Video: Rebel Media Reporters DESTROY CEO of Pfizer at World Economic Forum in Davos
The Big Pharma profiteer's walk of shame.
At the gathering of globalist elites for the World Economic Forum this week, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was confronted by Rebel Media reporters including Rebel Media chief Ezra Levant on the sidewalks of Davos, Switzerland. The Big Pharma profiteer clearly was unaccustomed to the kinds of persistent, pointed questioning Rebel Media lobbed at him about his central role in the COVID vaccine debacle.
Don’t miss this blistering video below:
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Look At The Extreme Social Insanity That Is Spreading All Over America
“More than 750 million people want to migrate to another country permanently, according to Gallup research published Monday, as 150 world leaders sign up to the controversial UN global compact which critics say makes migration a human right.” VIRGINIA HALE
As Harvard’s George Borjas has shown, unauthorized immigration reduces the wages of American workers by more than $100 billion a year. The poorest American workers, and those with the least education, are the most affected.
PAULETTE VARGHESE ALTMAIER
As Harvard’s George Borjas has shown, unauthorized immigration reduces the wages of American workers by more than $100 billion a year. The poorest American workers, and those with the least education, are the most affected.
PAULETTE VARGHESE ALTMAIER
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Previews ‘Bipartisan Coalition’ for Amnesty, Green Card Giveaway in Davos
2:58 While in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) previewed a “bipartisan coalition” that she claims to be forming to shape an immigration package that would include amnesty for some illegal aliens as well as a green card giveaway measure.
During a panel discussion with other American politicians, Sinema referenced a plan that she compiled with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) last year that included amnesty for at least two million illegal aliens and a green card giveaway program that would funnel hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into mostly white-collar American jobs.
Ultimately, the plan failed to gain traction in the House and Senate.
Sinema, speaking in Davos, called the plan “an immigration framework” that she hopes to restore in the new Congress. Sinema said:
In the winter … Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and I put out an immigration framework that both addresses security issues around creating [a] secure border so we can deter individuals who want to bring dangerous drugs and criminals into the country, which by the way are happening on a nearly unimpeded basis right now.
But we also need to reform the asylum system. Right now, we have an asylum system that actually creates a pull factor for criminal cartels in South America to bring individuals to this country, to our country, who have no legal basis for a permanent path to citizenship. [Emphasis added]
So we want to combine that with also making changes to our system to create a path to citizenship for DREAMers, ending the visa backlogs so we can actually hire the talent we need at all edges and across the entirety of the spectrum. [Emphasis added]
…
We are building the bipartisan coalition that we believe will allow us to pass legislation through both the House and the Senate this year. [Emphasis added]
Sinema’s corporate donors have a deep financial interest in inflating the United States labor market with more foreign workers whom they can hire, keeping wages down, and who will buy their products and invest in real estate, which gets more expensive with a constant inflow of new renters and buyers competing for limited inventory.
Most recently, for instance, the EAGLE Act — a fixture on big business’s legislative wishlist — was rejected by House Republicans and many Senate Democrats. In certain aspects, the bill’s seeking to open more green cards for companies to hire foreign workers mimics Sinema’s goal.
Sinema’s donors – like ComcastCorp, Alphabet Inc., Blackstone, American Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs – lobbied either directly or indirectly through the Business Roundtable for the EAGLE Act.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
While in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) previewed a “bipartisan coalition” that she claims to be forming to shape an immigration package that would include amnesty for some illegal aliens as well as a green card giveaway measure.
During a panel discussion with other American politicians, Sinema referenced a plan that she compiled with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) last year that included amnesty for at least two million illegal aliens and a green card giveaway program that would funnel hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into mostly white-collar American jobs.
Ultimately, the plan failed to gain traction in the House and Senate.
Sinema, speaking in Davos, called the plan “an immigration framework” that she hopes to restore in the new Congress. Sinema said:
In the winter … Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and I put out an immigration framework that both addresses security issues around creating [a] secure border so we can deter individuals who want to bring dangerous drugs and criminals into the country, which by the way are happening on a nearly unimpeded basis right now.
