The Manila Times

Both the sensible and bizarre emerge from Davos 2023

YEN MAKABENTA

I SCANNED long and hard the international media for instructive reports and insights into the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. So important an assembly, which rivals the United Nations General Assembly in size and clout, deserves more than a routinary glance.

In its wrap-up of Davos 2023, Reuters summarized what emerged from the frank exchange of views over how the world can tackle the biggest issues in 2023:

Economy: Gloom and doom heading into Davos turned into cautious optimism by the end with the global economic outlook for the year ahead looking better than feared.

But the WEF’s annual meeting was filled with discussion of plenty of risks, including inflationary pressures from China’s reopening and rising debt distress in the developing world.

“Things are not great, but they are much better than they could have been.” – Daniel Pinto, JP Morgan’s (JPM.N) president and chief operating officer.

Ukraine: For Ukraine’s allies, Davos was all about doubling down on better weapons and financial support for Kyiv to defend itself against Russia. Outside the West though, fears of an economic downturn highlighted global divisions as some delegates encouraged a quick return to the negotiating table.

“This week listening to the politicians, I was surprised in a way because I got the feeling that no-one really knows exactly where we are heading and what the solutions can be.” – Tanja Fajon, Slovenia deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

“If we want a negotiated peaceful solution tomorrow, we need to provide more weapons today.” – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Trade: Be careful of friendshoring, warned the World Trade Organization’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the Big 3 trading powers of the United States, Europe and China pushed their new industrial policies.

What was not clear was how the rest of the world fits in to new trade policies that protect workers and redefine supply chains.

“This becomes a rich-country game, right? We can subsidize this, you can subsidize that — what about the poor countries, who have limited fiscal room? They get left out in the cold.” – Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Climate: The carbon crowd received a warm reception as the renewable industry rubbed shoulders with Big Oil executives. Awash with cash after a year of high oil prices, fossil fuel producers have the firepower to invest in green energy. But efforts on CEO green pledges and climate financing appeared sluggish.

“How do we get there? The lesson I have learned in the last years ... is money, money, money, money, money, money, money.” – US climate envoy John Kerry on meeting the Paris

Agreement’s global warming target.

Davos juxtaposed the energy industry’s potential and peril.

Businesses are “under enormous cost pressure. They need to find ways to do the same things cheaper.” – Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies

China: China declared itself open for business in a speech by Vice Premier Liu He that was broadly welcomed but also raised inflationary fears and left people waiting to see what this would mean for existing tensions with the United States.

“The growth forecast now for China is 4.5 percent. I would not personally be surprised when that would be topped.” – Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann

Inflation Reduction Act: Dubbed a game changer for climate change by IEA head Fatih Birol, the Europeans had plenty to gripe about when it came to America’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The European Union said it would mobilize state aid and a sovereignty fund to keep firms from moving to the US.

Financial service: Global financial institutions are grappling with how to right-size for a slowdown, while dealing with a host of other headwinds. With the threat of inflation still hanging over central banks, financiers are facing demands from regulators for higher capital levels to prepare for a downturn, making some businesses unprofitable.

“We shall stay the course until such a time when we have moved into restrictive territory for long enough so that we can return inflation to 2 percent in a timely manner.” – Christine Lagarde, IMF

Insanity on display?

Issues and Insights took a dim view of what happened in Davos in an editorial on January 20, titled, “Insanity on display”:

“John Kerry, former senator, former secretary of state, and now chief climate alarmist for the Biden administration, said in so many words Tuesday during his World Economic Forum rant that it’s too late to save the planet from global warming. Yet he claimed climate programs still need more “money, money, money, money, money, money, money.” The only reason he’s not the worst person in the world is because he had so much competition at Davos.

What Kerry actually said was that he is “not convinced we’re going to get there in time to do what the scientists said, which is avoid the worst consequences of the crisis,” meaning that he doubts that the global temperature will stay under the cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature set by scientists (though it is actually a random figure with no scientific support).

