There was a touch of irony this year, as a number of regulars stayed at home, including all of the UK’s big hitters. Google’s big party was noticeably scaled-down. AIG’s big bash didn’t happen, nor did Citigroup’s. It just didn’t seem like a good idea to be jet setting this winter, what with all the bailouts, lay-offs and labour union actions. It seems Gordon Brown had bigger fish to fry, namely, the whole of the UK economy.
One wonders what on earth all these great minds have been doing in Davos for the last 10 years, whilst Wall Street and the City of London built mountains of derivatives, ‘collateralised’ debt obligations and laid waste to the real value of our money markets.
Predictably, globalist neoliberal-leaning media pundits in Davos are now musing over the crisis, declaring to the public, "Well, we have trusted in the ‘Invisible Hand’ to make everything turn out all right... but it’s just not working anymore". Invisible hand? I remember that term from 9th Grade economics.
Could it be that this fabled “Invisible Hand' they are referring might possibly be... our very own fractional reserve Federal Reserve banking system? Hardly invisible, it's more a slight of hand where they print stacks of money out of thin air and then lend it back to our governments at 17.5% interest, paid for by Federal Income Taxes. Fed policy is what creates and pops our bubbles. It’s the very same slight of hand that was used to pass the bailouts and carte blanch TARP programs. Not surprisingly, there was no mention of the intellectual or financial integrity of these bailouts during these last two weeks at Davos. No, that would be like holding a mirror up to the situation(most top CEO's look like a train wreck without their foundation on).
Luminaries, who for whatever reason, decline even mentioning the name(Central Banking) of that very system which runs our economic lives, prefer “Davos-speak” instead, misdirecting the moral debate with maxims like “… we all are to blame for this terrible situation. Society’s thirst for easy credit. The end of Capitalism? We need a New World Order.” They are basicly saying we need a one world government to restrain the evil markets. As if it were the markets themselves that were our real problem here. It's pretty clear now after seeing the bailouts go full cycle(the hording of cash, the lying to Congress, the secret payoffs to banks) that "Crony Capitalism" is the real problem and we don't require a new world government to flush that out of our system.
We might cry to our Representitives, or even our new President. But that's no better than blaming the burger cook or the manager at McDonalds for the price of that Big Mac, whilst never once challenging the franchise owner. You never meet the franchise owner.
Still more of this year’s Davos-speak: "Almost half the world’s population, 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day — virtually outside of the global economy. It’s truly terrible. We have an obligation to bring these poor people into our global economy."
Hold on now, some of those $2 a day people are working very much inside the great trans-global economy. They are the cheap labour which secures our cheap consumer goods at the Wall Marts and Targets of the world. Most CEO’s swanning through the ski lodges and champagne parties of Davos have, no doubt, built their own transnational super-profits and shareholder dividends on the backs of these very same $2 a day Chinese slaves.
You can bet that Bono’s last U2 album was slapped up somewhere in the Far East too...
It's a very special club indeed. These CEOs and political elite have been meeting for over 10 years, networking, power-brokering, Powerpoint-ing, attending green junkets and globalization symposiums, but all the while, they forgot to consult the people who really know what the hell is making this world turn- us. You and me. Davos really is the ultimate in Ivory Towers. One wonders how long it will last.
You see, the real economy was fine. We worked, toiled, traded, invoiced, delivered, paid our taxes- and planned for the future. But the fake, or ‘PONZI’ economy, well… that one just collapsed, and dragged us all down in the process. Now is as good a time as any to get out of paper and into gold, as well as grow your own food. No kidding.
But bailouts and Al Gore’s carbon footprint aside, I hope you enjoy this beautiful winter. And whatever you do, don’t stress about the economy. Apparently, Obama and Gordon have got their hands on the wheel, while the bankers diligently direct traffic…
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