The WEF, Execs on Trump & The Greatest Speech of All-Time - Top 3 Takeaways – January 19th, 2024
- U.S. executives in Davos see a Trump victory in 2024, and no cause for concern. CNBC is great at financial news reporting. They really are the best. But when it comes to the crossroads where financial news and politics meet...not so much. They tend to take after the traditional NBC bend. Nevertheless, as an avid investor, CNBC is still my daily go to for financial news and my top takeaway today happens to be the headline from a CNBC story from yesterday. So yes, it is that time of the year where corporate execs from around the world gather at one of the creepiest annual get-togethers – The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This is where New World Order types create and perpetuate ideas like The Great Reset. The Illuminati may or may not be a thing but the WEF’s agenda is where conspiracy theories really do come to life. On the one hand, that CNBC went out of their way to highlight the fact that most corporate execs believe Trump will win this year’s presidential election, is notable. On the other hand, they couldn’t resist expressing their own obvious surprise at both the prediction and that executives aren’t seemingly concerned about what could happen if Trump is once again president. On that note, excerpts from the article include: Both publicly and privately, U.S. executives said at Davos they weren’t concerned if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Banking leaders, in particular, expressed confidence that America will be OK if Trump returns to the White House. The way the article is framed is essentially through the prism that if one’s not alarmed by a potential return to the White House with Trump, that’s surprising and potentially even alarming. On that note here’s another excerpt: One partner at a large global private equity firm said privately he’s been surprised by the lack of concern among U.S. executives given Trump’s refusal to accept his election defeat in 2020 and the subsequent U.S. Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. You can almost hear the dun-dun-duuuuun!!! sound effect coming through in the story. January 6th, 2021 seemingly was the theme that CNBC used as the basis of their surprise. Which is to say that they’ve bought into the January 6th Committee and President Joe Biden’s “threat to democracy” narrative – perhaps so pervasively that the authors and the network don’t even realize that they’re exposing themselves in their stories. And evidentially, the editorial stance of traditional news media’s position that Trump is a “threat to democracy” is so strong that most of the quoted execs in the story remained anonymous. But kudos once again to one who has been both on the record and overt in his position this week. The world’s most prominent banker JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon said this when asked by CNBC about Trump: Just take a step back, and be honest. He was kind of right about NATO. He was kind of right about immigration, he grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. I don’t like how he said things about Mexico, but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues. And that’s why they’re voting for him. Well, bingo! At worst all any honest person could say is effectively about what Dimon did about Trump. Yeah, he said stuff I didn’t like but he was right on the issues. And here we are, 3 years tomorrow, into an administration where the president has been wrong on all of the major issues and yet there’s an element of surprise that business leaders “aren’t concerned” about a Trump presidency. Could it be that many might even be excited about the prospect about getting the president back who was right on trade, right on taxes, right on immigration, right on foreign policy and right on China specifically? But the premise, the inference of the article, which is emblematic of the sentiment of most national news reporters, is correct in one respect. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. He’s running once again to lead our Representative Republic which is why what we say when we vote matters more than what they say when they report – or even what the creepy New World Order peeps have been plotting at the World Economic Forum this week. But about that...
- The star of the show at The World Economic Forum was Argentina’s newly elected President Javier Milei who delivered a brilliant speech in the belly of the beast. Quoting Milei: Today I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is in danger because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately, in recent decades, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. Some have been motivated by well-meaning individuals who are willing to help others, and others have been motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me: no one is in better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points. Thirty-five years after we adopted the model of freedom, back in 1860, we became a leading world power. And when we embraced collectivism over the course of the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens started to become systematically impoverished, and we dropped to spot number 140 globally. But before having the discussion, it would first be important for us to take a look at the data that demonstrate why free enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also that it's the only morally desirable system to achieve this. If you look at a graph of the evolution of economic growth throughout the history of humanity, you would see a hockey stick graph, an exponential function that remained constant for 90% of the time and which was exponentially triggered starting in the 19th century. Now, it's not just that capitalism brought about an explosion in wealth from the moment it was adopted as an economic system, but also, if you look at the data, what you will see is that growth continues to accelerate throughout the whole period. We should remember that by the year 1800, about 95% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. And that figure dropped to 5% by the year 2020, prior to the pandemic. The conclusion is obvious. Far from being the cause of our problems, free trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty across our planet. The empirical evidence is unquestionable. Therefore since there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is superior in productive terms, the left-wing doxa has attacked capitalism, alleging matters of morality, saying - that's what the detractors claim - that it's unjust. They say that capitalism is evil because it's individualistic and that collectivism is good because it's altruistic. Of course, with the money of others. So they therefore advocate for social justice. The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn't contribute to general well-being. Quite on the contrary, it's an intrinsically unfair idea because it's violent. It's unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom. So how come academia, international organizations, economic theorists and politicians demonize an economic system that has not only lifted 90% of the world's population out of extreme poverty but has continued to do this faster and faster? Thanks to free trade capitalism, the world is now living its best moment. Never in all of mankind or humanity's history has there been a time of more prosperity than today. This is true for all. The world of today has more freedom, is rich, more peaceful and prosperous. This is particularly true for countries that have more economic freedom and respect the property rights of individuals. Now, if free enterprise, capitalism and economic freedom have proven to be extraordinary instruments to end poverty in the world, and we are now at the best time in the history of humanity, it is worth asking why I say that the West is in danger. And I say this precisely because in countries that should defend the values of the free market, private property and the other institutions of libertarianism, sectors of the political and economic establishment are undermining the foundations of libertarianism, opening up the doors to socialism and potentially condemning us to poverty, misery and stagnation. Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to leave a message for all business people here and those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we've ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it's because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general wellbeing. Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself. You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch and unconditional ally. Thank you very much and long live freedom! That just might be the greatest speech that has ever been delivered. And without a doubt it’s the most important message that has ever been delivered in the history of The World Economic Forum.