by CYRIL MYCHALEJKO
The world’s billionaires and political elites have swooped into the Swiss resort town of Davos in about 1,700 private jets this week to rub elbows at cocktail parties and glad-hand at the annual World Economic Forum. Some time after paying at least $71,000 to get there, and in between networking and sealing business deals, these world leaders are also expected to solve some of the globe’s most pressing problems as outlined in the World Economic Forum Global Risks 2015 report.
However, the biggest risk the world faces may be the Forum’s continued neoliberal economic policies its members advocate that have created the crises it supposedly seeks to redress. These crises include climate change, resource scarcity, high structural underemployment, violent interstate conflicts, and the failure of national governance.
Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said on Tuesday that “sharing and caring should be the motto of this meeting” taking place between Jan. 21-24.
But Alex Scrivener, policy officer at the U.K.-based social justice organization Global Justice Now, isn’t buying what they’re selling.
“Davos is all about casting the super rich as being the good guys, the heroes. It’s about perpetuating the myth that the rich can save the world with their kindness and philanthropy,” Scrivener told teleSUR.
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