The World Economic Forum doesn’t matter

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:05:00 +0000

World leaders, CEOs and economists are this week tucked away in a skiing village in Switzerland, making predictions -- which have historically not borne out -- about the economy, the climate and impending doom or lack thereof. As the annual World Economic Forum begins at Davos Tuesday, there will be networking, hobnobbing, blue-sky thinking, auguring and at the end of it all, many commentators note, not much changes for the rest of us.

The WEF, Andrew Ross Sorkin noted in the New York Times Monday, is rife with prediction-making. "The predictions that have emanated from Davos always have a ring of plausibility to them, in part because of the credibility of the speakers. But all too often they fall short." Sorkin notes that Bill Gates didn't think much of "the Google guys" in 2003; and, in 2008, C. Fred Bergsten, senior fellow and director emeritus of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, said “It is inconceivable — repeat, inconceivable — to get a world recession.”

Salon.com > wef

The World Economic Forum doesn’t matter