Doug Casey on What the Elites at Davos Are Really Up To

Via International Man

International Man: It’s that time of the year when a bunch of out-of-touch, self-anointed elites gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It’s where they discuss the big issues of the day. The most influential world leaders attend, as do the CEOs of the largest companies, leaders in the mainstream media, and top academics. Central bankers attend too, along with a wide assortment of celebrities.

What do you make of Davos and the people who attend it?

Doug Casey: Davos is an “invitation only” event for the “elite.” The usual suspects, and almost uniformly horrible people. These people form a subculture. They’re all members, or hangers-on, of various Deep States. They prefer to associate with other people they consider to be peers. If it turns out you don’t share their worldview, you won’t get invited back.

It’s basically a love fest for the international ruling class. They like to get together, hang out, and schmooze, because they all know about each other, even if they don’t know each other personally. Talking about “important” issues with other “important” people gives meaning to their lives. That’s the essence of what goes on at Davos and similar conclaves.

Now, I know the conspiracy types say, “These people have gotten together to conspire against all of us little people.” And some of that undoubtedly happens. That’s nothing new. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith pointed out that whenever people in the same business get together, they always conspire against the public. Of course. That’s human nature. It’s normal. What do you expect?

But it’s not a conspiracy. The fact is that people with the same education, worldview, and economic status tend to think alike. And tend to help one another. It’s not some kind of conspiracy, any more than is a meeting of a local Lion’s Club.

A couple of years ago, I was mistakenly invited to attend a similar very elitist and globalist conference event in New York. It was made up of exactly the same people who show up at Davos and conferences like it.

I found that I didn’t like them. And I strongly suspect they didn’t like me, even though I was on my best behavior. But that’s nothing new. I occasionally get invited to dinner parties in Aspen, with the same kind of people. But usually not more than once. Why might that be? Well, as you know, I say what I think. And that’s usually at odds with what the Masters of the Universe think.

International Man: In previous years, we’ve seen the people at Davos promote various themes that later became policy.

For example, negative interest rates, the abolition of cash, and promoting mass migration were all hot topics at Davos before governments around the world started implementing them.

What is going on here?

Doug Casey: These people are the self-righteous epitome of the Establishment. They’re absolutely opposed to free minds and free markets. They are, however, in a position to influence the policies of the governments that control much of the world’s economy. And they do. It doesn’t matter how much money and power they have; humans are genetically wired to want more. Now that, in itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. It’s responsible for taking humanity from beating on earth with sticks to sending rockets to the other planets.

The problem is that these people are not just willing, but anxious, to use coercion—the State—to get what they want. They camouflage their intentions with massive virtue signaling. For some time, they’ve directed their attention to fixing the planet.

In fact, the bigshots at Davos aren’t going to fix anything, except maybe a few elections. They don’t even understand the problems. But it’s not hard to understand their motives. Everybody, including the African goatherder with flies buzzing around his face, wants to be a bigshot. That’s true even if you only hang out at the local bar or the local Rotary Club. If you’re running with the big dogs, however, you probably want to be a bigshot at Davos.

In years past, mass migration was a major subject for them. Not the migration of Europeans to the Americas in the 19^th century, however. Those were mobile, aggressive, opportunity-seeking people who wanted to leave stagnant and repressive cultures for personal freedom. They had zero in the way of state support.

Very unlike the migrants coming to Europe today, who aren’t being attracted by opportunity so much as welfare benefits and the soft life. They know Western Europe is a massive welfare state that provides free food, housing, medical care, schooling, and living expenses to all comers.

Today’s migrants are mostly unskilled, poorly educated, and many have a bad attitude. They—justifiably—hold their new host countries in contempt. The question arises why—since they’re almost all Muslims—they aren’t being welcomed by places like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, or Brunei, which are wealthy Muslim countries.

There was a massive surge of migrants to Europe in 2015. But that was, I believe, just an overture to what’s coming. What we’re talking about here is the migration of millions of people of different languages, different races, different religions, different cultures, and different modes of living. If you’re an alien and you’re 1 out of 100, or 1,000, or even 10,000, you’re a curiosity, an interesting outsider. And you’d have to integrate into the new society. But an influx of millions of migrants can only destroy the old culture. And guarantee antagonism—especially when the locals are forced to pay for it.

It’s comparable to what happened 1,600 years ago with the migration of the Germanic barbarians into the Roman Empire. But potentially much more serious. The migration policies popular with the Davos crowd are creating minor chaos now, but world-class chaos is in the wings over the next decade. The population of Africa is growing by tens of millions per year while the population of Europe is collapsing. It will be interesting to watch London transform into Lagos North, as Paris starts looking like Kinshasa.

Another item that’s always on their agenda is central bank monetary policies. I’ll make a bet that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is very much in the cards. MMT amounts to the basically unlimited creation of currency units to finance whatever governments want. It’s essentially Keynesianism on steroids. It seems inevitable because all the major governments are actually bankrupt. And the Deep State—Davos types—would far prefer to see things financed with inflation than taxes, because that could take stock markets much higher. And make corporate bailouts much easier.

