnt had an, excuse the pun, crack at it?
.. a bigger and richer version of the City’s ” most maligned, shallow and barefaced freeload, aka The Cretin’s Carnival, the so called ” Monte Carlo Reinsurance Conference” ! Superb stories from restauranters as to how they can treble the prices of every drink or food item, load bills, split deals with taxi drivers, and syndicate hookers… all paid for by your insurance premiums!
.. a bigger and richer version of the City’s ” most maligned, shallow and barefaced freeload, aka The Cretin’s Carnival, the so called ” Monte Carlo Reinsurance Conference” ! Superb stories from restauranters as to how they can treble the prices of every drink or food item, load bills, split deals with taxi drivers, and syndicate hookers… all paid for by your insurance premiums!
Come on… It’s just a classic corporate free loader p**s up replete with free food and drink plus coke and hookers?! so.. whats new?… I am amazed that some tribe of terrorists hasnt had an, excuse the pun, crack at it?
Wow. The future is here already.
It does that, I find. That’s how it works.
You’re helpful, John. It seems only 100 years ago, I was reading A Modern Utopia, and here we are! Siamo arrivati.
You’re helpful, John. It seems only 100 years ago, I was reading A Modern Utopia, and here we are! Siamo arrivati.
It does that, I find. That’s how it works.
Wow. The future is here already.
There’s a silver lining to every cloud. If Bono is busy turning the world into a corporate prison, he doesn’t have time to record any more music.
There’s a silver lining to every cloud. If Bono is busy turning the world into a corporate prison, he doesn’t have time to record any more music.
I have a question. Let’s work this through to a logical conclusion. WEF clearly has no government oversight. It calls together some of the most powerful companies in the world to discuss and solve highly complex issues.
What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?
I am not sure we can ask for more. They livestream their sessions. The publicize their agenda. They are very open about their goals. I just…I don’t understand what would replace WEF without in fact becoming another WEF. What am I missing?
“What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?”
The alternative is democratic accountability. Just because there is presently no model of democratic world government in place does not mean that a bunch of plutocrats and over-promoted bureaucrats can decide that there is consequently a vacuum that can be filled with something of their own devising.
And even if there is a power-vacuum at the global level (I don’t entirely dispute this: while global warming is mostly nonsense, ocean pollution and overfishing is not, and the solution to that has to be global in nature), one model we know from painful experience doesn’t work is one where unelected bureaucrats meet with corporations and then instruct national governments what the plan is.
In short, there is a ready alternative to the WEF: it’s called no WEF, and nothing in its place. It’s not perfect, but then again if we’re demanding perfection the WEF also fails the test.
‘global warming is mostly nonsense”.
At last, a real internet scientist speaks. Thanks for the ‘heads-up’. It would help humanity enormously if you could expand this thought into a full scientific paper, with lots of researchy facts and numbers ‘n stuff, just so the fake “so-called’ scientists could realise their stupidity.
‘global warming is mostly nonsense”.
At last, a real internet scientist speaks. Thanks for the ‘heads-up’. It would help humanity enormously if you could expand this thought into a full scientific paper, with lots of researchy facts and numbers ‘n stuff, just so the fake “so-called’ scientists could realise their stupidity.
“What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?”
The alternative is democratic accountability. Just because there is presently no model of democratic world government in place does not mean that a bunch of plutocrats and over-promoted bureaucrats can decide that there is consequently a vacuum that can be filled with something of their own devising.
And even if there is a power-vacuum at the global level (I don’t entirely dispute this: while global warming is mostly nonsense, ocean pollution and overfishing is not, and the solution to that has to be global in nature), one model we know from painful experience doesn’t work is one where unelected bureaucrats meet with corporations and then instruct national governments what the plan is.
In short, there is a ready alternative to the WEF: it’s called no WEF, and nothing in its place. It’s not perfect, but then again if we’re demanding perfection the WEF also fails the test.
I have a question. Let’s work this through to a logical conclusion. WEF clearly has no government oversight. It calls together some of the most powerful companies in the world to discuss and solve highly complex issues.
What exactly is the alternative? Is the answer more government involvement? Are we going to elect people with no expertise to solve the issues of grain production or ship transport?
I am not sure we can ask for more. They livestream their sessions. The publicize their agenda. They are very open about their goals. I just…I don’t understand what would replace WEF without in fact becoming another WEF. What am I missing?
While the gullible (who only get their news via FaceBook) shout loudly about the great reset, the WEF’s bigger agenda is staring us in the face. Taxation, as I’ve often said before, when you see a politician saying that Google Amazon et al, will be paying more taxes, they’re lying. The agenda of those attending Davos each year is to ensure they don’t & they never will. The politicians attending are in their pocket & they aim to keep it that way.
While the gullible (who only get their news via FaceBook) shout loudly about the great reset, the WEF’s bigger agenda is staring us in the face. Taxation, as I’ve often said before, when you see a politician saying that Google Amazon et al, will be paying more taxes, they’re lying. The agenda of those attending Davos each year is to ensure they don’t & they never will. The politicians attending are in their pocket & they aim to keep it that way.
This essay drives home the eternal truth of what Eric Hoffer wrote ca. 1965: All great ideas start as movements, become businesses, and degenerate into rackets.
The WEF and the ideas of Govt-Corporate partnerships was an interesting idea in 1971, was a business by the early Thatcher-Reagan period around 1982, and by the late 1990s (Kyoto climate protocol is as good a marker as any) was becoming a racket. The subsequent response to the Great Financial Crisis and then the development and normalization of things like ESG and DEI have elevated the original idea to be the rationale for the greatest organized criminal enterprise in history.
Some of us understandably look at WEF as the problem, but it is more a symptom or in a way the scene of the crime.
This essay drives home the eternal truth of what Eric Hoffer wrote ca. 1965: All great ideas start as movements, become businesses, and degenerate into rackets.
The WEF and the ideas of Govt-Corporate partnerships was an interesting idea in 1971, was a business by the early Thatcher-Reagan period around 1982, and by the late 1990s (Kyoto climate protocol is as good a marker as any) was becoming a racket. The subsequent response to the Great Financial Crisis and then the development and normalization of things like ESG and DEI have elevated the original idea to be the rationale for the greatest organized criminal enterprise in history.
Some of us understandably look at WEF as the problem, but it is more a symptom or in a way the scene of the crime.
It is wrong to say that the Global governance of the WEF can’t be reined in by the people through electoral politics. Brexit and Donald Trump are examples of popular revolt against globalization. These populist movements would have a better chance of success if they had intelligent leadership, instead they flail about with little idea of what they are fighting against led by buffoons and clowns like Trump, who is only interested in self-aggrandizement. In politics as in business the WEF crowd has captured the Left by acquiescing to all their woke demands. Since there is no need to capture the mainstream Right who are already willing to submit to corporate governance, until the Left wakes up and realizes they have been had, the only opposition to globalization will come from far-right nationalists whose agenda is more dangerous than the WEF’s.
I don’t expect the Left will wake up, so it will take forces outside of the control of governments and corporations to break the global elites governing us, another pandemic or mass migration from the South to the North due to climate change might do it, but when it happens this way, it won’t be pretty.
I don’t agree with this at all. The populist instinct is strong right now because govts across the west have failed to deliver to good governance.
They pursue policies like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, net zero, defund the police and gender ideology that hurt the working class.
