The WEF: The World’s Biggest Gathering of Socialists, Collectivists and Central Planners
No One Cares More About You Than You
‘What is unquestionably the world’s most influential gathering of business and political leaders, economists and non-skiers, takes place each January in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos-Kloster. There is only one winding road in and one road out, which the VVIPs wisely avoid by arriving in giant blue helicopters with snowshoes for landing gear.
‘Davos is the best-guarded civilian gathering on the planet owing to the announced arrival of more than 50 heads of state. In attendance will be the leaders of Germany, England, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. If you read the pre-event media, it appears that they each have equal billing…
‘Every major non-government organisations is represented, from the International Monetary Fund to the World Wide Fund for Nature, along with philanthropists, economists, large numbers of squillionaires and a small number of cause-promoting supermodels.’ – The Australian
The world’s biggest gathering of socialists, collectivists and central planners kicks off in Davos, Switzerland this week.
As the Australian article notes:
‘This is a conference about “multis” – multilateralism, multi-stakeholder engagement, multiculturalism – and there are no sessions on the doctrine of American exceptionalism.’
Yes, even though most people think the World Economic Forum (WEF) is a meeting of free marketers and capitalists, the reality is the opposite.
The WEF is about socialism. It’s about ‘the world’s most influential’ people meeting to decide how they’re going to keep themselves in power by spending your tax dollars for another year…
But perhaps the most amusing (and troubling) thing is that few people believe in the trend towards world government.
When I talk about world government to people, and how much power just a few people have over the world, I see them roll their eyes – ‘There’s no world government Kris. You really do sound like one of those conspiracy theorists. You’re gonna lose credibility mate.’
Even when I point to the WEF, the United Nations, the European Union, APEC, and others, they say ‘that’s not world government; they’re just co-operating to make things better. Would you rather we were at war?’
That’s right, apparently, I’m in favour of war!
And yet even the article in the Australian points out the truth. Even though we’re not sure the author really gets the picture. In fact, the author winks at the reader:
‘Suspicions will always be raised when a bunch of elites go into the mountains of Switzerland and meet behind closed doors. It’s easy to poke fun at this event when it talks in the gobbledygook of economics, and it’s just plain weird to see Angela Merkel and Mick Jagger at the same party.
‘But the reality will disappoint the conspiracy theorists. I have been inside the closed-door dinners. I’ve been granted the one-on-one interviews with political leaders, and I’ve coffee’d with the heads of Greenpeace and the WTO. I’ve attended the open functions and stayed late when the drinks were flowing, even if the dance moves weren’t.’
If the author’s aim was to disarm accusations about the WEF being a ‘boys club’ where the elites get together and plan things, I’m afraid he’s come up short.
I mean seriously, Greenpeace and the WTO are as socialist and collectivist as you’ll get. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because one group likes whales while the other is dressed in $5,000 suits that they have different agendas.
They don’t. They’ve got the same agenda: centralised State control over the individual.
And besides, the WEF isn’t about discussing economics. If you read the economics of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and others in the Austrian School, you’ll know that economics has nothing to do with governments, bankers and vested interests meeting ‘behind closed doors.’
Economics is about the interaction of individuals with other individuals. It’s about free choice. They can’t centrally plan it. We know that for a fact…because plenty of megalomaniacal leaders have tried.
One Big Welfare State After Another
Yet despite the terrible record of central planning, new leaders keep trying. You’d think they’ve never heard of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
Of course, the latest generation of central planners do things differently. Rather than conquering and killing, the current breed use taxes and welfare to achieve the same aim – central control (although they haven’t given up on the killing, check out those drones…and Prince Harry thinks shooting real people is just like playing video games).
The United States has become one big Welfare State, following the example of that other big Welfare State – the European Union.
But importantly – and this is key – when I talk about welfare, I’m not talking about single mums and dole bludgers. No, the biggest beneficiaries today are those that benefit from corporate welfare.
I’m talking about the arms manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies in the United State. I’m talking about the agricultural industry in Europe…the car industry in Australia.
And I’m talking about the banking lobby worldwide.
Look at the quote again from the Australian: ‘In attendance will be the leaders of Germany, England, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.’
The banks, my friend, are the State. The line between State and bank has all but vanished.
Bankers today aren’t the Mr Mainwaring’s from Dad’s Army…stuffy men in stiff suits and bowler hats balancing pennies and pounds.
