The Davos Crowd

by Stephen Lendman

On Thursday, the World Economic Forum concludes its 5-day annual meeting in Davos.

The invitation-only event for movers and shakers includes elitists only, figures analyst Doug Casey called overwhelmingly "horrible people" —  ones involved in pursuing diabolical aims at the expense of the general welfare.

Advocates of peace, stability, equity, justice and compliance with the rule of law are excluded from the annual event.

They conflict with establishment aims to rule the world unobstructed — notably by use of force when lesser tactics fall short of achieving their aims.

With Russia's SMO in Ukraine proceeding as planned at the expense of US-dominated Western interests, the issue is top-featured in Davos, along with soaring inflation and increasing economic weakness.

It's at a time of near-unparalleled income inequality in the US and throughout the West, a new study by the Economic Policy Institute explained, adding:

The gap between rich and low income segments of US society has "been sustained long enough to have significant macroeconomic and fiscal effects."

Growing inequality caused "chronic shortfalls of demand stemming from weakened household spending."

Economic weakness heads the US/West for recession, what could be deep and protracted because rampant excesses that can't go on forever, won't.

So the great unwinding of multiple bubbles (stocks, bonds and housing) is likely underway.

And like always during hard times, ordinary people are hurt most, especially when rising unemployment occurs at a time of double-digit inflation heading higher — notably for food, energy, healthcare and other essentials.

US economic/financial conditions are worse than when the late 1990s dot.com bubble burst, and 2008 financial crisis occurred, because of gross excesses more extreme now than then.

Analyst Peter Schiff is likely right, saying:

Today's great unwinding is a "bigger" deal than earlier "because the economy has a lot more debt" than ever before.

"Americans (today) are less able to pay it when interest rates rise because the balances are much greater." 

"(W)e're in much worse shape as a result of all the bailouts and all the stimulus that papered over the last crisis."

"(T)he one we're dealing with is going to be much worse because we kicked the can down the road (for years irresponsibly) instead of solving the problem when we had a chance."

Since the 2008 financial crisis, US national debt more than tripled.

Super-rich Americans never had things better at the expense of the great majority of others — ill-served and left behind.

No easy solutions exist to turn things around.

Privileged interests in Davos will weather the storm in ways that the vast majority of others cannot.

"The US and world are heading towards a serious crisis," Casey stressed.

What's already begun will get much worse before stabilizing and beginning to improve — a process likely to take years.

US/Western elites, the politicians they own and MSM press agents don't give a hoot about the plight of ordinary people — while pretending otherwise.

As economic/financial pain increases, so will public angst and anger.

Insulated and isolated from the world in which the vast majority of people live, the Davos crowd is mindless of and indifferent toward their rights and well-being.

Relatively few in the West recall Great Depression hard times during the 1930s.

What goes around comes around.

The longer untenable conditions continue, the more disastrous the eventual consequences.

Good times for investors lasted much longer than expected because of money printing madness and interest rates kept artificially low.

That's over with the arrival of bad times, what's likely to be painful and protracted for most people.

It'll feel like another Great Depression at a time of geopolitical, economic, financial and social instability — when the risk of global war is greater than any time since WW II ended.