The Swiss town of Davos (10,000 inhabitants) in the lovely canton of Graubünden is getting ready for the annual invasion of thousands of high-profile visitors from all over the world. They will attend this year's World Economic Forum meeting, arriving by private jet and special flights, while their safety will be entrusted to five thousand Swiss soldiers and policemen. Thousands of others will make their beds, cook their meals, make their coffee and tea, serve their drinks and clean their rooms. The conference participants each fork over 50,000 dollars for the privilege of attending. Most don't pay that out of their own pockets, though. The shekels are paid by the companies and organizations they represent. In case they represent governments, as many of the participants do, the money ultimately comes from taxes paid by citizens.
In short, the WEF meeting is a massive multi-million dollar operation. All participants have to promise they will not divulge what is being discussed at the many meetings. In other words, whatever is being discussed, whatever commitments and promises are made at Davos, is a secret. In this respect it is, to say the least, interesting that there are so many journalists and media executives among the participants. In doing so and in promising secrecy, they are actually betraying their professional code of ethics. Invariably, when asked about the Davos meetings, participants will answer that it just a "debating club,” where people come to see each other and to discuss themes of common interest. Really?
This year's list of participants numbers almost eighty pages. Big delegations will be arriving from the US, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, the EU, Saudi Arabia, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. President "Belinsky” of the Ukraine (as Biden calls him) will address the attendants by video. I am sure they are looking forward to hear another bout of russophobic drivel.
As for the WEF's "mission and values”, these are impressive: in its own words, these involve "independence, impartiality, moral integrity and intellectual integrity.” Hm, sounds truly lofty doesn't it? I am afraid, however, that these wonderful principles are not being duly adhered to by many of the WEF's one thousand "partners” (firms and organizations). Nor are the people closely associated with the WEF without blemish.
The WEF conference is supervised by a Board of Trustees, "exceptional individuals who act as guardians of its mission and values.” This board looks like a veritable Rogues' Gallery. It includes Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world's biggest investment fund, Canada's deputy PM Chrystia Freeland (noted for her outspoken fascist values), former US Vice President Al Gore (the world's biggest climate swindler), European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde (convicted for allowing massive financial swindling), and David Rubenstein, Chairman of the Carlyle Group that heavily invests in the corrupt Western arms industry.
Among WEF partners, there are many firms that if they do not routinely engage in criminal activity, at least systematically display grossly unethical business practices. These include Pfizer, responsible over the last few years for trying to hide data on the lethal effects of their merchandise from the public. If that weren't enough, Pfizer's anti-covid jabs have killed hundreds of thousands of people. George Soros' Open Society Foundation, another WEF partner, with the 32 billion dollars George is boasting to have funneled to worthwhile causes across the world, is also a highly questionable outfit. In what the WEF must regard as a display of "moral integrity”, Soros pumped millions into the Ukraine to finance the 2014 bloody coup d'etat known as the Maidan Revolution. Other WEF partners exhibiting "moral integrity” include H&M exploiting child labor in Asian countries as well as the ING. This is actually one of Europe's biggest money laundering outfits.
The reason that the public is being kept in the dark about what the WEF actually does and stands for, hiding behind such wonderful ideals and principles that it almost brings tears to one's eyes, is that the media don't report on its wheelings and dealings.
The media don't report, because their journalists, executives, publishers, and editors-in-chief are attending the WEF meeting. They represent some of the most widely respected and prestigious outlets. These include the big worldwide news agencies such as AP, Reuters and AFP and reputable TV networks (ARD, CNN, CNBC, Deutsche Welle, Globo-TV from Brazil, France-2, Euronews, ITV News, NBC News, NHK, TV Tokyo, ZDF, CNBC from India, CGTN from China and TV Azteca from Mexico). There will be editors-in-chief from the Toronto Globe and Mail, Le Figaro, Handelsbatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the New York Times CEO and staff members. Journalists will be there from El País, Folha de São Paulo, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, La Stampa, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Times (London), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Guardian, Daily Telegraph. Influential weeklies and monthlies will be represented as well: Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Sunday Times, The Economist, Fortune and The Atlantic.
As you can see, there will actually be a small army of journalists at Davos, but they will not report on the meeting. They have promised not to. Can you imagine a journalist participating in an event where he meets hundreds of business people, politicians and all kinds of influential people and not be tempted to report on it? Would you continue trusting an outlet that employs journalists that actually forsake their duties? All those journalists at Davos may vow to display "independence, impartiality, moral integrity and intellectual integrity,” but do they really? Am I the only one who detects a slight conflict of interest here?
The WEF claims to be "committed to improving the state of the world”. Wow, one would almost be tempted to believe it. Sounds a bit like your local butcher advertising his business: "committed to improving the state of your health.” How cheap and how utterly infantile, really.
WEF chairman Klaus Schwab will address the participants in his heavily German-accented English, thus underlining that he has an uncanny similarity to Ernst Blofeld, the crazy villain of those James Bond movies from the 1960s and 1970s. Bald like Schwab, Blofeld also has a posh mountain hideaway and that same thick German accent. In those days, all movie villains seemed to share that German accent and they all wanted to "conker zuh wurlt” or to blow it up.
Schwab seems to think that he already has "conkert zuh wurlt,” and misses no opportunity to tell the rest of us that "ve vill oun nussing but ve vill bee heppy!”
Gee, that sounds like a bad movie. I am happy Schwab does not say he wants to blow up the world.