Libs of Davos

Eat bugs. Own Nothing. Be Grateful. A message from your Kindly Overlords.

(Source: Getty Images)

Joel Bowman, Seshing it up this Sunday from Buenos Aires, Argentina...

...but only just!

A few hours from now, we’ll be burning up the atmosphere in a common commercial jetliner, stomping our filthy carbon footprint all across God’s blue skies. 

(We reached out to St. Greta Thunberg to see if we might hitch a ride but, alas... there’s not enough room in her holy ark for all the wretched animals in this world.) 

Still, we count ourselves among the fortunate, the few. To think that Julius Caesar never dined from a seat back tray table... Mark Antony never joined the mile high club... Cleopatra never got the additional pat-down from leering TSA creeps...

Far greater beings have walked the earth before us... and gazed at the heavens in idle vain. It’s time we check our privilege... 

... and give thanks! 

Thanks to long-dead fossils and wayward meteors and to sticky tar pits too... 

Thanks to energy-dense hydrocarbons... and inexorable chemical processes... and the slow march of time...

Thanks to heavy sour crude and the light sweet stuff... to oil sands and the fracking revolution and holes drilled deep in the ocean floor...

Thanks to glorious, super high-octane jet fuel! 

And while we’re at it...

Hats off to Colonel Drake and his Titusville gusher... to nodding donkeys and humble derricks... to lonely posts on offshore rigs and patient wives, waiting back home... 

Cheers to the brave... the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur... to Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart, too... and to all the unnamed pilots who dove to watery graves so that their tearful, dogged colleagues might return to the drawing boards, tinker with the models, streamline their designs, and try, try again...

Thanks to the brainy... the engineers and idiot-savants and all the math whizzes who nutted out the dihedral effect and the lift coefficient and the aspect ratio... and all the other ballistic and aeronautical inputs far beyond our own innumerate grasp. 

Thanks to the minds behind radar and GPS and even (yes, even) inflight entertainment... 

Praise be to the high and the low, the grease monkeys and air traffic controllers and baggage handlers... the airport janitors and the lounge waitresses too...

And to everyone who turns the impossible, the miraculous, the positively stupendous – human flight! – into a banal reality at which the elites of the world so dismissively scoff... we salute you!

Owing to their efforts, and standing on their gigantic shoulders, we embark on an air-bound journey to finally reunite Dear Daughter with her antipodean grandparents... after nearly three irreplaceable years of heartfelt absence. 

And to those who locked the world down, who kept our kinfolk apart, despite the cumulative efforts of these aforementioned heroes... 

...a pox on all your houses!

Which brings us to this week’s feature essay...

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Libs of Davos

By Joel Bowman

In a pop-up city, nestled in the lush countryside of one of the world’s richest countries, your enlightened (yet humble) overlords gathered this week to discuss your future... your children’s future... and the future of the entire planet. 

Chances are, you’re not going to like what they had to say. But hear them out; it’s for their own good. 

Spirited on luxury private jets angel wings, 2,000 of personkind’s finest moral exemplars journeyed to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to engage in an cloistered mass debate over how best to organize the miracle of life here on this precious blue orb. 

Among the anointed attendees lurked all the usual perps and meddlers – with names like Bill Gates, George Soros and Henry Kissinger – so beloved by their fellow humans the WEF only needed 5,000 uniformed military personnel, in addition to the local police, plus a no-fly zone manned by Swiss Army fighter jets, to keep them safe from their adoring fans. (Boy oh boy, imagine how many windmills and solar panels it took to power those big strong planes!)

Of course, Big Business was in the house too, just checking if anyone needed a hand in the kitchen and generally helping to guide the world toward the best possible version of itself. Righteously conscious of the widening pay-gap between the corner office and the factory floor, multinational corporations sent 600+ of their highest paid, multi-millionaire CEOs and a couple dozen CFO sidekicks along, presumably to mind that the gap/canyon is properly preserved. 

