Coverage of the World Economic Forum in the small village of Davos, Switzerland is a wierd affair. Big news should come out of the conference, given the list of attendees – CEOs, lawmakers, presidents and prime ministers – who spend time together fascinated about the world’s great problems.
And yet nothing succeeds. There is little real news, if any.
I’m saying this not from my home a brief walk from the convention center and alleged motion site, but from my office in Recent York. It has been years since I attended and I actually have to say I often miss the real hot chocolate served there versus the fake Swiss Miss stuff I grew up with.
But not much else.
You could remember the big “news” in January 2020 when then-President Donald Trump arrived on the scene and told CNBC that the emerging fears of a deadly coronavirus spreading around the world and shutting down major economies was no big deal. In his words, “we’ve it under control; It’ll be all right”.
You understand what happened later.
![Ugandan climate justice activist Vanessa Nakate](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/world-economic-forum-2.jpg?w=1024)
This 12 months’s event, which ended on Friday, was clearly in line with the forum’s futility, its growing awakening, and its proposed progressive solutions that the majority Americans couldn’t care less about. In response to my sources who attended the meeting, great people talked about impending global recession, global warming, population decline in China, war in Ukraine, falling wages in places like Asia. Did I mention global warming?
Loads of panels and speeches on these topics, but few solutions beyond the usual bromides about forcing Americans to offer up gas guzzlers for unaffordable electric cars or raising taxes to cure world hunger. For comic relief, Oliver Stone spoke about his recent documentary about the need to make use of nuclear power to stop, you guessed it, climate change.
Everlasting worries
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that these worries are neither unique nor directly existential – the talking classes agonize over these items continuously and seemingly without end. The standard litany of solutions is and has all the time been quite unrealistic.
Subsequently, there is no reason to fly to Switzerland and pollute the atmosphere much more to indulge your paranoia about the impending end of humanity.
So why do people walk? As a reporter, I went because I wanted to fulfill CEOs, check with Jamie Dimon or Larry Fink a few story – until it occurred to me that I could do it here in Recent York.
It seems to me that CEOs leave to get away from their wives, get good press by virtue signaling, and perhaps do some business. And for those struggling at home, perhaps change the narrative.
![David Solomon](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/world-economic-forum-6.jpg?w=1024)
I saw David Solomon, the beleaguered CEO of Goldman Sachs, attend and take a look at to clarify to reporters his bank’s recent problems: slowing deals, rising expenses on account of the ill-fated attack on retail banking, and heavy losses in profits.
Solomon didn’t wish to run away from his wife, but perhaps the more skeptical US-dominated media (mostly The Post) that describes him facing a seething revolt from some partners angered by his management style is said to be rough, as if it broke the CEO stereotype—and the way he cut jobs and bonuses in a 12 months of no deals.
So he headed to Davos to point out he was in control by frankly explaining Goldman’s fourth-quarter earnings drop – again, as if his previous mea culpas weren’t enough.
Did it change the narrative quite a bit? Not quite; my sources at the Manhattan firm say that individuals who hate Solomon still hate him.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, made the trip as he all the time does, which is smart on paper: BlackRock is the world’s largest financial manager, and greater than a number of big clients were present. So is “The Mooch,” hedge fund impresario Anthony Scaramucci who runs SkyBridge Capital, a so-called fund of funds that invests in other hedge funds and is all the time on the lookout for clients.
But again, you’re feeling like it might be higher in the event that they each stayed home; Hot chocolate in Davos is not enough to persuade some sovereign wealth fund to spend billions of dollars as rates of interest rise and markets begin to waver.
![Larry Fink](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/world-economic-forum-7.jpg?w=1024)
And consider what happens to each of them here. Fink gets a bum from Conservatives for being fanatic about ESG investing, which is seen as left-wing capitalism to make use of BlackRock’s investments in corporations to encourage them to scale back their carbon footprint, etc.
He is not a fanatic. Removed from it, based on facts and what actually comes out of his mouth and what BlackRock actually does. Nonetheless, his problem is not together with his fellow travelers in the global elite, but with the recent GOP majority in Congress and red state officials who have the desire to make BlackRock the goal of anti-ESG populist anger.
For his part, Mooch is caught up in all the Sam Bankman and Fried fuss not as a goal for prosecutors investigating the alleged fraud, but because he, like many others, considered the SBF to be a white knight.
SBF has taken a stake in SkyBridge and is attempting to extricate itself from the mess.
Undecided how going to Davos for decent chocolate achieves this.