Mohamed El-Erian
Reuters.com
I’ve turned down every invitation I’ve received to the World Economic Forum in Davos, said Mohamed El-Erian, and I always will. I know that for a “global cornucopia of important people,” the annual meeting in the Swiss Alps, which ended this week, is a hot ticket. But I’m convinced this gathering of glitterati is never going to make a difference.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
I’ve asked a number of attendees over the years why “so few, if any,” of the high-level brainstorms among world leaders, CEOs, and movie stars ever translate into real action. They say the forum’s agenda is too broad, and that it may be impossible for real progress to emerge from meetings full of “so much wealth and so many egos.”
But I think the biggest problem is that most attendees simply don’t share the organizers’ higher ambitions. As long as leaders are unwilling to “give up control of their narratives,” collaboration on major global problems will remain impossible. Which is a pity. Davos could be a powerful force for good. But unless it better encourages people to work together, “this prestigious gathering will continue to fall short of its vast potential.”
-
Should you add your child to your credit card?The Explainer You can make them an authorized user on your account in order to help them build credit
-
Cracker Barrel crackup: How the culture wars are upending corporate brandingIn the Spotlight Is it 'woke' to leave nostalgia behind?
-
'It's hard to discern what it actually means'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Issue of the week: Jamie Dimon’s big raisefeature After a year of lawsuits, fines, and government probes, JPMorgan is giving CEO Jamie Dimon a massive raise.
-
Issue of the week: Twitter’s public stock offering
feature As Twitter prepares for its initial public offering, “its books aren’t pretty.”
-
Issue of the week: JPMorgan in Washington’s crosshairs
feature The biggest U.S. bank is discussing an $11 billion payment to settle government investigations related to the mortgage crisis.
-
Breaking cable TV’s power
feature Why is cable television’s monopoly so stubborn?
-
Wal-Mart’s art of shame
feature Several paintings in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art strike me as “especially pointed commentaries” on the retailer’s baleful effect on our country and its economy, said Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg.com.
-
The dark art of tax dodging
feature It shows how desperately we need corporate tax reform when “even a company like P&G practices the dark tax-avoiding arts,” said Allan Sloan at Fortune.