Those keeping score at home might be wondering how the oft-cited Wealth Inequality Meter has fared since the planet’s richest insiders first began scoffing canapés and quaffing champagne on their workers behalf at the sumptuously appointed WEF. Oh look, here’s a helpful graph...

21st Century Wire 🇾🇪 @21stCenturyWire

⭕️ The numbers don’t lie. #WEF #Davos was always about advancing Neo feudalism.👇

(Something else rings a bell about that year, no? Something about a Knock on Bretton Woods? Hmm... It’ll come to us...)

Your friendly Big Tech invigilators were there, of course... including the CEOs of Wokepedia, Microsoft and Cloudfare, plus schmoozing reps from Meta, IBM and Google, all working in tandem with their toy poodles in the official, accredited media to “deliver the message” from on high. Think of Moses descending from the top of Mt. Sinai, but with updated tablets and a goose stepping platoon of question-free “fact checkers” in tow. (All with an approved list of the same “facts,” of course.)

And how could we forget those with their fingers on the planet’s thermostat, the climate experts, there to help us know what type of bugs to eat, how far we may or may not travel, and whether to do so by scooter, bicycle or rickshaw? No fewer than 42 WEF attendees had the word “sustainability” in their “job” title. Bless them! So much sus, stain and inability to go around!

But let us turn for a moment to the grand poobah of the event, that is, part-time Dr. Evil impersonator and the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Martin Schwab. Here he is, somewhat behind the inflation curve...

Whoopsie! Wrong photo. Apologies to Mike Myers, who is no evil genius; merely a genius actor. Herr Schwab, on the other hand, is the real deal! 

Excuse us a second while we find another snap...

“But Joel,” we hear you protest, “isn’t Klauss Schwab the son of Eugen Schwab, managing director of the Zurich-based engineering firm Escher Wyss, which supplied armaments to the Nazis during WWII, including flame throwers, gas powered turbines, compressors and propellers?” (Yes - SOURCE) 

“And wasn’t the firm ‘an integral part of researching and developing turbines to produce heavy water for the creation of nuclear weapons for the Nazis?’” (Correct - SOURCE) 

“And, ahem, not to be a stickler here, but didn’t that very same company, under Klauss’s father’s directorship, use slave labor - Jewish, Russian, Gypsie, homosexual, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish and POWs - to man its factor floors?” (Aaaand... yep again - SOURCE) 

“To think they might have even toiled for less than a living wage (gasp!)... you know, before they were tossed into the pit...” 

Be that as it may, gentle, well-researched reader, we should not rush to judge a man by the actions of his father, but rather let him speak for himself. Besides, when it comes to using forced labor camps to supply genocidal dictators with critical components for their nuclear weapons programs, who among us has not erred? Eh? Eh? Amiright? 

So let’s hear from Herr Schwab Jr., in his own words. Here he is, talking up the “penetrative power” exerted by graduates of his visionary young leader’s program, back in 2017.

“I have to say, when I mention now names, like Mrs. (Angela) Merkel and even Vladimir Putin, and so on, they all have been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. But what we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau... We penetrate the cabinet. So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I know that half of his cabinet, or even more than half of his cabinet, are actually Young Global Leaders.”

Now you see in what capable hands your future rests, you can sleep with both eyes open. And since there’s nothing else to comment on there, nothing notable or out of the ordinary or of obvious concern, let’s move right along, to Herr Schwab’s address at this year’s billionaire convocation...

“The future will be built by us,” he rallied his heavily-guarded coven of insiders and political operatives, “by a powerful community as you here in this room.”

Who are these other attendees, cackling around the cauldron? Where is the diversity of opinion? The champions of the working man? The voice of the downtrodden? The people who don’t “have the means,” as Darth Schwab so blithely puts it... or rather, who are presently having the means stolen right out from under them through inflation, taxation and outright confiscation? Where are the dissenters, the gadflies, those speaking truth to power?

