It’s time for The Gathering again, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Perhaps 2,500 people are expected to congregate and tell us how to fix our problems and ourselves. I’m not opposed to conferences and meetings to discuss ideas, but Davos has always struck me as a top-down, we-tell-you kind of haughty gathering that doesn’t accomplish except to allow the elite to parade themselves around as Mandarins. Can you really see anything in the Davos track-record that amounts to seriously tackling a difficult problem? Any sense of personal humility?
This year organizer Klaus Schwab says it will be different. As the New York Times reports, he promises that this year’s event will be in “risk prevention” mode rather than “firefighting mode.” They are going to foresee problems rather than simply react to existing ones. Oh, that makes me feel better. Heavyweights in attendance will include Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, German Chancellor Angela Merkle, and Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK. Oh, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be there, presumably to advise other country’s on how they can get their debt under control and how to make sure you are paying your taxes.
And be sure not to miss the session on “Music for Social Change.”
If all of this seems so 1990s, it should. The oracles have spoken–and they are broken. I think if the global financial crisis has demonstrated anything it is how incompetent our elites really are. The only reason I would attend Davos this year would be to see the presentation by “Sully” Sullenberger, the heroic pilot who landed that plane on the Hudson River in 2009. According to the New York Times, he is going to talk about “leadership under pressure.” Now there is a real leader. Go get them Sully.