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GLOBAL LEADERS, BILLIONAIRES and celebrities have been rubbing shoulders since yesterday in a little Swiss town called Davos for the annual World Economic Forum conference.
We already know Taoiseach Enda Kenny, tycoon Denis O’Brien and Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin are among the Irish contingent there, but in case you didn’t make the invite list – or baulked at the circa-$200,000 pricetag for attending the conference – TheJournal.ie can bring you up to speed.
Here are a few things you may have missed at Davos:
The irony police came knocking
US billionaire Jeff Greene, who made his fortune betting against sub-prime mortgages, was on hand to deliver a message to his fellow Americans – that their “lifestyle expectations” were too high and they needed to “have less things”.
Greene also happened to drop the fact that he flew to the forum with his family – and two nannies.
Live Earth and cities without cars
Former US vice president Al Gore and musician Pharrell Williams used their Davos appearance to launch a global “live earth” concert to kickstart action on combating climate change.
The June event would be run “all over the world on all seven continents” – although Antarctica was notably missing from the planned locations in China, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, the US and France.
Gore was also behind a plan to spend $90 trillion (€77.5 trillion) to redesign every city in the world so people lived closer together and didn’t need cars.
Don’t worry about China
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang hosed down fears his country’s economy was headed for a “hard landing” a day after the world’s most populous nation posted its weakest growth figures for nearly 25 years.
Despite recent volatility in the country’s economy, Li said the country was putting in place reforms to make its economy run “smoother and stronger”.
Enda stared into the ‘chasm of disconnection’
The Taoiseach took part in a session with other European leaders today, when he said Ireland had learned a “difficult lesson” from its bailout but recovery wouldn’t be felt by most people until young emigrants would be able to come home again.
He also warned of a “chasm of disconnection” if Europeans didn’t work constructively with the region’s institutions.
Economists argued about economics
Ahead of the ECB’s widely-tipped move today to magically create more money for itself (also known as quantitative easing or QE), there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about the right way to fix the eurozone’s deflationary problems.
The former boss of Germany’s Bundesbank, Axel Weber, complained the real issue was that European leaders had failed to deliver necessary economic reforms – the standard mantra from his nation’s financial mandarins.
But former Bank of England official Adam Posen, whose country pulled the QE trigger during the financial crisis, said the problem was that too many people – especially in Germany – where against the plan and it was now coming “very late in the game”.
With AFP
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Rich people talking about corruption. Climate change with all the private jets. Hunger and poverty while paying 40 euro for a whiskey. Billionaires telling people to tighten their belts while flying in private jet and bringing the nannies. Oh the irony.
We live in a country that have a government for the rich and only the rich,and that has been the case for decades.Time has come to get rid of these people for good.
The more we learn of these guys dishing out the rules but not living by them, the more likely there will be mass civil unrest. What’s brewing around todays world is unfortunately unpleasant… And doesn’t bode well for the future. These guys need to watch scrooged or a Christmas carol.
Or in their case. A Muppets Christmas Carol.
Enda: ‘Now what colour tie shall I wear today’!
I brought my nanny on the train to Dublin once. Grandad said he was glad to get rid of her for the day.
Really wish I could just ignore the nonsense these idiots are spouting but unfortunately they hold the power and the wealth. They make me sick, especially enda the lick arse!
Tough luck if I wasn’t invited?.They’re all a bunch of tossers in expensive suits.
Is bono there?
Bono not rich enough!!! Enda is there on taxpayers money !!!
I thought davos was someone’s gaff in finglas
Seen the humble pilgrim Archbishop returning from the conference 2 years ago. His cash strapped church could only afford to send him Business class on Swiss air!
What’s your point Wayne? or are you just ‘bashing the bishop’.
Strap on
Norman, his church is unable to pay compensation to it’s victims, and the bishop who lives in a 50 room palace & is one of the largest land and property owners wants the government to take action!
Wayne his church is able to pay but our government did a deal with them.
Norman check again, they are about a quarter of a billion short on what they owe under that deal!
But obviously that’s ok, with you
This is mind blowing ignorance on the part of Al Gore.
He said that the earth’s mantle is “several million degrees” at “2 kilometers or so down”and that the “crust of the earth is hot” too.
He said that the Arctic ice would have disappeared by 2014.
His homes use more power than some small nations.
He is a bloviating self-declared genius who has built up a fortune of over $200 million on the back of his involvement in the climate scam.
This is like some episode of Dynasty isn’t it? I’m sure many of them need minders/ nannies… to keep them away from, you know, the poor, the old, the people who work… oh, you people! Hey, where’s Mitt?
al gone still sprouting his man made global warming crap. how many private jets are there yet its the common person using the shower for too long that does all the damage.
all the data presented supporting climate change theory leaves out the correlation between it and solar activity.
however the green market is big business and the right people are making money. if any researcher wants to put out data against man made climate change they will not get funded and ngos/think tanks will go all out to discredit them.
its a con job. the cultural Marxists love it. look into the matter for yourself.
too long to read.
@John Fergus, the fool Gore advises Obama and has made presentations to congress as their adviser and yet will not enter into any debate with scientists who can call his bluff.
Hi John,
Al Gore may be a hypocrite and a bit of a tool, but ‘man-made global warming’ as you like to call it is not ‘crap’.
There’s a tonne of peer-reviewed articles online, but NASA is a good place to start: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Happy reading.
Remember, when NOAA and NASA declare “hottest years”, just how poor their surface temperature coverage is. Just 6000 stations in the northern hemisphere, none in much of China or northern Russia or the Arabian Peninsula to mention just a few places and far too many of the 6000 are estimated, either because the stations are closed, or have missing months.RSS recently released the satellite measured global temperature for 2014 and found it is not even close to a new record.
I wonder could anyone with 200k attend?
Imagine winning the Euromillions and telling the lads … ‘Here I’m off to Davos for the week to have the craic with Inda and DOBS … Totes!’
Jeff must have been schooled by CJ
Our green isle is densely populated by us green eyed and immensely jealous moaners….
Is it just the angle of the foto or is our Enda getting a bit of a belly on him? All that rich food and champers……..not everyone is suffering due to the economy…….but 1 in six children in the Republic don’t have enough warm cloths or heat……”let them eat cake”……
Im a business grad; trying to work out why a bishop is there? Economies of Scale, probably…
have your say