Alas, the much-teased mass debate was somewhat anticlimactic. Turns out, the World Economic Forum at Davos is nothing if not committed to a diversity of people propagating identical ideas. As such, pretty much everyone present stood in firm agreement on what needs to be done (de-carbonize, de-capitalize, de-colonize, de-carnivorize), when it needs to be done (“we’ve got 12 years to save the planet”)... and to whom it ought promptly to be done (you). 

Here’s Inconvenient Al Gore, boasting of having personally trained 50,000 “climate activists” who, after three full days of on-the-job training, have “all the information they need about the climate crisis” to go out and “implement solutions.” 

World Economic Forum @wef

‘People in every generation should be part of the movement to demand change quickly.’ Read more: ow.ly/RHjJ50JisLT #wef22

Gee whizz... from tens of thousands of pimply agitators bringing rush hour traffic to a standstill around the world with their “communication skills,” to the Climate TRACE program, where a coalition of artificial intelligence companies, universities and NGOs track real time atmospheric carbon emissions; where they’re coming from, in what amounts and from which sources... are you feeling cleaner and greener yet?

Readers who find themselves inconveniently composed of 18% carbon (and 65% oxygen, the other offending element in the planetary hemlock that is CO2), might fairly be wondering what, exactly, a “carbon free” world might look like. 

The curious mind wonders... Are we the carbon they wish to eliminate? 

If so, could the solution be as easy and relatively painless as, say, sawing off a superfluous limb? Hmm... And what if you happen to be composed of cisgender, white, male carbon? Will that cost you two limbs? Four? How else to level the playing field?

Fear not, dear reader! It’s not just Big Al and his 50,000 activists on the job. No siree Bob! From the big picture to individual invigilation, when it comes to tracking, tracing and monitoring your every move, to “measuring and managing” the problem, you can be sure these tireless busybodies have their eyes on you, too. 

Here’s Alibaba president, J. Michael Evans, not even bothering to hide what’s in store for his “users”... 

“But… but… but… Creepy Uncle Evans. What if we don’t want your present.” Stay tuned, indeed!

But wait... if they aim to track where you travel, how you travel, what you eat, what you consume... what else about your private life might they want to keep a big, brotherly eye on? 

Enter the world’s most infamous veterinary scientist, the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, with his next great idea: ingestible chips... (NOT Doritos.)

Right Said Fred @TheFreds

This is Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explaining Pfizer's new tech at Davos : "ingestible pills" - a pill with a tiny chip that sends a signal to relevant authorities when the pharmaceutical has been digested. "Imagine the compliance," he says #NWO##Davos

“Imagine the compliance.”

Uh, no thanks.

As the late, great, late-20th century philosopher, Kurt Cobain, cautioned in his delightful teen ditty, Territorial Pissings: “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.”

Psst… pass it on.

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And now for some more Fatal Conceits...

Earlier this week we caught up with globetrotting real estate investor and longtime friend of the Bonner Private Research team, Mr. Ronan McMahon. 

For more than two decades, Ronan has been scouting markets across Europe and Central and South America, looking for opportunities in what he calls the “Path of Progress.” 

Some of the deals he finds are more “practical,” as he puts it, for the turnkey style investor looking for a low stress, reliable rental yield. Other locales offer a more off the beaten track adventure, something for the “seekers” among us.

Whether you’re looking to invest some time and/or money abroad... or you just want to zone out, escape the news cycle for an hour and imagine yourself in a hammock with a tropical drink in one hand and a good book in the other... 

...this week’s Fatal Conceits podcast has just what you’re looking for. 

Listen to the entire episode (or read the full transcript, now posted), right here...

Fatal Conceits Podcast with Ronan McMahon

As always, please feel free to like and share this post...

 ...and to leave any and all comments - including YOUR preferred overseas getaway, and why it is so - in the space below...

And that’s all from us for another week. We’re off to the Outback Steakhouse at Ezeiza International Airport for one last cheap steak... before flying waaaay north for the summer, to the city of little mermaids, open-faced sandwiches and existential philosophers. (Any guesses?)

Tune in again tomorrow, when Bill returns with his regular missives.

Cheers,

Joel Bowman