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John Ralston Saul described Davos as follows:<< DAVOS (THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM) Tucked away into the Swiss Alps, a consecrated temple of tomorrow’s conventional wisdom for political and business leaders.

Once a year in the depths of winter two thousand businessmen, academics, politicians and civil servants gather there under the gaze of three hundred journalists. The consultants speak up in hope of winning clients. Politicians attempt to impress lenders. Businessmen glad-hand like salt-tax collectors, happy to be there and filled with world-saving ideas.

Davos is a slightly ludicrous attempt at something worrying – an international assembly on the corporatist model.

Last year we learned that corporations don’t want to pay tax. This year we learned that don’t want to do anything that might impact on short-term profits, so they ignore all appeals to limit CO2 emissions. In short, we cannot expect anything from Davos “except business as usual”, until crises occur, and they propagate to the point where they threaten short-term profits.