Rupa Subramanya: Chrystia Freeland's side gig with the WEF is endangering Canadian democracy - "the one-time critic has enjoyed an apotheosis of sorts and since 2019 has sat on the board of trustees of the WEF itself. Other members include Canada’s own Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England; Al Gore, former U.S. vice-president; Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest individual; Larry Fink, head of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund; and a slew of other bankers, CEOs, tycoons and celebrities. Notably, Freeland is the only government minister presently on the board. While there does not appear to be anything explicitly proscribed about Freeland’s serving on the board of a private foundation, the optics are extremely problematic, as Schwab and the WEF take strong positions on matters of global public policy which, if implemented, will affect all Canadians. Even more strangely, Freeland also sits on the supervisory board of the Aspen Institute Kyiv, a chapter of another Davos-type exclusive club that holds forth on global issues. That’s quite a journey from her beginnings as a freelance journalist working out of Ukraine. These board memberships are far from symbolic. According to the WEF, the board of trustees “act as guardians of its mission and values” and are its “highest-level governance body.” Similarly, board members of the Aspen Institute Kyiv are responsible for providing “counsel to the president, as well as governance over the business, affairs, and property” of the institute. What would happen if acting as a “guardian” for the WEF came into conflict with acting as a guardian for Canada’s public finances, which is Freeland’s day job? What would happen if providing “counsel” to the Aspen Institute president came into conflict with providing counsel to Canada’s governor general, which is part of Freeland’s day job as a member of the Privy Council? Writing in the New York Times in 2011, Freeland described Schwab as a “rather traditional European social democrat who aims to encourage among … participants a kind of noblesse oblige, or its modern equivalent, stakeholder capitalism.” The political tradition that Freeland is describing originated with the reaction of privileged liberal elites rebelling against Europe’s feudal past, a world away from contemporary Canada. Search the 2019 Liberal party’s campaign platform, and you won’t find a single reference to “stakeholder capitalism.” Yet, as a member of the board of trustees of Schwab’s outfit, Freeland is implicitly or explicitly committed to importing this brand of European social democracy into a Canadian ethos originally founded on individual rights and free market capitalism, which in turn is premised on maximizing shareholder value. While Canada has drifted considerably leftward since its founding, a wholesale adoption of a corporatist philosophy and governance ethos imported from an exclusive gathering of the self-loathing rich who espouse these ideas over cocktails in the Swiss Alps would be nothing less than a subversion of Canadian democracy. Like its first cousin, “The Great Reset,” which bizarrely aims to bring in environmental considerations under the purview of central banks, the innocuous sounding stakeholder capitalism is committed to destroying the foundations of Anglo-American free market capitalism and replacing it with a system where governments and their cronies in Davos tell private businesses what they need to care about. The irony here is that all of those at Davos, including Freeland, got there because of the free market system and shareholder-driven capitalism, which they’re now bent on overthrowing in an unholy alliance of true believers and opportunists. There’s no need to invent conspiracy theories. The attempt by global elites to subvert local democracy is fully on and in plain view."
World Economic Forum on Twitter - "The Great Reset - a blueprint for a better world after #COVID"
Rule Britannia 3: Oppressive Laughter - Posts | Facebook - "The conspiracy theorists were right."
BREAKING: Trudeau calls 'Great Reset' a conspiracy theory despite advocating for it - "Trudeau was asked this morning about growing criticism both online and from some Conservative MPs, including Pierre Poilievre, of Trudeau's use of the term 'reset' when talking to the United Nations. The term coincides with the 'Great Reset' plan pushed by the World Economic Forum."
BREAKING: Freeland reveals Trudeau Liberals' plan to 'build back better,' adding $400 BILLION to national debt - "Shadow Finance Minister Pierre Poilievre criticized the high spending from the Trudeau Liberals, saying that the Trudeau government had "spent the most to achieve the least" in the G7, as Canada has the highest unemployment in the group, outside of Italy, as well as the highest deficit in the G20."
