Removed from reality
Somewhere over the last day or so someone remarked that the Masters of the Universe meeting in Davos, Switzerland seem utterly unremarkable. That is, judging by the lack of fresh ideas floating around the ultra-rich conclave. On what to do about fanatical populism spreading across the globe, they’ve got worries but otherwise nothin’, according to Nahal Toosi, Politico’s senior foreign affairs correspondent:
In conversation after conversation here, I detected resignation and helplessness among business executives when it came to their counterparts in government. There’s a desperate desire to see the world’s political leaders appeal more to moderates instead of capitalizing on extremes, but there’s also recognition that the political market doesn’t easily reward the people in the middle.
C-suite types fear the polarization will only deepen as half of the global population, in more than 60 countries, votes in 2024 — everywhere from South Africa to the United States. For them, financial consequences can be stark, especially if the results of an election threaten shipping lanes or when campaign rhetoric leads to violence in a place they’ve invested.
“The biggest concern is instability,” the CEO of a private equity fund told me.
That would be financial instability, naturally. We’ve seen social instability before.
Oh, great googa-looga, can’t you hear me talking to you
Just a ball of confusion
Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today
Woo, hey
But even as they long for moderate forces to rise above the extremes, there appears to be little sense of how the business community can help make that happen. I kept asking for specific solutions that companies could offer to reduce societal polarization, but I received no concrete responses.
Election, elections everywhere this year, but the biggest concern is the prospect of Americans returning Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 to finish the job he started in 2017. And to finish off NATO.
Corporate leaders are reading closely about the Republican frontrunner’s views on tariffs and other economic practices, which are far more isolationist than even the relatively cautious Joe Biden. Whichever way the United States is heading will affect the policies of other governments, leading business executives to ask some very basic questions.
“It’s something as simple as this: Many businesses we have operate across borders. Is a country for or against free trade?” the private equity fund CEO said.
Consumers’ fate seemed less a concern than producers’ bottom lines, although the two are intimately interwoven.
The coats are oversized, and so are the egos.
And so, in some cases, is the sense of self-pity. In this rarefied environment, I was told that it doesn’t help to be a billionaire, millionaire or merely very rich when it comes to the political environment these days.
After all, actors on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum have anger toward the rich gathered here in Davos, often blaming them for the world’s ills.
“The right says everyone is under threat. The left says the capitalist system is exploitative,” the consumer goods company CEO said.
Biden administration spokesmen Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan stuck to safe talking points. Businessmen worry that if the Biden administration is gone in 2025, the Inflation Reduction Act will go with it, and their long-term contracts and ROI. One private equity CEO tells Toosi, “very few people have priced in the risk of Trump coming back” into their models.
At the World Economic Forum, they worry about lining their pockets while in Gaza people cannot fill their stomachs, or their children’s. And the executives wonder why “the far right and the ultra left see them as an enemy.” So far removed, allies they are not:
The US claims it is working “relentlessly” to get humanitarian aid into Gaza amid UN warnings that the territory’s 2.2 million people are “highly food insecure and at risk of famine”.
Antony Blinken, speaking at Davos this week, called the situation in Gaza “gut-wrenching”. But the US secretary of state was unable to secure any major new gains on increasing the amount of assistance entering the territory during his recent visit to Israel, even as leaders of international organizations advocate for urgent access.
“People in Gaza risk dying of hunger just miles from trucks filled with food,” Cindy McCain, executive director of the WFP, said in a statement.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya
Sayin’, ball of confusion
That’s what the world is today, hey, hey
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya
Ball of confusion