Thursday, January 18, 2018

This is What You Need to Know About the World Economic Forum That Trump Will Be Attending Later This Month in Davos, Switzerland


Gary North provides the background:
Every January, the elite gather in Davos, Switzerland to do business deals and listen to boring lectures by people who don't have either money or power. It's called the World Economic Forum...

The World Economic Forum is Duffy's Tavern for the rich and powerful: "Where the elite meet to eat."

Why do they go to the expense of gathering at Davos every year? Because no one wants to be left out. As they said on radio ads for rock and roll performances in my teenage years, "Be there, or be square." Showing up means that you were invited. If you were not invited, you are not regarded as being in the elite . . . at least not this year.

In 2011, Ross Sorkin reported on what it cost to attend. First, there was the annual membership fee: 50,000 Swiss francs. In 2011, that was $52,000. But this was for commoners. If you wanted to get access to the private meetings, which the deal-doers presumably attend, you had to ante up $137,000 a year. Then there was the cost of a ticket into the Davos meeting: $19,000. Added up, the annual fee for insiders was $156,000.

Then there was the cost of a room. The budget rate was $500 a night.

You had to get there. First-class fare to Zurich was $11,000 in 2011.

You needed a chauffeur and expensive car. Add another $10,000.
The question remains, what is President Trump going to do at these meeting. The members are all crony open traders, not at all total free traders, but far more open on trade than Trump who is a dumb mercantilist when it comes to trade.

So is he going to dump a stink bomb in the Alps as some have suggested he will do or will he flip and cut some crony deals? Minds, far from Davos, that need to be entertained want to know.

 -RW

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