Bankers today are more powerful than they’ve ever been. And they’re more influential than they’ve ever been. Yes, even more powerful than the great banking families of centuries past.
In those days, everything was secret. Secret meetings in Europe or America. Today, the meetings are in the open. Only part of it happens behind closed doors. That’s where they work out the fine details.
In the past five years especially, you’ve seen the world’s bankers become bolder with their influence on world affairs. They command audiences with State leaders, and have a major input into national affairs…some even get to join the government.
But the biggest thing you’ll notice about events such as the WEF is that there’s no one to represent individuals or individualism.
You won’t see a single person stand up and say, ‘Hey guys, why don’t we just leave people to sort things out for themselves?’
That will never happen. And there’s a simple reason for that – collectivism prohibits individual action. Collectivism and socialism require that a group of leaders decide what the collective body does.
The collective decide the legal tender, how much you money the government should take from you, how you’ll live, where you’ll live, and where you’ll go.
That is of course, unless you’re one of the few people on this planet who can see through the collectivists’ plans. And believe me, there aren’t that many of us.
The Real 1%ers
Even in the US, where most assume there is an individualist spirit, I doubt that more than 2% of the population genuinely believe in freedom and free market capitalism.
The other 98% are collectivists, just with different badges – left collectivists who call themselves liberals, progressives or socialists, and right collectivists who call themselves conservatives.
In Australia, I’ll go as far as to say that 99% of the population are collectivists. The same goes for the UK and Europe.
You probably remember the Occupy protests from the past couple of years. There was a lot of talk about the 1%ers and the 99%ers. Apparently the rich were the 1%ers and everyone else was slaves.
Well, they probably got the numbers right, but not the composition. The real 1%ers are the folks like you and me who want to be left alone, without the government meddling.
Everyone else is after the same thing, whether they’re politicians, bankers, big corporations, Labor voters, or Liberal voters. They all want control over the lives of others. There’s nothing they like more than bossing other people about…all in the name of the collectivist sham known as democracy.
However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether it’s such a bad thing. I know and you know that they can meet, plan and meddle all they like and they’ll never achieve their Utopia.
But at least it keeps them busy and out of the way. While they’re doing that, we can work on our own plans. Our plans for working, relaxing, and retirement. Part of that plan should be figuring out how to escape the clutches of the State.
That could mean living a roving lifestyle. Spend six months here, three months there, and three months somewhere else. The ultimate aim should be to secure enough savings for retirement so you don’t need cash handouts from the government (even if you qualify for them).
This is something my old pal, Nick Hubble thinks about every day in his Money for Life Letter. I’ve asked him, and he’s given me permission, to reprint an extract from one of his special reports. You can read this below. I think you’ll enjoy it.
In short, you need to remember one thing about life, and it’s this: there’s no-one who cares more about your life than you…so it’s up to you to make the most of it.
Whatever you do, you shouldn’t think that a bunch of politicians, bankers, economists and vested interest groups can plan your life any better than you.
Cheers,
Kris
From the Port Phillip Publishing Library
Special Report: Three Emerging Money Trends
Daily Reckoning: Banking on Stocks
Money Morning: The Talisman of Fear: Why Gold Remains the Foundation of Wealth
Pursuit of Happiness: How the State Will Die
Australian Small-Cap Investigator:
How to Make Money From Small-Cap Stocks
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Well, if the Iranians, the Al Qaeda network, the Muslim Brotherhood or any other people accused of terrorism REALLY WERE terrorists, surely they would plant the biggest bomb ever in Davos!
While it would do the rest of us a real favour, I’m afraid they probably aren’t terrorists art all, and the CIA aren’t going to bomb Davos for us!
I see the Europeans have introduced their financial transactions tax today, an example that the UN will be quivering to follow. It will save them trying to sieze the carbon tax money from each country, their backup plan if the Tobin Tax doesn’t get off the ground.
Kris,
I sadly see what you see, but no one cares or is not watching. I am surprised Julias team has not knocked on your door yet. Question for you, how can globalisation be stopped or is it too late already?
Depending on how you define it, can’t globalisation be a good thing? Shouldn’t a global economy in which international trade is based on each country (or better yet, each individual producer) providing to the market those goods which it can produce at a lower cost than other countries result in an increase to the world’s purchasing power?
Globalisation of the world’s bureaucracy, however, is a chilling thought