Unless this changes, populist aren’t going away. And just because Trump and Johnson were buffoons, it doesn’t mean that next set of leaders will be the same.
Desantis has some faults, but he seems much more measured and focussed. Pierre Poilievre had incredible support for his Conservative Party leadership vote in Canada.
The political landscape in the west is being transformed right now. The right is no longer beholden to corporations. Big business has switched its support to the left, which is no longer really left wing.
DeSantis will talk like Trump and bow down to the Davos crowd. There are no Republicans out there who really will fight corporate power. They will use populists, but they will pass tax-cuts for the rich.
I’m much more worried that Poilievre in Canada will bend the knee than Desantis. I think Desantis is strongly opposed to ESG, which is the most dangerous WEF policy. I don’t think he can afford to bend the knee.
There is Senator Rand Paul. He has consistently spoken out against these international bureaucrats, so-called free trade agreements, and the military-industrial complex. In my opinion, defense contractors in all countries are the greatest threat facing the world today.
Need more Rand Paul’s.
More Rand Paul’s what?
More Rand Paul’s what?
Need more Rand Paul’s.
I’m much more worried that Poilievre in Canada will bend the knee than Desantis. I think Desantis is strongly opposed to ESG, which is the most dangerous WEF policy. I don’t think he can afford to bend the knee.
There is Senator Rand Paul. He has consistently spoken out against these international bureaucrats, so-called free trade agreements, and the military-industrial complex. In my opinion, defense contractors in all countries are the greatest threat facing the world today.
Vaccine mandates didn’t benefit the Left, they benefited pharmaceutical companies. The people who are hurting the working class are big corporations. The Left has just given up helping the working-class.
It did benefit the laptop class or the professional managerial class, who could work from home. I would consider them left wing, although these right-left labels are almost meaningless now. Who it hurt was the working class and small business.
I assume you’re talking about lockdowns not vaccine mandates. I don’t know about Britain but the lockdown in the US only lasted 3 months, the small business owners who were hurt were given government handouts, and it was instituted by Trump, so I don’t understand why conservatives think it is such a big deal. Most workers had to keep working. The lockdown didn’t hurt them as much as Covid did.
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. Covid didn’t hurt any business that I can think of. The govt response to the pandemic is responsible for all the damage – and the damage is extensive.
Those govt handouts you refer to weren’t as wonderful as people think. More than 3.8 million small businesses in the US took out govt loans at the beginning of Covid, with an avg of $100,000 each. They have to be repaid and the payments started in January.
But the news is much worse than this for small business. Revenue is way down, inflation and supply-chain shortages have increased costs and a recession is very likely.
“A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found only 36% of their small business members have reached their pre-pandemic sales levels, while 31% of businesses are still below 75% of their pre-crisis sales.”
https://www.cnn.com › 2023 › 01 › 13 › economy › sm
Workers were hurt by vax mandates. In Canada, thousands and thousands of workers were hailed as heroes for working in public during Covid. And many of them were hi fired for refusing to get the vaccine. That’s the spark that started the truckers protest a year ago.
Again, the contemptible Covid response was not a left-right thing. IMO Trump would have done the same thing as Biden. I don’t know what conservatives had to do with it.
Are you kidding. It was a pandemic. People stayed home because they didn’t want to die. Small businesses would have been hurt no matter what the government did. People are still dying from this infection, and you act like it is nothing but a cold. Millions have died and many more would have died if not for the government response. You just won’t admit that lockdowns and vaccine mandates saved lives. Maybe things went too far, especially with vax mandates, but doing nothing was not an option.
Conservatives are the only people I know who sound like you. Anything to own the libs.
I’m not downplaying the pandemic. Covid was dangerous and caused death and heartache across the globe. Millions died and more will die in the future.
But let’s get real here. Covid killed old people – old people with multiple underlying health issues. It didn’t kill people under 65 and it didn’t kill healthy people.
I live in Alberta. The avg lifespan here is 79. The avg age of Covid victims was 80. In a province of 5 million people, we did not have one person under 18 die from Covid. Not one.
Vaccines saved lives, no question. They saved the lives of the very old and fragile. They didn’t stop transmission of the disease and they didn’t protect communities from the disease.
I supported the initial lockdowns – two weeks to stop the spread – but we knew almost immediately what the disease actually was. The Great Barrington Declaration was released in October, 2020. This would have been the proper response to Covid, but it was literally suppressed by the NIH, the CDC, big pharma and big tech.
You’re right, people stayed home out of fear. But the fear was completely misaligned with the actual threat of the disease for the vast majority of people. The govt created the fear, fueled the fear and reacted to this fear when establishing inappropriate policies. My neighbour was absolutely giddy when she could vaccinate her five year old. Is this a rational response?
To wave away the impact of lockdowns is mind blowing. It led to supply-chain breakdowns that are still affecting the economy today. It led to the cancellation of health care procedures that are part of the excess mortality rates we are still suffering today. It led to the education issues that will follow many students throughout their lives.
Lockdowns killed far more people than they saved. They were absolutely devastating.
It is sad that opposing views to the policy enacted by the government had a bad time on social media but what you see as a nefarious form of suppression I see as politics which have become pretty ugly these days. We don’t really debate anything civilly or sanely anymore.
But to say that things would have been better if the proposals in the Great Barrington Declaration had been followed is nothing more than speculation. The policy makers weren’t going to change or debate the policies that they sincerely thought were best just because some dissenting voices put out a statement with very few details. It is naïve to think they would or should have in the midst of a crisis. You shouldn’t impugn their motives. They believed they were doing the right thing and many health experts agreed with them. It is easy to criticize anyone in hindsight. They saved lives. You are exaggerating the effects of the lockdowns.
We don’t know and never will know what would have happened if we had tried to isolate older people and let younger people go about their business. We don’t even know if it would have been practical in large populous cities or in a country as large as the US. The policy wasn’t put in place, and it really was too late by October 2020. Will we never know what the consequences of the policy would have been. It is strange that conservatives blame liberals for a policy put in place by a Republican President. Had Trump been competent and knew how to manage a crisis or the bureaucracy of the Executive branch he was in charge of, maybe policies more to your liking would have been tried. And the rest of the world would have followed. But that didn’t happen.
All we can do is have a debate now for the next time. We should start that debate by at least admitting that everyone was sincerely trying to do the right thing and their best. Unfortunately, everyone has too much fun tearing each other down today.
It is sad that opposing views to the policy enacted by the government had a bad time on social media but what you see as a nefarious form of suppression I see as politics which have become pretty ugly these days. We don’t really debate anything civilly or sanely anymore.
But to say that things would have been better if the proposals in the Great Barrington Declaration had been followed is nothing more than speculation. The policy makers weren’t going to change or debate the policies that they sincerely thought were best just because some dissenting voices put out a statement with very few details. It is naïve to think they would or should have in the midst of a crisis. You shouldn’t impugn their motives. They believed they were doing the right thing and many health experts agreed with them. It is easy to criticize anyone in hindsight. They saved lives. You are exaggerating the effects of the lockdowns.
We don’t know and never will know what would have happened if we had tried to isolate older people and let younger people go about their business. We don’t even know if it would have been practical in large populous cities or in a country as large as the US. The policy wasn’t put in place, and it really was too late by October 2020. Will we never know what the consequences of the policy would have been. It is strange that conservatives blame liberals for a policy put in place by a Republican President. Had Trump been competent and knew how to manage a crisis or the bureaucracy of the Executive branch he was in charge of, maybe policies more to your liking would have been tried. And the rest of the world would have followed. But that didn’t happen.