Yet he continues to crusade for a cause that hopes to strip Westerners of both their wealth — yes, he said “money” seven times — and freedom to move about.

With absolutely zero self-awareness, the man who flies in private jets, has multiple homes (which most of us would consider mansions) and more cars than most families, and up until a few years ago owned a yacht, preached about “the way we live,” and thundered against “the incredible sort of destructive process of growth the way we interpret it.” He called it “robber-baron growth.”

But his luxurious lifestyle and those of the other wealthy men and women fighting global warming must be OK, because he assured members of his fawning audience that they are all special, “a select group of human beings” who “are able to sit in a room and come together and, uh, actually talk about saving the planet.”

No less nauseating was the performance of another failed US presidential candidate, Al Gore, the mother of the global warming cult. He came off like the crazy uncle that the family tries to keep away from the outside world. Author and columnist Michael Walsh said that Gore is a man who appears to need help. During his tirade, Gore gesticulated “wildly, his face reddening, his voice rising,” said Walsh. “The former vice president of the United States became a man in the deadly grip of a panicked, violent, superstitious reaction to … the weather.”

Kerry and Gore were not the only dastards in Davos. Nor is the global warming scare the lone weapon the elites are using to exercise greater control over humanity. The unelected of the WEF are eager to push the world toward a universal collectivist state that would be held down under their boot and funded by a global tax. They would stamp out free speech, crush dissent, and quash privacy.”

Plot vs free speech

Washington Post columnist James Bovard denounced an even more sinister turn, a plot by the Davos crowd to curtail freedom of speech and the press, He wrote:

“If you expect billionaires and political weasels to save the Earth, then you’ll love the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The Swiss government assigned up to 5,000 Swiss troops to protect its attendees — except from prostitutes charging them $2,500 a night. Self-worship is obligatory in Davos.

“John Kerry, Joe Biden’s special climate envoy, hailed his fellow attendees as ‘extraterrestrial’ for their devotion to saving the Earth. Never mind that they all flew there on private jets.

“WEF is whooping up the ‘Great Reset’ — ‘building back better’ so that economies could emerge greener and fairer out of the pandemic.’

“But people around the globe are still recovering from the last time WEF stampeded policymakers. ‘WEF was hugely influential, championing every form of Covid control from lockdowns to vaccine mandates,’ observed Jeffrey Tucker, president of the Brownstone Institute.

“Freedom of speech is the greatest barrier to inflicting the Great Reset. Accordingly, the biggest peril the self-proclaimed ‘Global Shapers’ are targeting is ‘The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation.’

“WEF is calling for a ‘Global Framework To Regulate Harm Online.’

“The star of the panel was New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who proclaimed that disinformation is the ‘most existential’ of ‘every other major challenge that we are grappling with as a society.’ Sulzberger boasted.

“‘When we make mistakes, we acknowledge them in public and we correct them.’ Except for RussiaGate, its 1619 Project fairy tale, and a few dozen other howlers. Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson slammed the Times for being part of the Davos ‘corrupt circle-jerk.’

“The Davos pro-censorship fervor was epitomized by panelist Vera Jourová, European Commission vice president. She declared that the US ‘will have soon’ laws prohibiting ‘illegal hate speech’ like Europe has.

“WEF ‘s ‘Global Framework To Regulate Harm Online’ means worldwide censorship. But the WEF offers one of the best illustrations of how denunciations of ‘disinformation’ are self-serving shams.

“This bizarre notion was no WEF aberration. Last July, WEF proposed slashing ownership of private vehicles around the globe. And then there was the WEF pitch to save the planet by having people eat insects instead of red meat.

“According to WEF, individual freedom is a luxury that citizens can no longer afford. Would-be tyrants can always find lofty pretexts to enchain their victims. Yes, John Kerry, you are extraterrestrials — from one of those movies where the aliens try to conquer the Earth.”

Front Page

en-ph

2023-01-24T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-24T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://digitaledition.manilatimes.net/article/281827172891501

The Manila Times