But we also need to reform the asylum system. Right now, we have an asylum system that actually creates a pull factor for criminal cartels in South America to bring individuals to this country, to our country, who have no legal basis for a permanent path to citizenship. [Emphasis added]
So we want to combine that with also making changes to our system to create a path to citizenship for DREAMers, ending the visa backlogs so we can actually hire the talent we need at all edges and across the entirety of the spectrum. [Emphasis added]
…
We are building the bipartisan coalition that we believe will allow us to pass legislation through both the House and the Senate this year. [Emphasis added]
Sinema’s corporate donors have a deep financial interest in inflating the United States labor market with more foreign workers whom they can hire, keeping wages down, and who will buy their products and invest in real estate, which gets more expensive with a constant inflow of new renters and buyers competing for limited inventory.
Most recently, for instance, the EAGLE Act — a fixture on big business’s legislative wishlist — was rejected by House Republicans and many Senate Democrats. In certain aspects, the bill’s seeking to open more green cards for companies to hire foreign workers mimics Sinema’s goal.
Sinema’s donors – like ComcastCorp, Alphabet Inc., Blackstone, American Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs – lobbied either directly or indirectly through the Business Roundtable for the EAGLE Act.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
World Economic Forum’s global risk report: A devastating picture of the capitalist crisis
Down through the years, the ideologists of the ruling classes have repeatedly accused Marxists of exaggeration and even “catastrophitis,” as they drew out the deepening contradictions of capitalism, which threaten the very future of civilisation.
Those who agree with such assessments, endlessly regurgitated through media and academic outlets, would do well to examine the “Global Risks Report 2023” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) prepared for the annual gathering that is taking place this week in Davos, Switzerland.
The report paints a devastating picture of a socioeconomic system hurtling towards disaster, outside of the control of the ruling elites for which the WEF speaks.
The executive summary begins by noting that the first years of the present decade “have heralded a particularly disruptive period in human history.”
Then follows a paragraph worth quoting in full:
As 2023 begins, the world is facing a set of risks that feel both wholly new and eerily familiar. We have seen the return of “older risks”—inflation, cost-of-living crises, trade wars, capital outflow from emerging markets, widespread social unrest, geopolitical confrontation and the spectre of nuclear warfare—which few of this generation’s business leaders and public policy-makers have experienced. These are being amplified by comparatively new developments in the global risks landscape, including unsustainable levels of debt, a new era of low growth, low global investment and de-globalisation, a decline in human development after decades of progress, rapid and unconstrained development of dual-use (civilian and military) technologies, and the growing pressure of climate change impacts and ambitions in an ever-shrinking window for a transition to a 1.5C world. Together, these are converging to shape a unique and uncertain and turbulent decade to come.
The Marxist analysis of the present situation is presented in the New Year’s Perspective of the World Socialist Web Site (2023: The global capitalist crisis and the growing offensive of the international working class), which notes that the accumulating pressures of the world capitalist crisis have “attained the equivalent of critical mass: that is, they have reached the point where the dynamic of crisis has passed beyond the ability of governments to control the movement toward a social cataclysm.”
Everything in the Global Risks Report confirms, in its own way, the veracity of this analysis, which is probably why the WEF document has received little or no coverage in the so-called mainstream media.
The report traces out a series of deepening crises, including the ever-worsening economic outlook, the intensification of geopolitical conflicts and tensions that are not confined to Ukraine, but extend far more broadly, the rapid deterioration of health and health care, and the effects of climate change, both in terms of the weather and the decline in biodiversity.
One of the most significant shifts in 2022 was the ending of the ultra-low interest rate regime initiated in response to the global financial crisis in 2008 and extended after the financial crisis of March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The monetary tightening implemented by the Fed and other major central banks to suppress the global wages upsurge by the working class is driving the world economy into recession.
But according to the WEF report:
Even if some economies experience a softer-than-expected landing, the end of the low-interest rate era will have significant ramifications for governments, businesses and individuals. The knock-on effects will be felt most acutely by the most vulnerable parts of society and already-fragile states, contributing to rising poverty, hunger, violent protests, political instability and even state collapse. ... Governments will continue to face a dangerous balancing act between protecting a broad swathe of their citizens from an elongated cost-of-living crisis without embedding inflation—and meeting debt and servicing costs as revenues come under pressure from an economic downturn, an increasingly urgent transition to new energy systems, and a less stable geopolitical environment.