All we can do is have a debate now for the next time. We should start that debate by at least admitting that everyone was sincerely trying to do the right thing and their best. Unfortunately, everyone has too much fun tearing each other down today.
I’m not downplaying the pandemic. Covid was dangerous and caused death and heartache across the globe. Millions died and more will die in the future.
But let’s get real here. Covid killed old people – old people with multiple underlying health issues. It didn’t kill people under 65 and it didn’t kill healthy people.
I live in Alberta. The avg lifespan here is 79. The avg age of Covid victims was 80. In a province of 5 million people, we did not have one person under 18 die from Covid. Not one.
Vaccines saved lives, no question. They saved the lives of the very old and fragile. They didn’t stop transmission of the disease and they didn’t protect communities from the disease.
I supported the initial lockdowns – two weeks to stop the spread – but we knew almost immediately what the disease actually was. The Great Barrington Declaration was released in October, 2020. This would have been the proper response to Covid, but it was literally suppressed by the NIH, the CDC, big pharma and big tech.
You’re right, people stayed home out of fear. But the fear was completely misaligned with the actual threat of the disease for the vast majority of people. The govt created the fear, fueled the fear and reacted to this fear when establishing inappropriate policies. My neighbour was absolutely giddy when she could vaccinate her five year old. Is this a rational response?
To wave away the impact of lockdowns is mind blowing. It led to supply-chain breakdowns that are still affecting the economy today. It led to the cancellation of health care procedures that are part of the excess mortality rates we are still suffering today. It led to the education issues that will follow many students throughout their lives.
Lockdowns killed far more people than they saved. They were absolutely devastating.
Are you kidding. It was a pandemic. People stayed home because they didn’t want to die. Small businesses would have been hurt no matter what the government did. People are still dying from this infection, and you act like it is nothing but a cold. Millions have died and many more would have died if not for the government response. You just won’t admit that lockdowns and vaccine mandates saved lives. Maybe things went too far, especially with vax mandates, but doing nothing was not an option.
Conservatives are the only people I know who sound like you. Anything to own the libs.
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. Covid didn’t hurt any business that I can think of. The govt response to the pandemic is responsible for all the damage – and the damage is extensive.
Those govt handouts you refer to weren’t as wonderful as people think. More than 3.8 million small businesses in the US took out govt loans at the beginning of Covid, with an avg of $100,000 each. They have to be repaid and the payments started in January.
But the news is much worse than this for small business. Revenue is way down, inflation and supply-chain shortages have increased costs and a recession is very likely.
“A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found only 36% of their small business members have reached their pre-pandemic sales levels, while 31% of businesses are still below 75% of their pre-crisis sales.”
https://www.cnn.com › 2023 › 01 › 13 › economy › sm
Workers were hurt by vax mandates. In Canada, thousands and thousands of workers were hailed as heroes for working in public during Covid. And many of them were hi fired for refusing to get the vaccine. That’s the spark that started the truckers protest a year ago.
Again, the contemptible Covid response was not a left-right thing. IMO Trump would have done the same thing as Biden. I don’t know what conservatives had to do with it.
I assume you’re talking about lockdowns not vaccine mandates. I don’t know about Britain but the lockdown in the US only lasted 3 months, the small business owners who were hurt were given government handouts, and it was instituted by Trump, so I don’t understand why conservatives think it is such a big deal. Most workers had to keep working. The lockdown didn’t hurt them as much as Covid did.
It did benefit the laptop class or the professional managerial class, who could work from home. I would consider them left wing, although these right-left labels are almost meaningless now. Who it hurt was the working class and small business.
DeSantis will talk like Trump and bow down to the Davos crowd. There are no Republicans out there who really will fight corporate power. They will use populists, but they will pass tax-cuts for the rich.
Vaccine mandates didn’t benefit the Left, they benefited pharmaceutical companies. The people who are hurting the working class are big corporations. The Left has just given up helping the working-class.
Watch what is happening in Brazil and see the lengths the hard left will go to.
I wasn’t defending the Left, they’re nuts, but they weren’t always nuts.
I would have been a Democrat 10 years ago. Not even close now. The left-right labels don’t really make sense anymore.
I would have been a Democrat 10 years ago. Not even close now. The left-right labels don’t really make sense anymore.
Erm……yeah.
I wasn’t defending the Left, they’re nuts, but they weren’t always nuts.
Erm……yeah.
I don’t agree with this at all. The populist instinct is strong right now because govts across the west have failed to deliver to good governance.
They pursue policies like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, net zero, defund the police and gender ideology that hurt the working class.
Unless this changes, populist aren’t going away. And just because Trump and Johnson were buffoons, it doesn’t mean that next set of leaders will be the same.
Desantis has some faults, but he seems much more measured and focussed. Pierre Poilievre had incredible support for his Conservative Party leadership vote in Canada.
The political landscape in the west is being transformed right now. The right is no longer beholden to corporations. Big business has switched its support to the left, which is no longer really left wing.
Watch what is happening in Brazil and see the lengths the hard left will go to.
It is wrong to say that the Global governance of the WEF can’t be reined in by the people through electoral politics. Brexit and Donald Trump are examples of popular revolt against globalization. These populist movements would have a better chance of success if they had intelligent leadership, instead they flail about with little idea of what they are fighting against led by buffoons and clowns like Trump, who is only interested in self-aggrandizement. In politics as in business the WEF crowd has captured the Left by acquiescing to all their woke demands. Since there is no need to capture the mainstream Right who are already willing to submit to corporate governance, until the Left wakes up and realizes they have been had, the only opposition to globalization will come from far-right nationalists whose agenda is more dangerous than the WEF’s.
I don’t expect the Left will wake up, so it will take forces outside of the control of governments and corporations to break the global elites governing us, another pandemic or mass migration from the South to the North due to climate change might do it, but when it happens this way, it won’t be pretty.
A powerful article, though the standard-issue unHerd ideological comments below ignore entirely the corporate, profit-making part of the Davos contingent and obsess solely on the bureaucratic element, to create exactly the kind of unspoken conspiracy narrative that the article dismisses more than once.
This, obviously, enables people to make a very simple and ideologically-convenient story of evil Progressives trying to create a “utopia”- which of course, is balls. Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)- just a straight-forward money and power grab by the vastly wealthy. Who seriously believes that the world’s biggest corporations- oil companies, global ‘food’ semi-monopolies, finance, pharmaceutical giants- are Progressive Utopianists in any meaningful sense of the term? They are rich people using their power to get even richer, and ensuring that civic government and democratic accountability are as weak as possible.
They don’t care about money. They have all the money they could ever need. Their purpose now is to change the world. It is about means and ends.
Of course they have all the money they need. No-one wants to be a billionaire for the money in itself- its for the personal power that kind of money brings.
But that doesnt mean they have some great utopian plan for humanity- any more than the warring pretenders to Mediaeval crowns had utopian plans for humanity, or a gorrila fighting to be troop leader does it to change gorilla society. Rupert Murdoch wants power- he wants power to make the world more amenable to yet more power, nothing more.
Conspiracy ideation is fun, but it’s largely self-contradictory (the oil corporations want to ban us from using oil!) nonsense.