GOLDSTEIN: UN climate report reveals goals of Trudeau's 'Great Reset' - "It means what Poilievre said it means — global elites using the COVID-19 pandemic and recession to fundamentally reshape society, reduce economic freedom and transfer wealth from the developed to the developing world.It’s not a conspiracy. It’s out in the open.It’s not a plot for global dictatorship. It’s a globalist plan to convince people living in democracies in the developed world to accept a lower standard of living (what reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions actually means) to, we’re told, save the planet from catastrophic global warming... in its annual emissions report released two days before Trudeau’s announcement, the UN said even if every country meets its Paris targets, global temperatures will increase by a catastrophic three degrees Celcius this century... Governments can achieve these goals, the UN says, through taxation and other policies affecting fundamental decisions we make about our lives, from what we eat (preferably meatless, low-carbon diets), to how we travel (less by air, more by subsidized electric cars), to how we power our homes (with wind and solar energy, at least for “higher income” earners, given the costs) and much, much more.That’s what Trudeau means by “The Great Reset.”Canadians deserve the truth before deciding if they support it."
LESLYN LEWIS: 'The Great Reset' is not a conspiracy theory, it's Trudeau's ideology - "Dismissing an argument or concern as a "conspiracy theory" is often a tactic used to silence the inquirer. We’re seeing that play out right now with disagreements over "The Great Reset," and what it means. What we know is that governments around the world have adopted the concept into policies which tout the "Reset" or "Build Back Better" slogans... "This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems," the prime minister explained. Fast forward to November, and the prime minister deflected questions about his language choice, choosing to make the case that if people raised concerns about his wording, they were embracing conspiracy theories. This seems like an odd approach to take, since in the lead-up to the prime minister’s speech to the UN, in August 2020, the Bank of Canada also put out an economic document titled "The Great Reset: Supporting the transition to a greener, smarter economy."... The devastation brought on by COVID requires our united efforts in protecting Canadians. It is not a time to capitalize on our vulnerabilities by utilizing our tax dollars to usher in one man’s vision of a "greener," more "sustainable" and "inclusive" economy. All of these words sound benevolent on their own, but what are the actual policy changes that this Liberal government believes are necessary and plan to implement? Without presenting budgets or plans to the House of Commons, this remains a mystery, to put it kindly. We need all hands on deck to survive this pandemic, and there should be no hidden agenda. The Great Reset is using the pandemic to create a post-COVID era that redefine industries, work, and even how we are taxed (creating new streams for future taxation (for example: working from home tax, home equity tax, carbon footprint tax.) Key priorities include redefining our social contract to become more "inclusive" and demonstrating a greater responsibility towards the future generations for the debt and environment. It is predicated on a moral obligation to reduce the financial gap between industrialized countries and lesser developed nations—which obviously means Canadian tax dollars will be sent abroad to fund projects that governments can claim link even tangentially to the fight against climate change and inequality... One should not succumb to being bullied or shamed into not asking questions about why our government has touted several post-COVID policies on the environment, economy and social inequality within the book. Similarly, we should not accept our prime minister feigning ignorance over the Reset after he has adopted reset policies and bragged about this approach at the United Nations. As citizens, we must decide on the kind of post-COVID country that we envision, and not allow the pandemic to be used as an opportunity for any leaders to remake Canada in his own image. In the end, we must remember that governments can only implement this kind of economic, societal, and 4th green industrial revolution with the consent and the mandate of the electorate."
EDITORIAL: 'Great Reset' not so great with Canadians, polling shows | Toronto Sun - "Option 1: “Now is the time to restructure the economy through carbon taxes, rebates, regulations and subsidies for alternative energy.”
Option 2: “No, we should focus on fighting COVID-19 and getting things back to normal.”
