I lived in Davos-Kosters for years and loved the WEF.
For weeks before hand I savored that much loved ten days as I watched the well oiled preparations being made. Hundreds of riot police arrived, barbed wire gates and fences appeared. I was stopped every time I went near the entrance to the town by police asking me my business and demanding to see my papers, while waving a sub machine gun ominously in my direction.
The locals love it! They make the very great majority of their income during the conference, as they gleefully raise their prices tenfold. And frankly, if you turn up at Samedan in a private jet what do you expect? A bargain break with breakfast thrown in?
Audi used to convert a field near the lake on the outskirts of the town into an ice rink and people with more money than sense raced around the track in vast, powerful black limmos. Presumably it was worth Audi’s while?
And did I attend all those fascinating “Key Note” addresses? Did I give one myself perhaps? Was I busy in conferences with the great and the good, the pompous and the windbags?
Was I wringing my hands with beautiful actresses over the state of the world poor or the global ecosystem? Or whatever the latest cause espoused by the Luvvies happened to be?
Did I ponder matters of deep finance with the Masters of the Universe, the hugely important bankers and finance ministers, the great economic gurus?
Did I gasp with wonder and love at our National Treasures like David Attenborough?
Wow! World leaders in my home town! The grandeur of it! The importance! The prestige!
Did I marvel at “Strategic Oultlooks”? The prescience of these people! The Duke of Cambridge! Wo! That genius and media star.
Did I attend Power Breakfasts and engage in Cocktail Networking?
Odd to relate, no, I did none of these things. My sole interest was in the fact I had over 200 km of ski piste all to myself.
The Great and the Good are, by and large, neither. I have no interest at all in what any of them have to say.
But the skiing while they were busy pontificating (there was no room for ordinary tourists). Well that was pure heaven.
Weltanschauung 