Of course they have all the money they need. No-one wants to be a billionaire for the money in itself- its for the personal power that kind of money brings.
But that doesnt mean they have some great utopian plan for humanity- any more than the warring pretenders to Mediaeval crowns had utopian plans for humanity, or a gorrila fighting to be troop leader does it to change gorilla society. Rupert Murdoch wants power- he wants power to make the world more amenable to yet more power, nothing more.
Conspiracy ideation is fun, but it’s largely self-contradictory (the oil corporations want to ban us from using oil!) nonsense.
Net zero and ESG are utopian ideals very much promoted by the WEF.
IF we have hit peak oil ( which is disputed but BP says we have and they will not be exploring oil or gas fields after 2030) coupled with no russian energy and a reasonably hostile opec, we have no choice but to reduce our fossil fuel use. The Geopolitical situation is getting messier by the day. The only way to cope with the energy crisis is demand destruction and/or alternative power sources. Its really crap, but it is what it is. It’s going to hurt. Net zero is just a nice way to say it. Is just my humble opinion.
We haven’t hit peak oil. We’ve heard this same argument since the 70s and they keep finding more reserves as technology improves.
Demand destruction is completely unnecessary. Even if we hit peak oil, nuclear power could supply all the energy we need.
If we are being told to reduce power consumption it’s for purely political reasons.
Edit
Yes it could, but we need to transition, I think net zero is about that transition. Its not about oil running out. Its not running out in that sense. Its about the fact there is less conventional oil, non conventional oil has largely made up for the increase in global demand since 2005. This is the shale oil etc. More expensive to extract. Its all about the oil price and whether it will stay high enough to enable that oil to be extracted at a profit. Now the oil price has been mental since covid, it actually went negative in 2020. In a volatile market big business won’t take the risk. That’s more the essence of the argument. Now what happens in the next few years depends on a fair few variables granted. I think it’s worth bearing in mind though before we get excited that net zero is simply a crazy plan to destroy our industry.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Todays-Energy-Crisis-Is-Unlike-Anything-Weve-Ever-Seen-Before.html
I don’t disagree with any of this. High demand and low supply will create high prices. Low demand and high supply will create low prices.
If prices go too high, the market will find alternatives. It might be renewables, which I doubt with today’s technology, or more likely nuclear. I don’t have a problem with any of that.
Government-induced demand destruction is the problem. I have no doubt the markets can cope with less fossil fuel supply and offer alternatives.
But if the govt creates the problem by artificially increasing the cost of energy, that’s when we have problems.
Yes certainly, nuclear and hydrogen are coming fast, just to be clear I’m not thinking we are headed for a distopian no electricity future, just that net zero fundamentally is nothing to do with anything other than changing from fossil fuel to nuclear and hydrogen etc. I’m suggesting that this might be driven by things like the volatility of the energy market, cutting off russia etc more than the government really wanting to implement net zero on purely idealogical grounds.
I think we agree here. I’m probably more bullish on the future of fossil fuels, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the market moved away from them either. I don’t have an issue with wind and solar either – if they work. The key is the free market. Let markets decide what lies ahead, not the govt.
Think that’s really fair. The future of fossil fuels is a really tough call atm I think, you could well be quite right in your outlook. I think too much free market intervention is a bad thing too. Especially sanctions. I agree wind and solar are unreliable, I think hydrogen and nuclear are more realistic solutions as a main source tbh. Hopefully we’ll keep the oil and gas going for now 🙂
Think that’s really fair. The future of fossil fuels is a really tough call atm I think, you could well be quite right in your outlook. I think too much free market intervention is a bad thing too. Especially sanctions. I agree wind and solar are unreliable, I think hydrogen and nuclear are more realistic solutions as a main source tbh. Hopefully we’ll keep the oil and gas going for now 🙂
I think we agree here. I’m probably more bullish on the future of fossil fuels, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the market moved away from them either. I don’t have an issue with wind and solar either – if they work. The key is the free market. Let markets decide what lies ahead, not the govt.
Yes certainly, nuclear and hydrogen are coming fast, just to be clear I’m not thinking we are headed for a distopian no electricity future, just that net zero fundamentally is nothing to do with anything other than changing from fossil fuel to nuclear and hydrogen etc. I’m suggesting that this might be driven by things like the volatility of the energy market, cutting off russia etc more than the government really wanting to implement net zero on purely idealogical grounds.
I don’t disagree with any of this. High demand and low supply will create high prices. Low demand and high supply will create low prices.
If prices go too high, the market will find alternatives. It might be renewables, which I doubt with today’s technology, or more likely nuclear. I don’t have a problem with any of that.
Government-induced demand destruction is the problem. I have no doubt the markets can cope with less fossil fuel supply and offer alternatives.
But if the govt creates the problem by artificially increasing the cost of energy, that’s when we have problems.
Edit
Yes it could, but we need to transition, I think net zero is about that transition. Its not about oil running out. Its not running out in that sense. Its about the fact there is less conventional oil, non conventional oil has largely made up for the increase in global demand since 2005. This is the shale oil etc. More expensive to extract. Its all about the oil price and whether it will stay high enough to enable that oil to be extracted at a profit. Now the oil price has been mental since covid, it actually went negative in 2020. In a volatile market big business won’t take the risk. That’s more the essence of the argument. Now what happens in the next few years depends on a fair few variables granted. I think it’s worth bearing in mind though before we get excited that net zero is simply a crazy plan to destroy our industry.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Todays-Energy-Crisis-Is-Unlike-Anything-Weve-Ever-Seen-Before.html
We haven’t hit peak oil. We’ve heard this same argument since the 70s and they keep finding more reserves as technology improves.
Demand destruction is completely unnecessary. Even if we hit peak oil, nuclear power could supply all the energy we need.
If we are being told to reduce power consumption it’s for purely political reasons.
QAnon cobblers.
Look dude. I have explicitly said the WEF isn’t some cabal of henchmen trying to take over the world. I said it in my first post. Don’t put words in my mouth.
But you’re a fool if you don’t think they have outsized influence on political leaders across the world. They’re all in Davos today. The PM of Canada and half his cabinet have graduated from their Global Leaders program.
I do agree they have too much influence. Bringing corporations and governments together in such a way is just asking for corruption. I am not a Trudeau fan either.
I agree they have outsize influence. Absolutely. But the problem for me with so many comments here is the conflation of so many disparate things into a simplistic one-size-fits-all conspiracy.
I may have been unfair to you, but the number of people here who think that because globalised finance and a supra-national elite have a disproportionate influence on democratic systems, then the scientific facts of carbon dioxide on atmospheric heat exchange must therefore be a lie or a conspiracy is just absurd, and betrays a hopeless lack of rational thought.
As for the market deciding absolutely everything- should the market decide the use of asbestos? Or lead in petrol- the lead that rots kids brains? The market for opioides in the US is currently very healthy indeed- is that ok? Where, if ever, do you draw the line? The free market is a very useful and usually efficient tool. When it becomes a cult, to which lives must be sacrificed, it’s anti-human.
By the way, ‘net-zero’ is not a “utopian ideal”.
It’s a largely technological idea (no-where being actually implemented right now, nor in the near-future) to remove a particular, very damaging, chemical compound from the industrial system- or at least, making the overall production of it balanced by its atmospheric removal. That’s really not a “utopian ideal” in any remotely meaningful sense.