The report warns that social unrest and political instability will not be confined to emerging markets, as economic pressures hit the middle-income bracket:
Mounting citizen frustration at losses in human development and declining social mobility, together with a widening gap in values and equality, are posing existential challenges to political systems around the world.
The global slowdown and the development of recession in many parts of the world will increase geopolitical tensions and conflicts:
Economic warfare is becoming the norm with increasing clashes between global powers and state intervention in markets over the next two years.
Economic policies will not only be used defensively, but “increasingly offensively to constrain the rise of others.”
The report also points to the increase of military spending as a proportion of GDP by the US, along with others, and notes the decision by Japan to double its military spending:
Widespread defence spending, particularly on research and development, could deepen insecurity and promote a race between global and regional powers towards more advanced weaponry.
This will be accompanied by the rise of blocs that tie together countries across security, trade, innovation and investment.
The report does not raise it, but this assessment blows out of the water the World Economic Forum’s earlier pronouncements that the globalisation of production and finance through the operation of the “free market” would lead to peace and prosperity.
That analysis, advanced in the years following the dissolution of the USSR, ignored the fact, emphasised by the Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, that such organic peaceful development was impossible because the world is riven by the contradiction between global economy and the nation-state system in which capitalism is rooted.
The WEF report contains little analysis of the extent of the pandemic, apparently subscribing to the view, contrary to the evidence, that COVID is in the past. But it does point to the crisis in health care and the threat of further pandemics, under conditions where health care systems are facing “intensifying financial pressure.”
It states:
As COVID-19 recedes from the headlines, complacency appears to be setting in on preparing for future pandemics and other global health threats. Healthcare systems face worker burnout and continued shortages at a time when fiscal consolidation risks deflecting attention and resources elsewhere. More frequent and widespread infectious disease outbreaks amidst a background of chronic diseases over the next decade risks pushing exhausted healthcare systems to the brink of failure around the world.
Health problems will also continue to mount because of the effects of climate change and the disintegration of ecosystems, leading to an increased occurrence of zoonotic diseases—those which, as with SARS and COVID, start in animals but then leap over into the human population.
An objective measure of human progress is the increase in life expectancy. Today, for the first time since World War II, it is starting to decline. According to the report: “People are living more years in poor health, and we may soon face a more sustained reversal in life expectancy gains beyond the influence of the pandemic.”
On the issue of climate change, as the prospect of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius fades into the distance, the report notes that climate and environmental issues are a core source of risks over the next decade, but are at the same time “the risks for which we are seen to be the least prepared.”
It adds:
The lack of deep, concerted progress on climate targets has exposed the divergence between what is scientifically necessary to achieve net zero and what is politically feasible.
The same point could be made on the question of COVID elimination, which, however, the WEF chooses to evade. It does not even approach an explanation for the policy of mass infection pursued by governments all over the world because that would mean touching on the “holy of holies”— capitalist property relations, on which the global economy is based, and which make impossible the application of science where it conflicts with the interests of private profit.
Summing up the situation, the report says that present and future risks
interact with each other to form a “polycrisis”—a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part.
Or, as the World Socialist Web Site’s New Year Perspective explains, the crisis of capitalism has reached a “critical mass.” That perspective makes another decisive point—that the actions of capitalist governments are increasingly irrational, and instead of alleviating the crisis, intensify it.
The same point is made in another way in the conclusion of the WEF report:
Without minimising the need for an effective response, the over-prioritisation of current challenges can quickly descend into a doom-loop of continuous global shocks, whereby resources are absorbed by crisis management, rather than directed to preparedness for future risks. Complex challenges cannot be solved by short-term decision-making—and yet long-term thinking alone is insufficient in the face of currently unfolding crises.
The image comes to mind of the boy rushing to put his finger in the dyke as the whole structure gives way to the flood.
Anyone still labouring under the illusion that the ruling classes have some progressive solution to the deepening crisis should read the concluding paragraph.
