Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Incredible Shrinking Davos Man


By Tony Karon

"Last week’s annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum was conspicuous by how little it seemed to matter to anyone — the event passed with hardly a nod from the mainstream media, which had more important things to worry about. But as I wrote on TIME.com, it wasn’t simply that Davos was eclipsed in the news cycle by global stock market wobbles and by Hamas in Gaza wiping the floor with its dunderheaded adversaries (dutifully gathered at Davos, in the persons of Condi Rice, Tony Blair, the Israeli government and the leaders of Fatah). On fronts as different as financial markets and the geopolitics of the Middle East, it has become plain that the political and economic elites of the West have seen a sharp decline in their ability to dictate events......"

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