Hmmm hydrogen and nuclear are moving fast and getting enormous investment now from big tech and big oil right now, I can source business news to support that if you’re genuinely interested. There’s been a fair few important advancements in hydrogen this year. They have put Whitby I believe (might have the town wrong) onto hydrogen trial already. They are fitting solar with serious battery back up in some social housing across the UK already. Sources also available but Google you will find it. The link to the Morgan Stanley report I put way up above talks about big tech advancements being one of their main trends to watch over the next few years.
This is all good, I’m aware of these developments (though all have very real problems) – my point was that most of the commenters in this site see everything you just listed as dystopian, and as part of a Deep-State conspiracy against humanity, to be fought through violence (“pitch-forks”) if necessary. See John Riordan’s comment below.
OK, JR below is talking about the WEF slogan – you will own nothing and be happy. Info here just the first one I came across
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sociable.co/web/wef-director-youll-own-nothing-be-happy-disinformation-campaign/amp/
Funny enough that says they tried and failed to disown the slogan after it went out.
The WEF have a whole raft of documents, the book the great reset, they have a centre in London, have tentacles in our universities. They tend to promote the same agenda throughout and they have a lot of money, a lot of revolving doors between media, corporations and governments. This is why people get so upset. Check out their Web page. They are very bad. They have the capability to push an agenda but only so far. I can’t get behind the global conspiracy. That’s not how Geopolitics works. But, you can see why, when you look into them, people rightly, draw attention to them. They are very bad from a big potential for corruption, certain amount of control outside of state etc. I would say JR below has made fair points.
There are people that post crazy stuff. The trouble with the WEF is it was part of Alex jones type NWO stuff, David ike, q anon all that. So it does attract fringe opinions. Fringe opinion should be considered. The point is to challenge the msm concensus. Sometimes the crazy posters make the best points occasionally.
Found a fringe site that had archived the link to forbes report. The video has been removed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=4a9be7291735
Also don’t see pitch forks?
I don’t think we need a pitchfork type revolution. That’s probably the last thing we need the state of global affairs at the moment. Plus all the davos set would just off abroad. It would put the tin hat on it. I think davos should be disallowed. WEF disbanded. Would be a good start.
OK, JR below is talking about the WEF slogan – you will own nothing and be happy. Info here just the first one I came across
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sociable.co/web/wef-director-youll-own-nothing-be-happy-disinformation-campaign/amp/
Funny enough that says they tried and failed to disown the slogan after it went out.
The WEF have a whole raft of documents, the book the great reset, they have a centre in London, have tentacles in our universities. They tend to promote the same agenda throughout and they have a lot of money, a lot of revolving doors between media, corporations and governments. This is why people get so upset. Check out their Web page. They are very bad. They have the capability to push an agenda but only so far. I can’t get behind the global conspiracy. That’s not how Geopolitics works. But, you can see why, when you look into them, people rightly, draw attention to them. They are very bad from a big potential for corruption, certain amount of control outside of state etc. I would say JR below has made fair points.
There are people that post crazy stuff. The trouble with the WEF is it was part of Alex jones type NWO stuff, David ike, q anon all that. So it does attract fringe opinions. Fringe opinion should be considered. The point is to challenge the msm concensus. Sometimes the crazy posters make the best points occasionally.
Found a fringe site that had archived the link to forbes report. The video has been removed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=4a9be7291735
Also don’t see pitch forks?
I don’t think we need a pitchfork type revolution. That’s probably the last thing we need the state of global affairs at the moment. Plus all the davos set would just off abroad. It would put the tin hat on it. I think davos should be disallowed. WEF disbanded. Would be a good start.
This is all good, I’m aware of these developments (though all have very real problems) – my point was that most of the commenters in this site see everything you just listed as dystopian, and as part of a Deep-State conspiracy against humanity, to be fought through violence (“pitch-forks”) if necessary. See John Riordan’s comment below.
Hmmm hydrogen and nuclear are moving fast and getting enormous investment now from big tech and big oil right now, I can source business news to support that if you’re genuinely interested. There’s been a fair few important advancements in hydrogen this year. They have put Whitby I believe (might have the town wrong) onto hydrogen trial already. They are fitting solar with serious battery back up in some social housing across the UK already. Sources also available but Google you will find it. The link to the Morgan Stanley report I put way up above talks about big tech advancements being one of their main trends to watch over the next few years.
By the way, ‘net-zero’ is not a “utopian ideal”.
It’s a largely technological idea (no-where being actually implemented right now, nor in the near-future) to remove a particular, very damaging, chemical compound from the industrial system- or at least, making the overall production of it balanced by its atmospheric removal. That’s really not a “utopian ideal” in any remotely meaningful sense.
I do agree they have too much influence. Bringing corporations and governments together in such a way is just asking for corruption. I am not a Trudeau fan either.
I agree they have outsize influence. Absolutely. But the problem for me with so many comments here is the conflation of so many disparate things into a simplistic one-size-fits-all conspiracy.
I may have been unfair to you, but the number of people here who think that because globalised finance and a supra-national elite have a disproportionate influence on democratic systems, then the scientific facts of carbon dioxide on atmospheric heat exchange must therefore be a lie or a conspiracy is just absurd, and betrays a hopeless lack of rational thought.
As for the market deciding absolutely everything- should the market decide the use of asbestos? Or lead in petrol- the lead that rots kids brains? The market for opioides in the US is currently very healthy indeed- is that ok? Where, if ever, do you draw the line? The free market is a very useful and usually efficient tool. When it becomes a cult, to which lives must be sacrificed, it’s anti-human.
Look dude. I have explicitly said the WEF isn’t some cabal of henchmen trying to take over the world. I said it in my first post. Don’t put words in my mouth.
But you’re a fool if you don’t think they have outsized influence on political leaders across the world. They’re all in Davos today. The PM of Canada and half his cabinet have graduated from their Global Leaders program.
IF we have hit peak oil ( which is disputed but BP says we have and they will not be exploring oil or gas fields after 2030) coupled with no russian energy and a reasonably hostile opec, we have no choice but to reduce our fossil fuel use. The Geopolitical situation is getting messier by the day. The only way to cope with the energy crisis is demand destruction and/or alternative power sources. Its really crap, but it is what it is. It’s going to hurt. Net zero is just a nice way to say it. Is just my humble opinion.
QAnon cobblers.
“Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)-…”
“You will own nothing and be happy”, I suppose, merely represents a wealth grab and in no way contains elements of utopian ambitions, according to you?
You are guilty of precisely the blinkered thinking you assign to others here. The WEF comprises both plutocrats and state apparatchiks. It is a classic Fascist organisation, in the strict definition employed by Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.
And we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do.
Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you? You can make up random quotes of your own- it’s fun- but as a basis for a rational argument, it’s pointless. You are genuinely telling me that the world’s corporations are planning to destroy the concept of private property? Really?
I’m not aware of anything meaningfully describable as “utopianism” in Mussolini’s ‘ideas’- he was deeply Nationalist, as are most of the commenters here who so despise globalism, and relied on the support of the Catholic Church, who saw him as their chief bulwark against Communism. So anti-Communist, ultra-Nationalist, militaristic and Catholic. Mussolini saw the Fascists as promoting the values of the “Mediterranean-Aryan race” against the “International plutocracy controlled by Jews”, and fetishised the national historical descent from Rome- the fascist state was the “Third Rome”.