There we find the following:
In a complex risks outlook, there must be a better balance between national preparedness and global cooperation. We need to act together, to shape a pathway out of cascading crises and build collective preparedness to the next global shock, whatever form it might take. Leaders must embrace complexity and act on a balanced vision to create a stronger, prosperous shared future.
In other words, the ruling elites, above all the oligarchs gathered at Davos with a collective wealth of trillions of dollars, whose actions over decades have led to an existential crisis for humankind, are somehow to turn on a dime and lead the way out of the disaster.
In fact, they have no policies to halt the deepening catastrophe, nor can they develop any, because, in the final analysis, it is rooted not in their psyche, but in the objective contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, which they defend above all else.
The capitalist ruling classes, and their political representatives, are the chief obstacles to human progress. But that does not mean they have no program. They do. It is to place the full burden of the crisis of their system on the backs of the working class and oppressed masses.
They are condemned by history, but are still a living social force, with vast resources and centuries of counterrevolutionary political experience. The way forward does not lie in appeals for them to change course, but in summoning the power of an even greater social force—the international working class—to remove them.
But for that enormous power to become transformed from potentiality to actuality, the working class must be armed with a clearly worked out program, grounded on the historically developed program and strategic lessons extracted by the world Trotskyist movement, represented today solely by the International Committee of the Fourth International, over the course of a century of unrelenting political and theoretical struggle.
The conclusion is a simple one. As the New Year’s Perspective of the WSWS outlined, the future of humanity depends on the triumph of socialism, and the achievement of this necessary objective depends on the building of the ICFI as the world party of socialist revolution.
Look At The Extreme Social Insanity That Is Spreading All Over America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mZhSndR6XM
As Harvard’s George Borjas has shown, unauthorized immigration reduces the wages of American workers by more than $100 billion a year. The poorest American workers, and those with the least education, are the most affected.
PAULETTE VARGHESE ALTMAIER
Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema Reaffirm Support, High-Five over Keeping Filibuster Rule in Davos
Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) reaffirmed their support for, and high-fived over, upholding the filibuster rule in the United States Senate last year during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.
As both senators have to face voters in 2024 if they choose to run for reelection, the two shared a high-five when Manchin asked Sinema if they still agreed on not ending the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber.
“We still don’t agree on getting rid of the filibuster, correct?” Manchin asked Sinema. “That’s correct,” she said before sharing a high-five:
Before the high-five, Sinema also suggested their actions led to a series of accomplishments and created an opportunity for partnerships, instead of the “my way or the highway” approach she accused former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and current Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) of having.
“That was the basis for the productivity, for some incredible achievements that made a difference for the American people in the last two years,” Sinema said.
The two senators made news last year when they would not vote to delete the filibuster in the Senate in order for the left to pass a voting rights bill last year. At the time of the vote, Sinema was a Democrat; since then, she has registered as an independent but has still caucused with the left.
As Breitbart News reported last week, Manchin and Sinema departed on their trip to the World Economic Forum to be a part of the United States’ delegation. However, the two lawmakers left before making any official announcement on whether or not they would be running for reelection in this cycle, leaving many people in question.
In the next election, the Senate Democrats will have to try to keep, if not expand, their 51-seat majority. That would involve potentially spending millions on protecting Sinema, who has already been fielding potential primary challengers after recently changing her party to independent. In addition, to there being open seats from some retiring members, some Democrat senators will be running in states that have turned redder over the years — such as Manchin.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
Watch–Republican Maria Salazar Lectures Americans in Davos: Illegal Aliens Are Owed Amnesty
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) lectured Americans while in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, urging them to accept amnesty for the nation’s 11 to 22 million illegal aliens.
During a panel discussion alongside Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and others, Salazar said some form of amnesty is necessary for illegal aliens living across the United States. She said:
We need to also give dignity to those people who are in the country and those are the people that I represent. We’re talking about 13 to 15 million people — who are, most of them, Hispanics, I would say 85 percent who speak my language, look like me, and sound like me — who are contributing to the economy of this country and they live in the shadows.
“So it’s time to seal the border … let’s see who comes in and who doesn’t and then turn around and give dignity, that doesn’t mean a path to citizenship, that means to include them and make them dignified members of our community,” she continued.
