ISN'T IT IRONIC?

The World Economic Forum, where the elite meet and greet the elite, is going on at the same time as the massive relief effort in Haiti.  What if the earthquake had happened in Davos?  (The Haitians would surely be better off.)

I was just watching a poorly produced TV drama series about Cao Cao, Chinese ruler of the second and third centuries C.E.  Once when he asked his ministers at an economic summit of some sort how things were going in their various counties, he fired every one of them except the two that fearfully and reluctantly, but honestly, reported the direst results and asked to resign; the corrupt ones who were not telling the truth (which Cao Cao already knew) were relieved of their duties and perks and, possibly, their heads.

According to Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Davos group:

Improving the state of the world requires catalysing global cooperation to address pressing challenges and future risks. Global cooperation in turn needs stakeholders from business, government, the media, science, religion, the arts and civil society to collaborate as a true community. To this end, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting has engaged leaders from all walks of life to shape the global agenda at the start of the year for the last four decades. When we meet in Davos most of you will have already pledged generous resources for the present search and rescue operations.  But we want to go beyond that. We want to use Davos to solicit commitments of our partners, members and constituents in the form of practical help for relief of the continued pain of Haiti's people and particularly for the reconstruction of Haiti.  We hope that we can present a major common effort to the world community showing true Corporate Global Citizenship in Davos.  Concrete details for this humanitarian and reconstruction effort of global business will be shared upon your arrival in Davos but will be e-mailed in advance.

I want to be positive and excited, but this sounds kind of all blah blah blah to me. I wonder if anything really happens after this posh annual convention in Switzerland?  Are any of the ministers there willing to say, you know, this year we really screwed up.  Or is it all just pithy platitudes?