International Man: No matter the problem, the prescription of the Davos crowd is always more welfare, more warfare, more money printing, more taxes, and of course, more centralization of power into global institutions.

What’s your take?

Doug Casey: The people who attend Davos are all welfare statists. They’re not necessarily socialists, insofar as they don’t want to see government nationalize industries. Most understand how totally dysfunctional that is and that they don’t really benefit from it. Strict socialism, defined as State ownership of the means of production, is off the table. They prefer economic fascism, where a powerful State can funnel wealth to the corporations the elite own or control. They’re happy to throw some table scraps to the unwashed masses, of course. MMT is the best way to do that.

Again, they’re not socialists. They’re welfare statists. Completely opportunistic and absolutely unprincipled. Despicable people, actually. Few are entrepreneurial, independent thinkers or free-market oriented. Those types would be disruptive at Davos, and if they’re ever invited, it would be only once.

Other than celebrities, court intellectuals, and publicity-oriented multibillionaires, the attendees are almost all bureaucrats and politicians who thrive on stolen money. But it’s no longer easily visible briefcases full of cash. That’s quaint in today’s world. They steal indirectly, by making sure they benefit from state regulations, state favors, and the inflation of the currency.

Bribes are in the form of tax-deducible donations to charitable foundations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). That’s not only much safer, but the money is vastly bigger, and the way it’s rigged adds to their prestige. Both making and taking a bribe disguises the miscreants as philanthropists and do-gooders when they use an NGO as a funnel.

But getting back to their economic views, they’re all for “quantitative easing.” Printing money—MMT—directly benefits the stock market. It raises corporate earnings, and much of the newly created cash directly boosts the prices of shares. It’s really sweet, if you’re an insider.

International Man: At this year’s event, climate change appears to be a big focus.

What are your thoughts on this?

Doug Casey: These fools love to talk about global warming, which they attribute to carbon dioxide. Their jets and limos are a small price to pay for the invaluable moral hectoring they give to the billions of hoi polloi.

Davos people see the common man as the real problem. And perversely, the common man believes what he’s told in the media—namely, that he is the problem. Pseudo science has become a new religion. It’s become a moral crusade against carbon, the one element that’s basic to all life; it’s now more hated than uranium, plutonium, or gold. Carbon is being pursued by a lynch mob of angry chimpanzees.

And leading the charge is Davos attendee Greta Thunberg. She’s emblematic of how thoroughly degraded this has become. Greta is a manufactured celebrity. She came out of nowhere last year; massive but completely undeserved media attention made her into one of the planet’s most famous people. It’s not just laughable, but amazing, that a high school sophomore—with no knowledge or experience—has become a world opinion leader. You may have heard her famous deranged rant, but just in case, here it is:

She has absolutely nothing going for her but things like anger, resentment, hatred, and fanaticism. No matter. The Masters of the Universe sit there as she scolds them for their evil in destroying the world and ruining her youth.

The silly little bitch is a frothing-at-the-mouth fanatic and suffers from several really severe psychological aberrations. She is to the world what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is to the United States. She will undoubtedly go into some multi-billion dollar NGO, where she can do a maximum of damage.

People value urgency, sincerity, and passion. Like Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Castro, and the like, she’s got plenty. And nobody dares say a word about it, because she’s been granted the moral high ground. This augurs very poorly for the future.

Probably the only intelligent words spoken at Davos this year came from Donald Trump, of all people, when he decried “prophets of doom,” referring to the global warming crowd.

Climate change has been around for about four billion years. And the biggest driver of it, by far, is the sun. Not carbon dioxide, a trace gas. There’s 20 times more argon, in the atmosphere. Without the sun, earth would be a ball frozen at about two degrees above absolute zero. Not counting the effects of cosmic rays, the planet’s changes in orbit and tilt, the solar system’s rotation around the galaxy, and a score of other critical factors. But these people don’t talk about that, because those things are totally and obviously beyond our control. Best stick with carbon, which is proving helpful in controlling the masses.

International Man: Given the disastrous policies the Davos crowd has in the pipeline, what should the average person do?

Doug Casey: Treat these people with the respect they deserve—which is to say, treat them like drunks discussing the weather at a cocktail party. Davos is just a social gathering for people who have a busybody streak. It would be completely unimportant except for the fact the media says it’s important.

The only thing that surprises me about Davos is that the hustler who runs it hasn’t yet invited the Kardashians.

Editor’s Note: It’s no question that the elite are eager to promote policies like negative interest rates, the abolition of cash, and mass migration. These trends are in motion, and are are accelerating at a rapid rate.

It’s all shaping up to be a world-class disaster… one unlike anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why New York Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent new report with all the information you need to protect yourself. Click here to download the free PDF now.

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