Business journalist Edmund Conway blogs:
Davos titles of yore:
2006 – The Creative Imperative
2007 – The Changing Power Equation
2008 – The Power of Collaborative Innovation
2009 – Shaping the Post-Crisis World
2010 – Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild
2011 – Shared Norms for the New Reality
2012 – The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models
2013 – Resilient Dynamism
... Note: In the initial version of this post I wrongly called this year’s Davos official theme “Dynamic Resilience”. I was wrong: it’s “Resilient Dynamism”.
(As several commenters noted, the title of every Davos conference could be Resilient Dynasticism / Dynastic Resilience.)
The next four Davos conference titles:
2014 - The Imperative of Collaborative Reality
2015 - The Power of Changing Transformations
2016 - Reshaping Creative Dynamism
2017 - The Shared Crisis of Innovation
Or, they could slip an "Equating Model World Norms" in on you. You never can tell.
I always liked the Bilderbergers better. They at least have the dignity to deny that they are a conspiracy to run the world, whereas Davos Man wants you to believe it. Here's the latest list of Bilderberg attendees. Kind of a snooze, as are the titles of the topics at their 2012 conference:
Transatlantic Relations
Evolution of the Political Landscape in Europe and the US
Austerity and Growth in Developed Economies
Cyber Security
Energy Challenges
The Future of Democracy
Russia, China and the Middle East
Presumably, these are just facade titles for the real topics like "Welcome to the Hollow Earth," "Uri Geller Shows You How to Bend Spoons with Your Mind," "All Hail Our Dark Lord," "How Do We Publicly Admit Dan Brown Was Right?" and "Progress Report on Project Orbis Tertius." But at least my eyeballs don't fall out of their sockets while trying to read the Bilderberg topics.
It is strange that you speak of dynasties in relation to Davos. I would say that the evidence is quite the opposite. The wealth and power of American Davos participants is typically relatively new, only a generation or two old. Many of the American Davos participants had grandparents that were very poor. Dynasty? Hardly
ReplyDeleteThe cognitive elite!!!
ReplyDeleteTime for the Amren Conference to take that time slot at Davos.
ReplyDeleteAt least that would be different.
Some of the traditional Davos audience might even notice.
Anon.
Sounds like a job for the post-modernist essay generator.
ReplyDeleteBut...I'm still not seeing any "realizing our/their full potential."
Blogger n/a takes a look at the demographics of U.S attendees to Davos. Unsurprisingly it has quiet the Jewish contingent:
ReplyDeletehttp://racehist.blogspot.com/2013/01/ethnic-origins-of-us-attendees-of-2013.html
B.B.
How about Perpetual Fatuity?
ReplyDeleteResilient Feudalism
ReplyDeleteThey should stick with this for perpetuity:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlJGrIyt-X8
@ first comment
ReplyDeleteThe wealth and power of American Davos participants is typically relatively new, only a generation or two old. Many of the American Davos participants had grandparents that were very poor. Dynasty? Hardly
For those people, its about creating dynasties, making sure their kids kids will attend Davos too. As we keep saying here at iSteve, the problem with a "meritocratic" financial elite is that it is perpetually insecure, unlike a hereditary elite. And then of course there's that trademark scots-irish obsessive paranoid worrying in play, too. So our modern ruling class actually does scheme ways to oppress us, lest their grandkids have to sell the summer home to our grandkids. The latest and greatest scheme seems to be preventing us from having grandkids at all. Working quite well from what I can see.
Bloodsuckers' Ball
ReplyDeleteor,
Healing the World by Lining Our Pockets
You left out "Money, Money, Money: It's A Rich Man's World."
ReplyDeleteThat was a Davos slogan, right?
These are nearly as meaningless as management buzzwords. Now excuse me while I go leverage some synergies.
ReplyDeleteFor those people, its about creating dynasties, making sure their kids kids will attend Davos too
ReplyDeleteReally? Bloomberg recently promised to give his fortune away before he dies. He'll probably leave his daughters some comparatively small residual, but it may not be enough for them to feel comfortable at Davos and will probably be exhausted within another generation.