While a third of Canadians backed the first option, more than a majority of respondents – 57% – took option 2. (The rest were undecided.)... The idea of government using a national crisis to push a particular agenda on Canadians when they’re vulnerable doesn’t strike us as all that great though. It’s good to see that most Canadians agree. This opinion survey also asked questions about the carbon tax and their findings confirm what we’ve long known: Canadians like the carbon tax in the abstract. But they don’t like it once they learn the details of it and they sure don’t like it if they’re the ones most affected by it... the majority of Canadians oppose the feds’ plans to slowly increase the carbon tax from $30 per ton to $170 per ton by 2030. A majority of respondents — 52% — said they were against this, with only 32% in support."
Rex Murphy: The 'great reset' no one asked for - "how could COVID-19, a medical calamity, provide a rationale for a total economic makeover? When someone breaks an arm, who responds by saying, “It’s time to repair the roof”? Does someone with a headache see it as an opportunity to mow the lawn? I think not. Nevertheless, the raging pandemic, having wrecked the world’s economies, is being taken as a cue by various eminent globalists to pursue a totally unrelated agenda. Rather than being described as an opportunity, this should be seen as opportunism, pure and simple.A combination of United Nations satraps, tech billionaires and, naturally, the apocalyptic environmental contingent have decided that this time of anxiety and disruption is the perfect moment to push their agenda. To be sure, the push is not coming from the people bearing most of the costs of the COVID shutdowns. Tellingly, it is coming from a group of people whose wealth and power have exempted them from its stresses — people who are far removed from the day-to-day experience of the masses... When Trudeau says “this is our chance,” he’s really saying: “Let’s take advantage of everyone’s preoccupation with COVID and their health to introduce some mad agenda to create a green economy. We could never do this in normal times, but now, I can do it from the steps of my cottage. Green it is.”... before COVID, no one wanted the Liberals’ green schemes. Because in normal times, absent some vast crisis seizing everyone’s attention, any announcement of a so-called great reset would be laughed at by every adult in the nation, and all clear-headed children.Trudeau has no grounds, and certainly no mandate, to “re-imagine” the Canadian economy. And he should be the last person to assume he can reinvent it at will, having plunged the country into a bottomless cavern of debt and deficits. Whatever else COVID may be, it is not a passport to a minority government, of seriously deficient economic competence, to reset, restate or rearrange Canada’s industrial foundation... The government should do its best to work within the economy that actually exists. Because when this wretched pandemic finally dissipates, it will be the ones who have been sweating and labouring this entire time who will build it back again."
What is the Great Reset? - The Spectator - "Schwab is peddling his idea of ‘stakeholder capitalism’, which essentially maintains that corporations have more expansive duties than maximizing profits for shareholders. This is a concept so vague that Facebook, IBM, Lockheed Martin et cetera are free to interpret it quite as they wish.‘Firms can go on privately shoveling money to their shareholders and executives,’ as Steve Dunning writes for Forbes, ‘while maintaining a public front of exquisite social sensitivity and exemplary altruism.’ Amazon can proclaim that ‘Black Lives Matter’, for example, while its employees piss in bottles for fear of being fired for taking toilet breaks. An air of otherworldliness pervades this book. One of its symptoms is its constant references to ‘we’: ‘we will’, ‘we should’, ‘we must’. Who are we? I think Schwab and Malleret mean ‘mankind’ but in practice it means ‘Davos Man’, a species of high-status politician, businessman or academic about whom Samuel Huntington wrote:‘These transnationalists have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.’ Davos cosmopolitanism manifests itself in an apparent blindness to cultural and historical peculiarities. It also leads to naïve multilateralism. ‘The absolute prerequisite for a proper reset,’ Schwab and Malleret conclude, ‘is greater collaboration and cooperation within and between countries.’ Of course, global threats require global cooperation. But the book evinces little comprehension of the downsides of the globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, was exacerbated by faith in the hapless WHO and a chronic inability to close borders. After Wuhan was shut down, it should have been as difficult for a Chinese person to enter the EU as it would be for Alex Jones to enter Area-51, but Davos Man is stubbornly committed to the idea that integration solves all ailments, including its own. This otherworldliness is also evident when Schwab and Malleret write about culture. They tell us three times that man is a ‘social animal’, yet a desiccated understanding of that social life emerges as they reflect on how social media platforms can transform communal life. Schwab and Malleret do admit that online communication cannot entirely replace human contact – they write about ‘Zoom fatigue’. But my eyes rolled from head, into the kitchen and under the fridge when they wrote that ‘driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend’ might become less attractive when ‘the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but…safer, cheaper and greener’. Buying a sex doll would be safer, cheaper and greener than getting married. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea... the elite consensus on ‘the way ahead’ is disturbing. One critic has called Davos an ‘ideological synchronization environment for individuals, corporations, and governments to keep on the same page.’ That is different from conspiracy — but not that different. When bad ideas are adopted internationally by some of the richest and most powerful people in the world, the effect can be the same. The Great Reset might be all the more terrifying for not being a sinister plot."
