“The Future is Ours”: The Imaginary Thoughts of World Economic Forum President Klaus Schwab

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This week saw the convening of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It’s an annual affair that sees world leaders and corporate titans meet in an obscenely expensive environment to discuss seemingly noble topics such as “reimagining capitalism.” The event naturally drew conspiracy theories that it’s the centerpiece of a shadowy Illuminati world, and none of that was helped by the forum founder’s somewhat supervillainous personal style. , Klaus Schwab. With a ramrod-straight posture and a strong German accent, Schwab has everyone from Xi Jinping to Donald Trump in his rolodex, and he has a penchant for saying unsettling things like “the future is ours.” Below, the National Post’s Tristin Hopper took an imaginary look at her diary this week.

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Monday

I often wonder if my grave should bear the initials KS, or if K will suffice. Will the beginning of the 21st century be called the Schwabian era or will it opt ​​for the more poetic “Time of Klaus”? How many future countries will bear my name? Could future grateful descendants change the name of the Americas to Schwabias? I sincerely hope that the legions of statues erected in my likeness will present a tasteful diversity of my various incarnations; Klaus the thinker, Klaus the leader of men, Klaus the bearer of revolution.

But alas, these important musings were abruptly cut short by the chilling revelation that a member of the cleaning staff had used my personal toilet. Just to be sure, the entire concierge service was immediately fired. Our sacred mission to uplift the masses of the world to a golden and equitable future cannot be interrupted by the unprofessional and downright reckless inattention of ordinary workers.

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Tuesday

It is with great disappointment that I must announce that the North Korean delegation will once again be unable to attend our Davos conference. Our mission here of human inclusiveness is so often hampered by petty demands for “sanctions” or “international mandates”. I sincerely hope that these insignificant obstacles to global cooperation will not hamper our organization’s continued attempts to forge meaningful ties with the new Taliban government of Afghanistan; these bold newcomers to the global community of nations have much to teach us about youth empowerment and reducing emissions. And although recent border issues have ruled out Russian President Vladimir Putin’s participation this year, I am confident that he will continue to be a thought leader on issues of alternative energy and civic engagement.

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Wednesday

As I decanted another bottle of Gerolsteiner mineral water onto my hands to cleanse myself after a handshake with Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, I was reminded how the folks at Gerolsteiner don’t seem to inhabit our urgent message of corporate capitalism. stakeholders.

No mass advertising campaigns to promote peripheral social issues. No use of their market power to achieve preferable political ends. The labels on their bottles are nothing more than a minimalist description of the contents; where are the calls for environmental justice or LGBT equity? Unfortunately, all Gerolsteiner seems to do is package a product that is sold to the consumer at a competitive price. I don’t know whether to speak of piracy or terrorism.

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Thursday

A spokesperson for the Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco informed me of a promising new initiative they are sponsoring to make classic literature more inclusive by stripping it of gendered pronouns. Afterwards, I spent an invigorating 20 minutes with Huawei’s head of strategic development. As part of their “One Truth” proposition, we may already be at the dawn of smartphones that use artificial intelligence to automatically weed out harmful misinformation from live phone calls. If properly scaled, this technology could save millions of lives a year by directly thwarting dangerous consumer decisions, from playing contact sports to consuming refined sugar.

Friday

It was one of the second-tier world leaders – probably from one of the South American countries – who asked me over truffle oil burrito canapes what I, Klaus Schwab, consider my deepest regret. The answer, of course, is simple: I deeply regret being born in a time that is so visibly free of crisis and suffering.

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Your talents are wasted in these times of complacency and peace, Klaus! My temporal existence on this earth draws to its last chapter, and I find myself busy with such trivial distractions as wealth taxes. I was meant for so much more.

Oh, to be at my peak in the late 1930s! I alone would have tempered the warring nations of the world with sublime treatises on how true the enemy of humanity was a deficit of green urban infrastructure. What a disaster for civilizations that I was not present in 1347 at the time of the Black Death. In its wake, I would have “reset” a new European order based on exploitable gender parity and non-fungible wealth alternatives.