Unless you watch a lot of Bloomberg or CNBC, you may not have heard of Davos. Time Magazine summarizes:
The small alpine ski town of Davos has just entered its peak season. Every January, a lively mélange of global business magnates, world leaders, entrepreneurs, activists, journalists and intellectuals descend upon the Swiss village to ski, socialize and participate in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The five-day gathering, organized by the Geneva-based nonprofit, is intended to provide a platform to debate pressing global challenges. Not surprisingly, the recent economic meltdown is at the forefront of the agenda for this year’s meeting — aptly titled “Shaping the Post-Crisis World” — which kicked off on January 28th and is already considered to be the most important (and somber) Davos conference yet.
Essentially, Davos is a forum for power networking in an environment of excess. Given the current financial climate, I feel it is the economic equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. It just looks terribly out of place as businesses slash jobs by the thousands and report ever-dismal earnings. In short, Davos is a theology of glory in the midst of a theology of the cross, and a powerful commentary on just why some of us find this strain of theology to be inappropriate in the church given what we know about the human condition and the design of salvation.
5 comments
John Pulliam says:
Jan 28, 2009
I agree. I’ve followed this event for years. I rarely hear anything that proves to be useful. Generally, the people who have useful things to say are busy working.
I was however glad to see Steve Forbes and others criticize the Obama stimulus package.
Obama promised changed and we got it. The trillions digit on our annual deficit is about to go up by 1.
John Pulliam says:
Jan 28, 2009
change*
dpotter says:
Jan 28, 2009
Yes, John…Keynesian economics failed us under Hoover and FDR, and it hasn't done much for Japan either. I hadn't heard Forbes' comments, but I'm sure as an advocate of a flat tax, he might object on a number of levels. I did a quick calculation the other night when the $850bn price tag finally hit me…works out to about $137 for each of the 6bn people on the planet. Aside from inflation concerns as a result of this huge cash injection, I wonder how we are going to pay that back.
It is interesting to hear the competing voices on these issues, and I think we can classify them into messages of cross & glory. This is to say that those who advocate taking a passive (Adam Smith!) approach are economists of the cross, whereas those who choose to paper over the cracks with more dollars are economists of glory. 🙂
Anyway, I should have noted that there were a handful of prominent CEOs who did not go to Davos this year (Merrill Lynch, Intel, etc).
burton says:
Jan 29, 2009
i have a hard time imagining republicans as being “economists (or anything else) of the cross”.
just sayin.
dpotter says:
Jan 29, 2009
Saboteur! 🙂