Davos Great Reset: The Culmination of Corporatism - "Stakeholder capitalism rests on the notion that a company’s management owes a duty to more than its shareholders. It’s something that Klaus Schwab, the WEF’s founder and executive chairman, has been advocating for a long time. A key feature of the Great Reset is the idea that stakeholder capitalism should, one way or another, be adopted.That would reduce a company’s shareholders to just another category of “stakeholder,” effectively transferring the power that capital should confer away from its owners and into the hands of those who administer it. They are then accountable to, well, it’s not quite clear whom. It’s not difficult to grasp why so many corporate bosses are enthused by stakeholder capitalism. But stakeholder capitalism is a betrayal of democracy as well as of shareholders. The power it gives to managers is increasingly being used to support an agenda influenced by a cabal of activists, NGOs, representatives of the “international community,” and politicians too arrogant to go through the usual legislative process... while removing one possible obstacle to shoveling money to executives (shareholders are a different matter) is a part of stakeholder capitalism’s appeal to managements (bonuses are easier to justify when targets are to grow, say, diversity rather than the share price), it is only one part of its attraction. Much of stakeholder capitalism’s appeal lies elsewhere, whether it is from the social approval that it can generate for a manager who uses his or her role in such a positive way, or in its ability to hand executives power, which they can wield, as noted above, with relatively little accountability now that their responsibility to shareholders has been so diluted... corporatism, which is often framed to look like cooperation, but is all too frequently underpinned by coercion, is like that: “To varying degrees, business executives in all industries and all countries and all countries will have to adapt to greater government intervention.” And dissenters simply do not exist:
"[N]obody would now deny that companies’ fundamental purpose can no longer simply be the unbridle[d] pursuit of financial profit; it is now simply incumbent upon them to serve all their stakeholders, not only those who hold shares.""
Also headlined: "The Great Reset: If Only It Were Just a Conspiracy"
Why investors should be wary of the Great Build Back Better Bubble of 2021 - "so much capital has herded into this trade that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find opportunities that haven’t been picked over. For example, we recently spoke with one large institutional investor who said a number of the wind projects they were examining had an internal rate of return (IRR) of less than five per cent, leaving little room for things such as cost overruns. All of this reminds me of the rush into oilsands projects spurred by the peak oil thesis a decade ago — and we all know how that turned out... even U.S. climate envoy John Kerry expressed some doubts saying that half of the reductions in carbon required to reach “net zero” will come from technologies that have yet to be invented. This idealistic narrative is so pervasive that it has sent solar, electric vehicles and other clean-tech stocks soaring to insane levels, so much so that I am willing to call it the Build Back Better Bubble of 2021."
Meme - World Economic Forum: "Thinking big by thinking small: How significantly downsizing our homes into 'tiny homes' with all but the bare essentials is the key to building a better, more diverse and less racist society"
Sargon of Akkad - Posts | Facebook - "For some reason, a less racist society requires you to live in a matchbox."
