Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow.
There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.
But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.
Of course, most chief executives don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.
And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.) This year, all Strategic Partners are required to invite at least one woman along in an effort to diversify the attendee list.
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Klaus Schwab - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 |
I was at Davos a few times. It is more like a country club than a problem-solving event. You meet people like yourself - from the very top - and you schmooze (for want of a better term). It is considered important to be there because you are there. Big connections can be made, but usually are not.
Underneath, the sessions to "solve problems" are largely a joke. You get the hyper-qualified talking at each other, past each other, through each other. I recall having seen Bill Gates discuss development strategies with Paul Wolfowitz: it was a whirlwind of articulate generalities. Of course, things occasionally do happen with the connections made, but they are lower-order stuff and I seriously wonder if they are worth the price of admission.
So much of it depends on maintaining that it is important, which is the brand of the WEF. It was fun to be there, very fun, but it wasn't important.
sipaNYC
And its all tax-deductable for the executives. Which means that the American taxpayer is picking up part of the bill and once again subsidizing the corporate executive class
Tony Dykes Oakland
If you can afford this by definition you are completely disconnected from all of the worlds major troubles. They are academic rather than personal problems; you can buy your way out of dealing with them.
What do these people know about fixing things they cannot relate to?
on-the-roadnew jersey
Unbelievable! It used to be that the wealthy could buy themselves a life of luxury. Now the super wealthy can buy intellectual seriousness and global influence. No one else's ideas are worth being heard, I guess. The super rich are both ridiculous and overwhelmingly powerful.
uebelgermany
Revolting.
AaronSFlorida
And that's why the rich stay rich: They mingle and network with other powerful people, well beyond the reach or ability of the masses.
Really, if Davos was to be swallowed by the earth when everyone was there, would it be considered an act of terrorism...or salvation?
Do we REALLY think that all the good ideas in the world are had by only a handful of wealthy people? Price barriers like this ensure that great ideas held by common people must travel much farther, must overcome many more barriers, to be heard...if ever.
Sorry, but this conservative Republican has become disillusioned with the rich and powerful that I used to respect. These are the very people who brought us the current world economy, who are even now swooping in to buy at "Distress Sale" prices, and here they are getting together again to plan their next steps.
I'm thinking Karl Marx's view of this class was more accurate than we give him credit for.
Kevin BitzReading, PA
Yup... and they are all paying for it out of their Bush tax cuts and the "hedge fund carried interest at 15%"...
John in SeattleWA
Solving the worlds' problems? Really, sounds to me like an excuse to spend outrageous sums of money for collective ego-stroking. The money would be better spent helping people in real need, and there are plenty of us in the world. Perhaps we should charter a jet and crash the party, now that I would like to see!
Fred M.RI
ah...so that's why dividends paid by large corporations are so low, even though their profits are so high....
dpe ottawa
when everyone is somebody,no one is any body
ShowMeMissouri
How out-of-touch are these people? No wonder the US economy is not working for the poor and middle-classes!
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Impressions - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 28JAN12 - Impression of the session 'Creative Job Creation with the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania' at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, January 28, 2012 |
TCincinnati
And where is the voice of the people? Certainly not here. The ruling class meet and exclude the people. Democracy is subverted in these forums.
tarwaterSan Francisco Bay Area
" ...given by Google on Friday night for several hundred people, can run more than $250,000 for the evening. "
Money sickness. The "revolution" that Google postured is just another degenerative form of the money sickness.
David South of the equator
Disgusting
Jake WSan Antonio, Texas
That is obnoxious. These people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend parties with the other "elite"? Why not just meet for free somewhere and donate the money to Haiti or someplace that needs it? The ways people find to waste money never cease to amaze.
ScotNorth Carolina
Is anything concretely solved during the Davos Forum? $185 mil could do wonders in the rural area that I reside! In these tough economic tides it seems that the "great minds" could make greater waves with more doing than talking. Just the opinion of a simple-minded small business person.
TCDC
Why not select the most impoverished place in the world and pump money into it and host the forum there? Each time improve somewhere else in the world that needs help.
James DeVriesPontoise, France
So, presumably there won't be many drought-stricken subsistence farmers, penniless refugees from war-torn countries, chronically unemployed people who spitefully blame their lot on short term (and short-sighted) profits-driven corporate strategies, not to mention all those pesky foreclosed-upon, through-the-cracks dropouts from the lower middle-classes of developed countries who stubbornly refuse to recognise that they are just a bunch of shiftless,tricksterish, flim-flamming "losers"... wandering about the hallways... Crashing meetings... Trying to wheedle a symbolic dime of charity here... A nickel of shameless giveaway there.
Phew! Such disorder might confuse some of these other fine, well-oiled, undoubtedly well-groomed, upper-crust thinkers, movers and shakers. Participants' financing proves their merit, after all! Such other beggary as described above might muddle the issues that our well-greased representatives of the good life and how to achieve it should otherwise, and easily, slide right through. That's what oil and grease are all about.
Already it's hard enough to get back to the good old days, when business, economics and top-level humanitarian boffins could simply agree that developing countries MUST open their markets so as to offer severely disadvantaged developed countries a level playing field, at last! ...MUST accept any and all conditions the IMF and World Bank seek, in their infinite fatherly, even paternal, even paternalistic (no, bad connotation---scratch the latter) wisdom, to "grant" them. Free trade, strip away protections, cut coddling subsidies (encourages shiftlessness, dependency and corruption!), lower any walls against foreign direct investment on the investors' terms: that's the ticket!
We like it. Raise those ticket prices some more. Spike up attendant costs each year. That'll keep the riff-raff out.
Can't wait to read the reporting as the forum proceeds. What strikes one is that, faced with the withering enigmas, Gordian riddles and nearly impenetrable mysteries of making a complex world work in the interest of "the greatest good for the greatest number... (now who said that?)", they nonetheless maintain an unflappable sense of humour.
That is, their conclusions are always good for a laugh.
s q greyVermont squirrel's nest
"...ostensibly to contemplate how to solve the world’s problems." Wouldn't you think that with the scale of economic clout these people represent, and therefore the stake they have in a good outcome (earthwise, humanitywise, etc.), that there would issue forth from such a heady convergence of apparent talents at least some semblance of urgency in their addressing 'the world's problems'?
aperturemadWest Hollywood
Hey Bono - How many people could you feed with your entry fees?
DavidAshland, Oregon
And somehow, by spending all of this money, these people are to be seen as the world's "problem solvers"?
Puhleeeeze!
It's just a bunch of people with too much money on a weekend bender.
davidhuntington , new york
All this when every one knows business success only relies on paying your employees the least amount possible.
BimUS
This doesn't sound like a non-profit to me ...
Darrell Hampton Dayton Ohio
Even in the best of economic times this is just sinful. Any person who spends company or tax-payer funds in this manner should be removed from their position and sent directly to a Board Certified Licensed Psychiatrist for extended counseling. They are crazy!
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