How many here promote nationalism, militarism, anti-“internationalism”, traditional gender roles, Church and ethnic historicism? I think he’d get rather more ‘upticks’ that I do.
“Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you?”
The WEF.
Ignoring the somewhat amazing fact that you didn’t know this, surely it was in any case obvious, given that that’s what the article is about?
As for your arguments about Mussolini not being relevant to the subject, firstly I was pointing out a way in which he actually is relevant. Finding other comparisons in which he differs is irrelevant. Secondly and more importantly, I was merely using Mussolini’s classical definition of fascism to draw a parallel between fascism and the WEF. Whether or not Mussolini exhibited utopian ideals in other contexts is, once again, irrelevant.
Please give a reference or a link to this ridiculous ‘quote’. In fact, it’s a single economist, eight years ago, discussing predictions of possible future scenarious for world technology (i.e, the projected spread of renting things like cars). This has been hyped up into the standard paranoid idiot’s Youtube rant, subsequently going ‘viral’ amongst the more excitable and factually-challenged denizens of the internet.
The WEF is a Capitalist organisation, made up of Capitalist economists and Capitalist corporate leaders; by what conceivable rationale would such an organisation demand the end of private property? How does that even begin to make sense, outside of the fevered imaginings of QAnon?
The usual problem with daft internet conspiracy theories is that they fail to attempt even the vaguest sense of rational probability or inherent logic, in favour of whatever induces the greatest sense of pleasurable hysteria.
And if Mussolini’s putative “utopianism” is “irrelevant”, why did you write “we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do”. Make your mind up.
https://www.truth11.com/wef-caught-scrubbing-you-will-own-nothing-and-be-happy-post-from-internet/
https://www.truth11.com/wef-caught-scrubbing-you-will-own-nothing-and-be-happy-post-from-internet/
Please give a reference or a link to this ridiculous ‘quote’. In fact, it’s a single economist, eight years ago, discussing predictions of possible future scenarious for world technology (i.e, the projected spread of renting things like cars). This has been hyped up into the standard paranoid idiot’s Youtube rant, subsequently going ‘viral’ amongst the more excitable and factually-challenged denizens of the internet.
The WEF is a Capitalist organisation, made up of Capitalist economists and Capitalist corporate leaders; by what conceivable rationale would such an organisation demand the end of private property? How does that even begin to make sense, outside of the fevered imaginings of QAnon?
The usual problem with daft internet conspiracy theories is that they fail to attempt even the vaguest sense of rational probability or inherent logic, in favour of whatever induces the greatest sense of pleasurable hysteria.
And if Mussolini’s putative “utopianism” is “irrelevant”, why did you write “we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do”. Make your mind up.
“Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you?”
The WEF.
Ignoring the somewhat amazing fact that you didn’t know this, surely it was in any case obvious, given that that’s what the article is about?
As for your arguments about Mussolini not being relevant to the subject, firstly I was pointing out a way in which he actually is relevant. Finding other comparisons in which he differs is irrelevant. Secondly and more importantly, I was merely using Mussolini’s classical definition of fascism to draw a parallel between fascism and the WEF. Whether or not Mussolini exhibited utopian ideals in other contexts is, once again, irrelevant.
Who has said “you will own nothing and be happy”, except you? You can make up random quotes of your own- it’s fun- but as a basis for a rational argument, it’s pointless. You are genuinely telling me that the world’s corporations are planning to destroy the concept of private property? Really?
I’m not aware of anything meaningfully describable as “utopianism” in Mussolini’s ‘ideas’- he was deeply Nationalist, as are most of the commenters here who so despise globalism, and relied on the support of the Catholic Church, who saw him as their chief bulwark against Communism. So anti-Communist, ultra-Nationalist, militaristic and Catholic. Mussolini saw the Fascists as promoting the values of the “Mediterranean-Aryan race” against the “International plutocracy controlled by Jews”, and fetishised the national historical descent from Rome- the fascist state was the “Third Rome”.
How many here promote nationalism, militarism, anti-“internationalism”, traditional gender roles, Church and ethnic historicism? I think he’d get rather more ‘upticks’ that I do.
They don’t care about money. They have all the money they could ever need. Their purpose now is to change the world. It is about means and ends.
Net zero and ESG are utopian ideals very much promoted by the WEF.
“Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)-…”
“You will own nothing and be happy”, I suppose, merely represents a wealth grab and in no way contains elements of utopian ambitions, according to you?
You are guilty of precisely the blinkered thinking you assign to others here. The WEF comprises both plutocrats and state apparatchiks. It is a classic Fascist organisation, in the strict definition employed by Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.
And we know, of course, how much utopianism underpins fascism. Or at least I hope we do.
A powerful article, though the standard-issue unHerd ideological comments below ignore entirely the corporate, profit-making part of the Davos contingent and obsess solely on the bureaucratic element, to create exactly the kind of unspoken conspiracy narrative that the article dismisses more than once.
This, obviously, enables people to make a very simple and ideologically-convenient story of evil Progressives trying to create a “utopia”- which of course, is balls. Nowhere have I seen the slightest evidence of “utopian” thinking in the WEF for good or ill)- just a straight-forward money and power grab by the vastly wealthy. Who seriously believes that the world’s biggest corporations- oil companies, global ‘food’ semi-monopolies, finance, pharmaceutical giants- are Progressive Utopianists in any meaningful sense of the term? They are rich people using their power to get even richer, and ensuring that civic government and democratic accountability are as weak as possible.
“this… neatly encapsulates the basic philosophy of globalism: insulating policy from democracy by transferring the decision-making process from the national and international level, where citizens theoretically are able to exercise some degree of influence over policy, to the supranational level, by placing a self-selected group of unelected, unaccountable “stakeholders” mainly corporations — in charge of global decisions concerning everything from energy and food production to the media and public health. The underlying undemocratic philosophy is the same one underpinning the philanthrocapitalist approach of people such Bill Gates, himself a long-time partner of the WEF: that non-governmental social and business organisations are best suited to solve the world’s problems than governments and multilateral institutions.”
When I programmed in Fortran, and later visualized more clearly in pre-processor programs (Mortran we used at Bell from Stanford) and later Pascal, the concept of the unrecognized inherent clash between local and global variables dominance became prominent. It is so easy to want the model of top/down corporatism (dictatorial centralized control, the elimination of general bottom/up unless initiated by the top that relies on competent response); or bottom/up communism (governmental) vs capitalism (currency) in the extremes. The illusions of absolutism are powerful inducement. Any of these systems can fail, devolving into the same desire for anarchy problem (no system).
That saying, “to every carpenter” is so insightful, because the default is to know only what we experience unless making conscious effort. Worker bees know in thousands of personal experiences, Academics in millions of words that can be totally representative, or totally devoid of meaning or useful causation.
I see more lately that the idea of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is a maximized dialectic meant to include 50% Economic (money) yet allow for 50% Citizen (collective) choice. Each provides needed checks to power of the other.
Anything beyond a 50/50 Vote can paralyze the Citizens and eventually goes off the cliffs. Elite dominance by any group or person that grabs power (authoritarian, nosay regimes seems to be the choice rigor of the day). I see the need to eliminate Filibuster Vote in the Senate more clearly than ever. However the farce of the “present” vote demonstrated in the House this month shows the flaw that sank European attempts prior to the US: if one can change the number needed to pass by voting present, the vote can be perilously rigged by a few.
