The “Elite” Meet
🚀 What’s happening: The 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) just took place in Davos, Switzerland under the laughably ironic theme of ‘Rebuilding Trust.’
Some background please.
What was started as a a small business conference on the Swiss Alps has unofficially turned into the world’s most exclusive business party. Thousands of global business tycoons, financiers, and world leaders now flock to the small Swiss town once a year to host backdoor meetings and strike secret deals that have the power to shape the global economy.
The WEF has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories, and while we do love a juicy conspiracy, were more interested in how the organization makes about $450 million a year from memberships and other sponsors (yea, we read the annual report). What’s even more crazy is that U.S. tax paying families like us help fund it (we have given them about $9 million over the past year to be exact).
So what actually goes on?
There are conferences, roundtables, and yes some champagne mixed with magic mushrooms, but there is also a lot of discussion about the direction of the global economy.
Unfortunately… the decisions made at this conference impact everyone. Despite conference organizers’ best efforts to keep this event below the radar (especially given the recent scrutiny), it’s worth every family knowing the high level bullet points.
Here are top level takeaways:
Of over 4,000 global CEOs polled, a slightly higher percentage expect the global economy to get worse this year vs. last year (45% expected it to get worse and 38% expected it to improve). JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, highlighted some of his broader economic caution in a short interview.
Over 60% of attendees see artificial intelligence as more of an opportunity than a risk, with most expecting accuracy of AI to get better in 2024 (ex. predicting medical diagnosis, solving complex problems).
Central bankers around the world cautioned that interest rate cuts would not come as fast as people currently expect and that globally we are still fighting inflation.
👪 Closer to home: While we tend to be a bit more optimistic in the near term around the economy, we do worry a bit as families everywhere continue to see high prices in our daily lives with the most already assuming inflation will continue to come down. We are coming off an unprecedented time of government stimulus and a once in a 100 year pandemic. To just assume the world will return to normal and everything with end smoothly is hard for us to confidently say.
One thing we can all do as families is at least think about the unexpected, and whether we agree or not, think about how your finances would look should some of the more negative chatter above be closer to the truth.
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