The U.S. came to ruin the party at Davos, the economic amusement park
Comment | Eran Bar Tal, TV10 Editor-in-Chief: The Americans came to Davos to rip off the masks, with a direct attack on ESG, immigration, and the elites steering Europe toward economic stagnation
The Davos production team’s registration glitches were hard to navigate - watching hours-long lines just to collect a participant badge was disappointing. The organization still isn’t fully stitched together, even after decades of convening the Forum, though you could chalk it up to festival charm. There are no proper accommodation arrangements, and for some reason, the production team sees nothing wrong with rooms renting for $22,000 or more that week, or with every restaurant in town being bought out for private events.
But in terms of personal experience, it’s like arriving at an economic amusement park. The place is draped in white; there’s an atmosphere of support and cooperation, at least among the Israelis with us. The foreigners we met received Israelis better than we’d heard in previous years; even the Governor of the Bank of Israel noted this in an interview with us. We enjoyed spending time with our team, the leaders you unexpectedly encounter on the street... The arrival, the settling in, all of it overwhelmed me for the first two days. By the third day, I had already left.
Beyond that, many discussions I didn’t attend were held behind closed doors. What you see on the outside is something completely different from what went on inside.
Fink plays with other people’s money
One such event was hosted by Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, which manages $14 trillion in assets. Fink sits on the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees and leads a progressive policy with other people’s money while pursuing a capitalist policy with his own. This year, he hosted a prestigious dinner in Davos where U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick delivered a Trump-style speech. Lutnick argued that European economies are lagging behind the United States because of failed ESG policies, and called their net-zero goals delusional.
He scoffed at Europeans who chain themselves to green energy goals while relying entirely on Chinese battery production. Europe, he said, is effectively swapping carbon emissions from oil and gas for the environmental destruction of cobalt and lithium mining, a significant portion of which relies on child labor in the Congo.
According to social media accounts, the audience giggled nervously and grew annoyed. Christine Lagarde, who had passed us by just a short while earlier, stormed out of the hall to make a point. Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore reportedly booed mid-speech. Fink tried to calm the waters and chose to end the event early, before dessert was served. Such is the nature of discussions with liberals who aren’t really willing to hear other opinions.
California’s Governor brings out the kneepads
California Governor Gavin Newsom arrived in Davos to trash-talk Donald Trump. He called on European leaders to “Punch Trump in the face,” literally. Then he pulled out red kneepads, a joke about world leaders “bending the knee” to America, and bragged about his successes.
This is the governor of California, a state with the highest poverty rate in the U.S., a mass exodus of businesses and residents, catastrophic wildfires worsened by mismanagement, a high-speed rail project to nowhere, and a homelessness crisis that exploded despite billions poured into it.
Yet Alex Soros praised Newsom as the “real star” of Davos. The younger Soros, of course, hasn’t achieved much on his own; instead, he uses his father’s money to fund radical political candidates and progressive causes. Many had probably never heard him speak before last week’s Davos event, but someone wrote that “Kamala Harris suddenly looks like a genius next to him.”
The U.S. sneers at Europe
Many Americans came with the goal of telling all these people the truth to their faces: Donald Trump at the helm, of course, but also Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, and Ken Griffin. They all gave speeches and mocked a Europe that is willingly destroying itself.
Trump’s front came prepared. They scattered the messages across their speeches and stated the facts as they see them: Germany closed all its nuclear power plants in the name of fighting climate change, replacing reliable nuclear energy with solar panels in a country where the sun barely shines, then acted surprised when energy prices skyrocketed. European governments spend billions housing immigrants while local populations struggle to afford basic needs.
This failed policy cocktail, immigration, “social justice,” climate, and misaligned economic priorities, all began at the World Economic Forum, where a group of people who thought they were smarter than everyone else set out to reshape the world in their own image.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has not hidden his goals since the early 1970s: to advance a progressive agenda. When the COVID pandemic broke out, he published a book, The Great Reset, arguing that the pandemic created a “unique window of opportunity” for global elites to reshape national economies, “the priorities of societies, the nature of business models, and the management of the global commons.”
He has openly bragged about the world leaders who passed through his personal mentorship program, known as “Young Global Leaders.” In 2017, Schwab boasted: “What we are very proud of is that we penetrate the cabinets of governments around the world.” Justin Trudeau is perhaps his most famous protégé; he spent nearly a decade turning every sensible economic policy in Canada into a green fantasy.
The damage is plain to see. The gap in GDP per capita between Canada and the United States widened by 144% during Trudeau’s tenure. The OECD predicts Canada will rank last among developed countries in GDP per capita growth by 2060.
Europe isn’t much better. Today, Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S., has a higher GDP per capita than France, Italy, and the UK, and is closing in on Germany. Davos is the embodiment of progressive European policy: a leading partner in its design, and still refusing to acknowledge the damage.
 | A guest post by
|