Slightly off topic, but maybe interesting for a post?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/the-tijuana-connection-a-template-for-growth.html
Anon said
ReplyDeleteReally? Bloomberg recently promised to give his fortune away before he dies
Anon, I agree with you. But of course to the conspiracy theorists, Bloomberg and Bill Gates giving all their money away is part of some larger conspiracy to suppress the birthrates of founding stock americans
@ 5:00 anon
ReplyDeleteCome on now, don't be so simple. It's about much more than money.
Bloomberg may buy a form of immortality (named buildings and philanthropic funds) for himself and prestige for his descendants, but he probably won't be founder of a "dynasty" if he doesn't leave his children imposing fortunes that they control themselves. They will be of much lesser importance than he was. You or your fellow commenter chose to enter dynastic ambition into the discussion.
ReplyDeleteThose future conference themes are a joke, right?
ReplyDelete2009's "Shaping the post-crisis world" rings a bit of Potsdam 1945; the evil Bushitler defeated, the Obama era dawning...
Could be worse it could be Dark Enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg recently promised to give his fortune away before he dies.
ReplyDeleteGet back to me when he actually does it. He could give it away tomorrow, which would presumably be "before he dies", but I don't expect he will.
Most of those themes would work as the title of a magazine or airport ad for the latest "enterprise" software from Microsoft, IBM or VMware.
ReplyDelete2017 - The Shared Crisis of Innovation
ReplyDeleteIf you can predict it 4 years in advance, can it really be a "crisis"?
It's just a "problem"... well, no, a problem implies a solution.
Maybe it should be: "Innovation: Too Bad We Suck at It."
Cennbeorc
Caption underneath a Bloomberg photo from the NY Times philanthropy story:
ReplyDeleteMr. Bloomberg, who was the senior class president, in the 1964 Johns Hopkins yearbook. The caption under the photo read, “Bloomberg controls balloting with customary aplomb.”
Res ipsa loquitur
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2119747570001/welcome-to-boomtown-washington-dc/
ReplyDeletePeople have been wondering how California is going to manage its budget problems and taxes without scaring away its lucrative industries like Silicon Valley. Looks like the answer is going to be crony capitalism:
ReplyDelete"Promises Of Charity Won Tax Breaks for Tech Companies
San Francisco tech companies will avoid local taxes in exchange for promises, charitable contributions, and even promoted tweets, according to draft city documents."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/how-tech-companies-bought-big-tax-breaks-with-prom-8887
"Promises Of Charity Won Tax Breaks for Tech Companies"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/how-tech-companies-bought-big-tax-breaks-with-prom-8887
"Twitter and six other San Francisco tech companies are set to receive sizable tax breaks from the city in exchange for non-binding promises to make charitable contributions totaling, in many cases, just tens of thousands of dollars — along with promoted tweets for local groups.
The tax deal also includes promises to volunteer in the community and patronize local businesses, according to draft Community Benefits Agreements that could be signed and finalized by the city as early as tomorrow.
The CBA drafts, examined by BuzzFeed after they were quietly posted to the city's website, have long been a source of controversy in San Francisco and elsewhere around the country. Aimed at spurring economic revitalization, they've also wound up, critics say, as handouts to companies that would be in San Francisco anyway, a city facing a budget crisis and a sense that rising rents are driving some locals out."
The NY Times' current publisher met his current gf at Davos. True fact!
ReplyDeleteCould be worse it could be Dark Enlightenment -- I also laffed at that recent branding exercise; "the darker side of Enlightenment" is a venerable overused trope among thirtysomething grad students writing their Hannah Arendt dissertations.
ReplyDelete"Promise & Peril in the Age of Cheese-Moving Synergies"
ReplyDeleteThe Bilderbergers must secretly get off on the vulgar notion that they're some malevolent combination of the Thule Society and Skull & Bones; otherwise even those, uh, scintillating topics you listed don't sound like a reason to make the trip.