My thoughts about that is to split a “present” vote 50/50 to the sides, to more properly weight the meaning of that vs “NO” or “YES”. Obviates the need for a weighted vote (a real problem in the SANDAG organization that is boiling over) or Super Majority machinations.
A vote is a type of statistic, yes/no being linear, but conditionals add non-linear effects that can fester to dominance. Our Statistics suffer from similar flaws (Bayesian “Big Data” Statistics and Polling) that additions illusion to the outcome meaning. An underlying problem is the “ambiguity of the denominator” that equates low-frequency and high-frequency numerator summaries of events.
It appears that sometimes we are prisoners of our technologies (Romans had no zero), with wider and wider engagement of the culture which either resolves the dilemma, or breaks it apart. I believe this issue is a such, with some revisiting the limited priors to strip the newer, functional away as a child swating stack of blocks across the room.
Heartily disagree! Jill Abramson tagged Davos as a”circle jerk” of the most corrupt and greedy folks on earth, and probably in the history of the Earth (my take). And that is exactly what it is and when you get tagged by a fellow traveler, it is only a matter of time until it will unravel. Thank God!
Ask yourself: are you a little bit miffed that you’re not invited?
And ask yourself – how come not nearly so much comment about the capture of the Tory party by unelected and anonymously-funded think tanks?
Is that because you like the doctrines being peddled by such think tanks? And so the searchlight of your moral outrage is switched off?
“A secretively funded think tank that propelled Liz Truss’s disastrous rise to prime minister and devastating “mini-budget” quietly met with scores of MPs in the months before she took over, new documents reveal. The Institute of Economic Affairs boasted of securing access to 75 cross-party parliamentarians in its annual accounts for the financial year ending March 2022 published on Companies House earlier this week.”
See: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/institute-of-economic-affairs-liz-truss-2022-accounts/
See also: https://theferret.scot/think-tanks-host-over-forty-events-tory-conference/
That is, these well-funded and unelected people have priority access to MPs. Much more so than any ordinary voter. Implications for democracy lol. And the vacuity of so many modern politicians is such that they are eager to plagiarise and adopt the slick propaganda of these unelected bodies. Instant gravitas.
Modern Tories give a convincing impression of being ciphers for shadowy and anonymously-funded pressure groups. The implications for the British system of representative democracy are obvious.
Yet very little about it on Unherd lol.
If only the Tory Party had been captured by the IEA. It might then have some policies that were actually Conservative.
Regardless of political preferences, no-one likes having their lives controlled by a small sect of people far-removed from the everyday concerns of ordinary people.
I think that’s fair. If people are going to say the WEF has the capacity to control government, the UK government has been Conservative for some time now. There is some nutters on here that think the WEF is left wing. Lol. That might be why the down votes. They forget that if the characters running the WEF really are unscrupulously controlling government, they aren’t likely to have the scruples to care which side they buy off.
“There is some nutters here who think the WEF is left wing”.
There are some nutters here who are so myopic with ideological rage that they think that literally everything they hate- from global corporations to the laws of atmospheric physics to an over-boiled egg- are left wing.
There’s nothing in their furious minds that can’t be twisted into the most simple-minded story, no matter what tortuous contradictions might be needed to iron-out the complexities of actual reality. Finding real explanations of events or motivations for the multiple drivers of change is of no interest whatsoever- its purely about stoking a simple Manichean ‘Good Fight’. Rationalism was thrown under the bus miles back.
I really like the way you put that.
I really like the way you put that.
“There is some nutters here who think the WEF is left wing”.
There are some nutters here who are so myopic with ideological rage that they think that literally everything they hate- from global corporations to the laws of atmospheric physics to an over-boiled egg- are left wing.
There’s nothing in their furious minds that can’t be twisted into the most simple-minded story, no matter what tortuous contradictions might be needed to iron-out the complexities of actual reality. Finding real explanations of events or motivations for the multiple drivers of change is of no interest whatsoever- its purely about stoking a simple Manichean ‘Good Fight’. Rationalism was thrown under the bus miles back.
If it had been captured by it why is Truss no longer the PM?
Because shes an incompetent idiot. Not everything needs to be squeezed into dumb conspiracy theories
Do you think that’s all it was? Do you think the market reaction was just because they thought she’d fluffed the books?
Well I’m open to other suggestions…
I’ve yet to hear any convincing ones, least of all the claims here that she somehow threatened the global financial and ultra free-market elites- quite the opposite, she was their baby. She just happened, unfortunately for them, to be wholly inept.
Well that was the biggest thing that didn’t make sense really to me was that the market didn’t like it, I thought they’d be all for her budget it was pro business, free trade etc. I know they said she’d over done it but still.
I did bother you on a comment above regarding the phone hacking nord stream business that was going on around then. I could be way off on that having anything to do with her having to go though, I accept that.
Yes, it was pro-business/free trade, but it was also about to blow a hole in the budget by decreasing tax income without paying for it with specified spending cuts.
Truss may well have wanted to enact cuts, in line with the standard ‘small-state’ ideology; but she didn’t include anything substantial in the “mini-budget”, and its that which lost her the backing of the financial markets. She lost it by ineptly thinking she could do the tax cuts (the fun part) immediately and deal with the financial repercussions of that later.
Yes, it was pro-business/free trade, but it was also about to blow a hole in the budget by decreasing tax income without paying for it with specified spending cuts.
Truss may well have wanted to enact cuts, in line with the standard ‘small-state’ ideology; but she didn’t include anything substantial in the “mini-budget”, and its that which lost her the backing of the financial markets. She lost it by ineptly thinking she could do the tax cuts (the fun part) immediately and deal with the financial repercussions of that later.
Well that was the biggest thing that didn’t make sense really to me was that the market didn’t like it, I thought they’d be all for her budget it was pro business, free trade etc. I know they said she’d over done it but still.
I did bother you on a comment above regarding the phone hacking nord stream business that was going on around then. I could be way off on that having anything to do with her having to go though, I accept that.
Well I’m open to other suggestions…
I’ve yet to hear any convincing ones, least of all the claims here that she somehow threatened the global financial and ultra free-market elites- quite the opposite, she was their baby. She just happened, unfortunately for them, to be wholly inept.
Do you think that’s all it was? Do you think the market reaction was just because they thought she’d fluffed the books?
Because shes an incompetent idiot. Not everything needs to be squeezed into dumb conspiracy theories
If only the Tory Party had been captured by the IEA. It might then have some policies that were actually Conservative.
Regardless of political preferences, no-one likes having their lives controlled by a small sect of people far-removed from the everyday concerns of ordinary people.
I think that’s fair. If people are going to say the WEF has the capacity to control government, the UK government has been Conservative for some time now. There is some nutters on here that think the WEF is left wing. Lol. That might be why the down votes. They forget that if the characters running the WEF really are unscrupulously controlling government, they aren’t likely to have the scruples to care which side they buy off.
If it had been captured by it why is Truss no longer the PM?
Ask yourself: are you a little bit miffed that you’re not invited?
And ask yourself – how come not nearly so much comment about the capture of the Tory party by unelected and anonymously-funded think tanks?
Is that because you like the doctrines being peddled by such think tanks? And so the searchlight of your moral outrage is switched off?
