Friday 24 October 2008

The World Economic Forum Fails to Stem Crisis

There is a very interesting article on Bloomberg today about the World Economic Forum (WEF), which meets annually in Davos, Switzerland. The article discusses why the forum did not predict that the worlds debt was going to collapse on itself.

The WEF is composed and funded by 1000 global member corporations with revenues exceeding $5B. Naturally, a who's who of important global bank and corporate leaders, alongside their political front men and celebrity ego strokers, have been meeting every year for the past 27 years to discuss global issues and attempt to propose solutions.

There is something discomforting about the fact that these 'important' people meet every year to discuss our future under the pretense of solving 'global' problems. If that was truly the case, and the WEF was an effective forum for solving global issues, then why was this financial catastrophe currently gripping the world (an several others before it) not identified and dealt with at the appropriate time?

It seems to me these meetings are more about the attendees getting together and stroking their own egos (after all, they are the top global leaders, politicians and celebrities) than it is about helping people like you and me.

The World Economic Forums slogan is "committed to improving the State of the World". Quite clearly though, they are doing a lousy job as there have been multiple crises' and wars since the forum began in 1971.

On a positive note, at least the WEF identified Canadian banks as the soundest in the world. So at least my money is somewhat safe, even though our banks here in Canada have already started a push to pay their way out of the crisis through more debt. I and several of my friends have already received calls from our banks offering us lines of credit and increased credit card limits. I am still making the same amount of money as I was 3 months ago RBC!

Official World Economic Forum Website: http://www.weforum.org/


More Readings:

Bloomberg - Out of Control' Wall Street Chiefs Spurned Warnings at Davos

Business Week - Top Countries in Global Competitiveness


CTV - Canadian Banks the Soundest in the World: Report

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