What Happened at Davos This Week

The big joke — 2022 edition

World leaders and their friends gathered at Davos this week under the theme “working together restoring trust.”

You have to love the optimism there.

“Restoring trust” implies that it existed and was lost. What a joke. Did anyone trust any of these let-me-stay-polite-and-not-call-them-greedy-fuckers in the last fifty years?

But, indeed, is there a better place to start restoring trust than at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos?

As we all know, it all begins with our leadership. Our leaders are our role models; Boris Johnson and friends made this clear during the lockdown parties at 10 Downing Street.

The CEOs are doing their part

“CEOs are working to develop a new set of #leadership skills,” the WEF tweeted last week. From unofficial sources, we learned that these leadership skills include:

• getting paid as much as possible, up to 6,565 times more than the average employee,
• firing people over zoom calls, the current record is at 900 employees,
• and generally not giving a shit about their workforce or the environment as long as shareholders are happy and lobbyists do their jobs with the politicians.

That’s a lot of trust coming our way.

Climate change is another pillar of the restoring trust initiative

Around 2,000 people flew from all over the world to Davos to show their dedication to fighting climate change.

Boarding private jets and staying in luxury hotels is obviously the example we all need to start decreasing our carbon footprint. Thank goodness I recycled my beer bottle yesterday; it will help compensate for Davos’ carbon footprint.

Another pro-tip brought to you by the WEF Twitter feed is to keep your smartphone “just a few years longer.” Indeed, it “could protect resources while tackling emissions.”

Quick poll for you. What is more likely?

• Option 1: All of the 2,000+ participants keep their smartphones “just a few years longer” to protect resources and help save the planet.
• Option 2: Exactly ZERO of the 2,000+ participants are doing that because it’s different for them. They’re VIPs and need the latest toys, sorry technologies, to be able to tweet mind-blowing statements and follow the return on investment of their stock portfolio.

Let’s not worry, though. Thanks to our highly competitive nature, we’ll tackle the climate change issue in no time.

“The race to net-zero emissions will forever change the way many companies do business. Early movers can seize significant advantage,” the WEF tweeted at the beginning of the year.

Presenting our environmental goals as a competitive race where people can make a significant chunk of dough is likely the best way to solve our problems. (Or not.)

Private equity to the rescue

This article titled “3 reasons why private equity can lead the charge on ESG strategy” appeared on the WEF website under the Davos Agenda 2022.

ESG means environmental, social, and corporate governance.

Private equity firms have a track record of negative impact on jobs and are the type of businesses that buy mobile-home parks to make money from poor people’s vulnerability.

Why does private equity invest in trailer parks? Because “the vulnerability of [the mobile-home] residents is part of the business model. […] This is a captive class of tenants.”

Do we really believe these are the companies that “can lead the charge on ESG?!”

In summary

Good luck to all the Davos participants! There’s quite a lot of work to do if our leaders want to (re)gain our trust.

Smillew is a Medium satirist who writes mainly about social justice, his Medium newsletter, and his Medium referral link. No need to follow him; he’ll show up in your feed.

Thanks to Rabih Borgi and Alexander Ziperovich for the nudge to write a more “serious” piece.