“A secretively funded think tank that propelled Liz Truss’s disastrous rise to prime minister and devastating “mini-budget” quietly met with scores of MPs in the months before she took over, new documents reveal. The Institute of Economic Affairs boasted of securing access to 75 cross-party parliamentarians in its annual accounts for the financial year ending March 2022 published on Companies House earlier this week.”
See: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/institute-of-economic-affairs-liz-truss-2022-accounts/
See also: https://theferret.scot/think-tanks-host-over-forty-events-tory-conference/
That is, these well-funded and unelected people have priority access to MPs. Much more so than any ordinary voter. Implications for democracy lol. And the vacuity of so many modern politicians is such that they are eager to plagiarise and adopt the slick propaganda of these unelected bodies. Instant gravitas.
Modern Tories give a convincing impression of being ciphers for shadowy and anonymously-funded pressure groups. The implications for the British system of representative democracy are obvious.
Yet very little about it on Unherd lol.
Most of the rhetoric against the WEF talks about the perils of globalisation. No one has yet explained to me why greater cooperation between different governments is inherently bad. It will certainly help to reduce global poverty. We can see that there is a natural antipathy to it, expressed in Brexit, but that doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t make sense.
As with so many political or economic terms, it depends what you understand by ‘globalisation’.
From your post, I would interpret ‘globalisation’ as a benign approach to cooperation around the world. Sounds reasonable.
For others ‘globalisation’ means businesses effectively shifting production and services out of their home country to those parts of the world where the goods and services can be obtained at lowest cost. Nice for the business-owners, nice for the people in poorer countries who have an increased work opportunities. Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.
And at the political level – the central point of the article – ‘globalisation’ means that a minute ultra-powerful elite makes decisions for everyone on the planet … bypassing nations, bypassing democratic legitimacy, bypassing the wishes of the people. Not nice for anyone. Well, unless you are in the stated 6,000 or 7,000, of course.
“Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.”
We end up with an eternally expanding number of increasingly impoverished plebes buying ever shoddier junk from China at the dollar store. But the globalists themselves are doing well and that’s all that matters.
“Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.”
We end up with an eternally expanding number of increasingly impoverished plebes buying ever shoddier junk from China at the dollar store. But the globalists themselves are doing well and that’s all that matters.
I think you may have missed the point. The WEF sets itself above governments which are useful to it only insofar as they adopt its agenda. To the WEF governments answerable to their electorates are a potential obstacle if those electorates don’t want what is good for them (as defined by the WEF).
Global poverty will not be reduced while those who are in it produce most of the world population & expect others to feed them!
You dont expect to be fed then? You’re entirely self-sufficent in food production, unlike the greedy, sponging scum in sub-Saharan Africa?
Thanks for that intelligent insight into the modern geopolitical and agricultural situation
You dont expect to be fed then? You’re entirely self-sufficent in food production, unlike the greedy, sponging scum in sub-Saharan Africa?
Thanks for that intelligent insight into the modern geopolitical and agricultural situation
I suppose if it was only about cooperation, many of the objections would go away. Are policies being vigorously debated domestically and then leaders look to the WEF to find ways to cooperate to implement them? Or are the policies being determined by the elites and then imposed on the people? In itself that doesn’t make them wrong. The elites know they are more likely to be right than the people, so this all makes perfect sense on a certain level. It’s only the small problem of the corrupting influence of power. Without proper accountability, the history of the world shows that the power will always be exercised primarily to the benefit of the powerful. Look no further than the yachts and private jets parked outside as they deliberate on how to save the world from carbon dioxide – not theirs of course. Yours.
Unless you love freedom.
Its inherantly bad because they think you can bring about beneficial change by force. Human evolution shows this is not true, most beneficial change comes from random discoveries and accidents – guns, germs and steel if you will. The consequence of one entity be it USSR or WEF thinking they hold the key to history and happiness is war with their opponents and deaths of both sides plus a lot of innocent bystanders. WEF look scary in he now BUT with historical perspective i think less so. Stephen Pinker, Jared Diamon et al say it better than i could.
Perhaps for similar reasons to why we have anti trust laws to prevent cartels ? There are clearly different types of “cooperation” and not all are in the general public interest.
It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty. That requires governments to butt out – not interfere.
Nothing at all about leaving the EU means that we must cooperate less with other countries as you appear to imply). Just that we intend to do it differently – and hopefully in a more effective and productive way than the rather bureaucratic, slow moving and protectionist EU does.
‘It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty.’
Maybe government should leave free trade to the market. No sanctions, tariffs etc.
Then maybe corporations could leave government to politicians.
Indeed.
Indeed.
‘It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty.’
Maybe government should leave free trade to the market. No sanctions, tariffs etc.
Then maybe corporations could leave government to politicians.
As with so many political or economic terms, it depends what you understand by ‘globalisation’.
From your post, I would interpret ‘globalisation’ as a benign approach to cooperation around the world. Sounds reasonable.
For others ‘globalisation’ means businesses effectively shifting production and services out of their home country to those parts of the world where the goods and services can be obtained at lowest cost. Nice for the business-owners, nice for the people in poorer countries who have an increased work opportunities. Not nice for the original employees in the home country, who are now unemployed.
And at the political level – the central point of the article – ‘globalisation’ means that a minute ultra-powerful elite makes decisions for everyone on the planet … bypassing nations, bypassing democratic legitimacy, bypassing the wishes of the people. Not nice for anyone. Well, unless you are in the stated 6,000 or 7,000, of course.
I think you may have missed the point. The WEF sets itself above governments which are useful to it only insofar as they adopt its agenda. To the WEF governments answerable to their electorates are a potential obstacle if those electorates don’t want what is good for them (as defined by the WEF).
Global poverty will not be reduced while those who are in it produce most of the world population & expect others to feed them!
I suppose if it was only about cooperation, many of the objections would go away. Are policies being vigorously debated domestically and then leaders look to the WEF to find ways to cooperate to implement them? Or are the policies being determined by the elites and then imposed on the people? In itself that doesn’t make them wrong. The elites know they are more likely to be right than the people, so this all makes perfect sense on a certain level. It’s only the small problem of the corrupting influence of power. Without proper accountability, the history of the world shows that the power will always be exercised primarily to the benefit of the powerful. Look no further than the yachts and private jets parked outside as they deliberate on how to save the world from carbon dioxide – not theirs of course. Yours.
Unless you love freedom.
Its inherantly bad because they think you can bring about beneficial change by force. Human evolution shows this is not true, most beneficial change comes from random discoveries and accidents – guns, germs and steel if you will. The consequence of one entity be it USSR or WEF thinking they hold the key to history and happiness is war with their opponents and deaths of both sides plus a lot of innocent bystanders. WEF look scary in he now BUT with historical perspective i think less so. Stephen Pinker, Jared Diamon et al say it better than i could.
Perhaps for similar reasons to why we have anti trust laws to prevent cartels ? There are clearly different types of “cooperation” and not all are in the general public interest.
It is global free trade and innovation which produce economic growth and reduce global poverty. That requires governments to butt out – not interfere.
Nothing at all about leaving the EU means that we must cooperate less with other countries as you appear to imply). Just that we intend to do it differently – and hopefully in a more effective and productive way than the rather bureaucratic, slow moving and protectionist EU does.
Most of the rhetoric against the WEF talks about the perils of globalisation. No one has yet explained to me why greater cooperation between different governments is inherently bad. It will certainly help to reduce global poverty. We can see that there is a natural antipathy to it, expressed in Brexit, but that doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t make sense.