Last year, Salazar joined six other House Republicans in unveiling an amnesty plan that would have allowed illegal aliens to secure 10-year work permits to hold American jobs before then applying for green cards to permanently reside in the U.S.
An amnesty for illegal aliens, which would hugely inflate the U.S. labor market and likely spur more vast waves of illegal immigration, is critical for many of Salazar’s largest donors, who include real estate developers looking to build more housing and Wall Street-linked financial firms focused on driving up the number of consumers and available workers.
Independent analysis has shown that amnesty, in addition to more legal immigration, is a net loss for Americans’ job security and wages.
In 2013, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for American workers. Another CBO analysis, published in 2020, stated that “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”
Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.
Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”
Every year, the U.S. gives green cards to more than a million foreign nationals who can eventually sponsor an unlimited number of foreign relatives for green cards — a process known as “chain migration.” In addition, more than a million are brought to the U.S. on temporary work visas to take America jobs and millions of illegal aliens are arriving at the southern border annually. Many are being released into the U.S. interior where they can secure work permits.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
meeting of global elite - where demand for sexual services rockets during economic summit
- Prostitutes report a surge in business during the annual gathering of leaders
- Escorts are booked into delegates' hotels alongside business executives
- Sex workers dress in business attire and rub shoulders with the global elite
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The global elite tackling the world's greatest problems - including gender inequality -at the Davos summit are fuelling a surge in prostitution in the Swiss resort town.
Demand for sex work skyrockets each year at the meeting of world leaders and business tycoons who jet in from all around the world to rub shoulders with each other.
Escorts are booked into the same hotels as high-powered bosses and their employees during the five-day summit, which started on January 16.
One sex worker named Liana said she dresses in business attire so she doesn't stand out among the executives, despite prostitution being legal in Switzerland.
Salome Balthus (pictured), a sex worker and writer, is staying at a hotel near Davos during the summit
She told Bild she regularly sees an American who visits Switzerland multiple times a year and is among the 2,700 conference attendees.
Liana charges around €700 ($760) for an hour and €2,300 ($2,500) for the whole night, plus travel expenses.
The manager of one escort service in Aargau, 100 miles away from the summit, says she has already received 11 bookings and 25 inquiries - and expects many more to follow this week.
She told 20 Minuten: 'Some also book escorts for themselves and their employees to party in the hotel suite.'
Salome Balthus, a sex worker and writer, posted on Twitter: 'Date in Switzerland during #WWF means looking at the gun muzzles of security guards in the hotel corridor at 2 a.m. - and then sharing the giveaway chocolates from the restaurant with them and gossiping about the rich... #Davos #WEF.'
Demand for sex work skyrockets each year at the meeting of world leaders and business tycoons
The 36-year-old is staying at a hotel near Davos throughout the summit but refused to reveal who the influential clients are.
She cautioned: 'Believe me, you don't want to get into litigation with them.'
In 2020, an investigation by The Times found at least 100 prostitutes travel to Davos for the summit according to a Swiss police officer.
One official driver for the forum said he picked up one sex worker who claimed she had been forced by her 'boss' to sleep with an older client at a delegates' hotel.
Among the topics up for discussion at this year's summit are the Ukraine war, global inflation rates, climate change and inequality.
Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska will give a rare international address today at the annual gathering.
The Covid-19 pandemic torpedoed the event for the past two years but a springtime version was held eight months ago.
Alain Berset, president of Switzerland, Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, pose together today
Dozens of sessions on Tuesday will focus on issues as diverse as gender parity, the return of manufacturing, the green transition, efforts to end tuberculosis and the intersection of food, water and energy, which will feature actor Idris Elba.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are also among the speakers.
Nearly 600 chief executives and more than 50 heads of state or government are expected but it is never clear how much concrete action emerges from the elite event.
The elite gathering is regularly skewered by critics who argue that attendees are too out-of-touch or too profit- or power-minded to address the needs of common people and the planet.
Throughout the week, critics and activists will be waiting outside the Davos conference centre to try to hold decision-makers and business leaders to account.
