The meaning of Davos

Columnist Adrian Kaletsky reflects on Davos, an annual, week-long conclave of global nabobs on a remote Swiss mountaintop. "The combination of faddishness and consensus-orientated conventional thinking makes Davos a hopeless place for the media or financial markets to prepare for events that may lie ahead in the rest of the year. If it is useful for anything, the 'mood of Davos' can be seen as a contrary indicator. The opinions that dominate at Davos are the ones least likely to cause any major shocks in the year ahead and, in financial and economic terms, the ones most likely to prove totally misguided. ... So the real purpose of Davos is perfectly simple: it is handshaking, glad-handing, eye-contact networking. ... We may all spend our lives on the internet or talking on mobile phones, but these will never be a substitute for face-to-face human interaction."

» full article (external link, English)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Global
All available articles from » Anatole Kaletsky

» To the complete press review of Thursday, January 26, 2006