ReplyDeleteOTOH Davos, or Aspen Ideastock, is more like a film festival or a spring fashion show. You're there to be seen; if it's ever necessary to open one's mouth and actually say something, just go NWO Mad Libs with it
@ title who said...
ReplyDelete"Promise & Peril in the Age of Cheese-Moving Synergies"
Still guffawing at that one.
"Bloomberg recently promised to give his fortune away before he dies.
ReplyDeleteGet back to me when he actually does it. He could give it away tomorrow, which would presumably be "before he dies", but I don't expect he will."
Idea for a movie: Billionaire former mayor on his death bed gives away his fortune, thinking he has no use for it anymore, then miraculously recovers and is faced with living out his days as a pauper. Possible angle: the guy is a secular atheist Jew but the miraculous nature of his recovery causes him to contemplate the existence of the Divine, possibly even becoming a prophet of some sort. Another issue: will his rich friends and colleagues or former constituents support him, or will he, as a homeless man, be vulnerable to attacks by 'vibrant' members of the community?
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/im-a-white-girl-why-girls-wont-ever-overcome-its-racial-problem/267345/
ReplyDeleteThere must be Bilderberg old-timers who say "I was a Bilderbeast back when it meant something, back when it really was a conspiracy! Now they let just anybody in! I'll be at the bar!"
ReplyDeleteAndrew Ross Sorkin asks if the best of Davos is behind it:
ReplyDeleteLinky
Anonymous said . . .
ReplyDeleteFor those people, its about creating dynasties, making sure their kids kids will attend Davos too
Another Anonymous replied . . .
Really? Bloomberg recently promised to give his fortune away before he dies.
Why is this opposed to him creating a dynasty? Lots of rich people choose to work their dynastic influence via charitable foundations. Bill Gates "gave away" his fortune by endowing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which the Gates family controls. Many other rich folks chose to do similar things---roughly all the named foundations you have heard of and many you have not are like this.
A lot of the influence buying that dynasts want to do can be classified as research, education, or donating to the poor. Why not get the tax break by doing that part of your dynastic work through a foundation? Plus, you get the good press associated with "giving away" your money.
If all else fails, your kids can have highly paid positions running the foundations. The heads of big foundations run in elite circles. 100 years from now, the person running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be a member of the elite. Thus, you get a place at Davos for your kids this way.
It's a newsworthy event when descendants lose control of ancestor's foundations. The Ford Foundation is an example. Lawyers get paid to try to make sure this does not happen.
The wealth and power of American Davos participants is typically relatively new, only a generation or two old. Many of the American Davos participants had grandparents that were very poor. Dynasty? Hardly
ReplyDeleteThe show only got started in 1971, these are people aiming to found and maintain dynasties so give them a chance. Discuss.
Bloomberg & Bill Gates giving all their money away is part of some larger conspiracy to suppress the birthrates of founding stock americans
ReplyDeleteWell if they leave most of that cash to founding stock americans then we can relax. But, you know what, Ive got a funny feeling. . .
"Making the world safe for cleptocracy: one continent at a time"
ReplyDeleteyobs and globs.
ReplyDeleteglobs being globalists.
Status Maximization: Increasing the Monetary Value of Pomposity
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about Davos, but it has always appeared to me to be a great collection of Malcolm Gladwell anid Tom Friedman level insights into the world--sort-of the level of relatively smart airplane or beach books. The most depressing thought along these lines is the suspicion that this is actually what looks like insight and wisdom to the people with real power in the world. God help us.
ReplyDeleteI'm now visualizing the Onionesque honest talk titles.
ReplyDeleteMiddle Eastern Politics: A Bloody, Confusing Muddle
Eurozone: What the Fuck Do We Do About Spain?
Addressing Global Warming: Well, We're Out Of Ideas
Global Stability: Damn, Lots of People Sure Hate Their Neighbors
Davos and Davo-nots.
ReplyDelete>"I was a Bilderbeast back when it meant something"<
ReplyDeleteLOL. Kissinger (Capt. Aphrodisiac) surely.