It started on Sunday, when dozens of climate activists, some with clown makeup, braved snowfall to wave banners and chant slogans at the end of the Davos Promenade, a thoroughfare now lined with storefront logos of corporate titans like Accenture, Microsoft, Salesforce, Meta, as well as country 'houses' that promote national interests.
Greenpeace International also blasted use of corporate jets that ferry in bigwigs, saying such carbon-spewing transportation smacks of hypocrisy for an event touting its push for a greener world.
It said over 1,000 private-jet flights arrived and departed airports serving Davos in May.
Forum president Borge Brende acknowledged on Sunday that some government leaders and chief executives fly in that way.
'I think what is more important than that is to make sure we have agreements on how we, overall, move and push the envelope when it comes to the green agenda,' he said.
Did I mention that Michelle and Barry just purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard, which is 95 percent white?
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas own a second home, an $8 million mansion, in the exclusive DC neighborhood of Kalorama, which is 80 percent white and just four percent black.
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas have a third home, a $5.3 million mansion, in Rancho Mirage, California, which is 89 percent white and just 2.6 percent black.
Oh, sure, the Obamas still own their Chicago home in Hyde Park, which is at least 26 percent black. But you would think they could do better than 26 percent!
WE KNOW WHERE THEY LIVE!
Indeed, the meeting is being held amid a global upsurge of social protest over the past year from Chile and Puerto Rico to Sudan and Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, Hong Kong and India and the United States and Mexico.
American President Donald Trump, who set off for Davos yesterday, is set to deliver a “special address” today, in his second trip to the World Economic Forum.
The oligarchs assemble at Davos
21 January 2020
Hundreds of bankers, corporate executives, celebrities, heads of state and cabinet members have arrived in Davos, Switzerland to take part in the 50th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), which begins Tuesday.
With the wealth of the world’s billionaires up by 25 percent in the last year alone, the Davos attendees have much to celebrate. But looking over the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland, the oligarchs see themselves beset by a tide of social opposition and resentment.
A police security guard patrols on the roof of a hotel ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (AP Photo - Markus Schreiber)
WEF founder Klaus Schwab warned in a statement ahead of the meeting that the world is at a “critical crossroads,” noting that, “People are revolting against the economic ‘elites’ they believe have betrayed them.”
Indeed, the meeting is being held amid a global upsurge of social protest over the past year from Chile and Puerto Rico to Sudan and Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, Hong Kong and India and the United States and Mexico.
Across the world, protests fueled by growing social and economic inequality are continuing and are expected to grow in 2020, including in France, where the year began with mass strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed pension cuts.
Ahead of its meeting, the WEF published a global risks report noting that members ranked “domestic political polarization” in a virtual tie as their number one concern, up from ninth last year.
The annual Edleman Trust Barometer
survey found that a majority of people
around the world think that capitalism is
doing more harm than good. The survey noted a
global discrediting of all institutions, with governments, the media,
business and NGOs seen by masses of people as unethical and
incompetent.
Ahead of the event, the British charity Oxfam released its annual report on social inequality, which it declared to be “out of control.”
According to Oxfam, the world’s billionaire population alone, just 2,153 people—the number of people who would fit comfortably on a modern cruise ship—control more wealth than the 4.6 billion poorest people in the world.
Meanwhile, the top 1 percent collectively has
twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people,
nearly the entire world’s population.
Placing the mind-boggling gap between the
rich and poor in perspective, Oxfam notes: “If
everyone were to sit on their wealth piled up
in $100 bills, most of humanity would be
sitting on the floor. A middle-class person in a
rich country would be sitting at the height of a
chair. The world’s two richest men would be
sitting in outer space.”
The conclave in Davos is an opportunity for the capitalist elite to posture as enlightened reformers while cutting backroom deals aimed at funneling ever more wealth from the bottom to the top, in the privacy of the exclusive Alpine resort town and under the close guard of Swiss police snipers and their own personal security retinues.
The theme for this year’s meeting is “Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world,” with a focus on the issue of climate change. Events headlined by teenage activist Greta Thunberg are being given top billing and Britain’s Prince Charles is expected to deliver a talk on “how to save the planet.”
