Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Davos Delusions I: An Ongoing Series

We here at The Hourly G will be keeping tabs on the annual meeting at the World Economic Forum, taking place at Davos, Switzerland, between January 26 and 30.

(And by the way: Davos? Really? For skiing, everyone knows it’s Zermatt-Cervinia, and for true degeneracy, everyone knows it’s St. Moritz, (or better yet, Gstaad—if you know the right people). But Davos-Klosters? Second-tier Eastern European hookers always with one eye on the clock, and overpriced Bolivian blow that’s way gritty—what’s the fun in that?)

On the first day of Davos, the delusion that’s being sold is that Everything Is Wonderful, And It Will All Get Better Soon. According to the BBC, there will be a “three-speed” recovery, with “fast” growth in Brazil, India and China, “strong” Germany and the US recoveries, while most other advanced economies will make only “weak progress”. 

This sounds suspiciously like the World Economic Forum is playing to the audience in the room—but nevermind. 

The BBC piece continues:
The session on the state of the economy, a traditional fixture kicking off the annual meeting of the world's top business and political leaders, was the most optimistic since the start of the global financial crisis in 2007.
Even Nouriel Roubini, one of the few economists to have predicted the credit crunch and a notorious pessimist, spoke of a situation where "we have a glass that is half-empty and half-full".
Hmm . . . Like this?



If you’ve got a case of the Davos Delusions, you will see that the glass really is half-full. 

2 comments:

  1. Kansas likes the images that sometimes accompanies the writings. The glass above should of had a crack in it.

    Have fun,

    ReplyDelete
  2. If thats Gonzalo's glass, it was all full.

    ReplyDelete

Knock yourself out!

The cult of stability is a culture of death.