We doubt anybody was surprised when the "climate-conscious" organizers of the World Economic Forum postponed the annual gathering in Davos for the second year in a row (last year's event was ultimately canceled after an unsuccessful attempt at moving it).
And in a sign of just how important the Alpine confab is for the business and political elites who actually run the world to see each other face-to-face (instead of virtually in the metaverse like they're doing this week), the WEF has just released a statement affirming that this year's event will eventually take place...so long as all safety precautions can be taken.
Right now, the tentative dates are May 22-26, according to a statement emailed to members that was obtained by Bloomberg.
Though we can't say for sure what the COVID numbers will look like then, the fact that it's only a few months away suggests the elites are ready to return to "normally" living their lives - even if some of their restrictions on businesses and socializing remain intact.
However, while the letter focused on the "safety" factor, there's also the more important question of optics. After all, last year's event was canceled because politicians and billionaires couldn't be seen hob-nobbing without masks and social distancing. As two year's worth of scandals featuring a rotating cast of politicians, public servants and even the chairman of a certain Swiss bank, can attest: the elites have largely ignored the restrictions they found unpalatable (even if they tried to hide that fact). But clearly that has grown tiring, so they're ready to return to doing it all out in the open.
With the likes of Bill Gates and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla already trumpeting the notion that life will likely return to "normal" after the omicron wave subsides, the justification for holding the event in Singapore or some other emerging metropolis has already been laid.
But why must Davos go on? We're pretty sure if you ask "the elites" who attend every year, they would be more than happy to tell you (for better or worse).
The World Economic Forum's Great Narrative Conference: "The good news is the elite across the world trust each other more and more... the bad news is that the majority of people trusted that elite less..." pic.twitter.com/c4I4zlew1p
— James Lindsay, watching narratives crumble (@ConceptualJames) January 21, 2022
Professor Ngaire Woods of Oxford University (which regards itself as an "elite" institution of higher learning) offers a surprisingly candid explanation of this dynamic in a viral clip from a few years back.
"At Davos a few years ago, the Edelman Survey showed us that the good news is that the elite across the world trust each other more and more, so we can come together and design and do beautiful things together. The bad news is that in every single country they were polling, the majority of the people trusted the elite less."
If there was ever an example of 'saying the quiet part out loud', this is it. In just a couple of sentences, Woods manages to aptly convey the "elites" mindset in a way that the proles can understand.
Unfortunately for "the elites", the 2021 version of the survey Woods is referencing shows that not much has changed. In fact, public trust in "elite" institutions has only continued to deteriorate during the pandemic, as the 2021 survey shows.
Maybe now you can understand why they're all just itching to get together and hash this out behind the scenes - no matter how much carbon dioxide their private jets spew into the atmosphere.
(Article by Tyler Durden republished from Zerohedge.com)