The billionaires and millionaires in attendance will be able to show their commitment to combatting global warming by refueling their private jets with “greener” sustainable aviation fuel available at Zurich Airport’s private terminal. Attendees are being encouraged to walk on foot from venue to venue in order to reduce their personal carbon footprint.
American President Donald Trump, who set off for Davos yesterday, is set to deliver a “special address” today, in his second trip to the World Economic Forum.
The red carpet treatment for Trump, a war criminal who has torn thousands of immigrant children from their families, and who just weeks ago brought the planet to the cusp of World War III with the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, explodes the event’s humanitarian pretenses.
New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin commented, “With the stock market at record highs… there is an increasing sense” that Trump “will be accepted, if not embraced (although some attendees may roll their eyes behind his back) when he arrives on Tuesday.”
Sorkin concluded, “Mr. Trump may be the new Davos Man.”
The attendees’ warm reception for Trump expresses the embrace of dictatorship and fascistic forces by the financial oligarchy. Feeling themselves surrounded by social opposition, the oligarchs are turning ever more directly to dictatorial forms of rule.
As the attendees give moralizing sermons about “sustainability” and praise each other’s philanthropic efforts, in their minds will be the fact that most of the world knows that they—the oligarchs—are the cause of the world’s problems.
It is they who benefit from wars, it is they who promote the rise of fascism and wage a frontal attack on democratic rights. And it is they who are responsible for the poverty and social misery afflicting the world’s working population.
The entry into struggle by millions of people all over the world is a recognition of this fact, combined with a determination to oppose it. However, any solution to the crises confronting the overwhelming majority of the world’s people requires the expropriation of the financial parasites gathered this week in Switzerland.
The seizure of the wealth of little more than 2,000 people and its placement under the democratic control of the international
working class would lay the basis for providing billions of people with the food, water, education, health care, culture, internet access and housing that are their fundamental social rights. The social necessity of expropriating their ill-gotten wealth is inseparable from the overthrow of the capitalist system and the socialist transformation of society.
Davos: John Kerry Says Only Way to Stop Global Warming is ‘Money, Money, Money, Money…’
The only way of preventing global warming is “money, money, money”, former failed presidential contender John Kerry said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on Tuesday.
US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said that the world is not acting with enough urgency to “save the world” and prevent what he calls a climate crisis from occurring. The 79-year-old Democrat opened his remarks by questioning how “allegedly wise adult human” such as CEOs and Senators could, as he put it, “ignore our science and want to ignore mathematics and want to ignore physics and somehow cannot bring themselves to do what we need to do.”
The billionaire politician, who married into the wealthy Heinz family, heaped praise on those who attended the meeting in the Swiss ski resort town, saying how “extraordinary that we select human beings… are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet.”
“I mean it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about quote ‘saving the planet’. If you said that to most people, they think you’re just a crazy tree-hugging Lefty liberal do-good… but really that’s where we are.”
But despite his apparent high estimation of the WEF attendees, Mr Kerry said that the only way to prevent the Earth from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) will be huge investment from governments and the private sector.
“So how do we get there well the lesson I’ve learned in the last years and I learned it as Secretary and I’ve learned it since, reinforced in spades is money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money. I’m sorry to say that, I mean yes technology, yes exciting new initiatives, yes organising winning races politically…but we have to go further.”
“We don’t have time folks to be cobbling together bespoke deals here, there and everywhere. We have to do it on a massive basis and the key to that one is philanthropy. It’s not the only key, we need governments to put Federal public money into it,” Kerry urged.
While admitting that previous United Nations climate change summits in Glasgow and Sharm El Sheikh had come up short in his estimation, the Biden administration’s top man on the climate said that he believes it is possible to limit potential warming to 1.5°C, the world will need a World War II-style effort.
“We knew that in order to win the war… we had to organise ourselves to take control of the skies and take control of the seas and be able to smash the battlements,” he said.
However, in what has become something of a grim running gag, the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos has yet again faced charges of “hypocrisy” given that over a thousand private jets reportedly descended upon the Swiss village to attend the meeting.
It has been estimated that the emissions from the private jets at last year’s meeting was equivalent to running 350,000 average cars per week.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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