Rex Murphy: Chrystia Freeland's 'epiphany' that COVID-19 is an 'opportunity' — that’s pretty dark - "Outside of Freeland’s perhaps careless phrasing there is the more deliberate declaration made by the PM himself, half a year ago in the UN. His statement was as follows: “This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. … This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems.” That is far more declarative and direct than Freeland’s musing. He was saying for his government, and pointing out to other governments that the pandemic gave them the “chance” as he put it “to accelerate” — and this is the key part — “our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems.”"
Terence Corcoran: From vaccine passports to personal carbon passports: Get ready for CLIMATE-21 fossil fuel virus lockdowns - "The link between the virus pandemic and the climate policy pandemic was aggressively planted almost two years by the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab. COVID-19, he said, opens the door to The Great Reset, a major remake of global power and politics. “The possibilities for change and the resulting new order,” Schwab said, “are now unlimited and only bound by our imagination.” Schwab’s imaginings are now entrenched. From CEOs to medical writers to economists and scientists playing for power and attention, the policy transition from a war on the COVID-19 virus to the war on the CLIMATE-21 fossil fuels virus has been firmly established. That message came clearly this week when 220 medical journals around the world — including the Canadian Medical Association Journal — published the same “editorial” under the headline: “Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health.”... how did the editors of 220 medical journals from India to Canada and East Africa become experts in climate science, economics and the environment?... Given the current state of the global pandemic, the assumption that the COVID control experience shows the way forward may strike many as a little premature. It is not obvious that we need to fight the climate with big government interventions, backed by corporations, to totally reshape the global economic and power system... The policy creep from COVID to climate hit the pages of Nature Sustainability journal last month in an article promoting Personal Carbon Allowances. It says, “the policy window of opportunity provided by the COVID-19 crisis, in combination with the need to address worsening climate and biodiversity crises,” make it possible for individuals to be allocated personal carbon allowances. In short, the COVID vaccine passports could be succeeded by Personal Carbon Passports... Jaccard says he has always been “nervous” talking about his “modelling” efforts on climate and carbon policy, since many non-experts are sceptical. But not any more, said Jaccard, thanks to “the work of the COVID modellers” who forecast the effect of lockdown policies... COVID models were the basis for the lockdowns that were supposed to “flatten the curve” of the virus, a modelling exercise now viewed as totally flawed. Instead of flattening, as per the models, the curve of cases has been anything but flat and now appears to be rising again toward a fourth wave."
Why does he want to sound like a supervillain? Is it so elites can label everyone who notices a conspiracy theorist?
Given all the inflation due to covid hysteria, good luck with all the further social engineering
Covid modelling was bad enough. But when people notice their lives going to shit due to climate change hysteria, maybe they will rebel
Meme - "The year is 2042. My electric car won't start because I used the wrong pronoun yesterday. No air conditioner in my 50 sq ft apartment because I reached my monthly allotment of farts, but I think they are adding grub worms to my cricket paste."
Meme - "I'll shut down your social media" - Mark Zuckerberg
"I'll shut down your farm lands" - Bill Gates
"I'll shut down your bank account" - Justin Trudeau
"I'll shut down your electric car." - Joe Biden
"I'll shut down your social life" - Anthony Fauci
"WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED... YOU WILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY"
*Klaus Schwab*
Why the WEF doesn’t control the world (despite claiming to) - "This is Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF. He’s got ramrod-straight posture, a German accent, and he has a notable penchant to speak like a Bond villain. Here he is in 2017 claiming his organization has been able to “penetrate” the cabinets of world governments, including “half” the cabinet of Prime Minister Trudeau. And it’s not just Klaus. Here’s a 2016 video in which the group claims that the future will be one in which “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” They’re also the ones who invented the term “The Great Reset” to refer to the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s right: You were laid off from your service job and your marriage fell apart while you were trapped in your two-bedroom apartment for six months, but these guys think the whole thing is awesome because it will promote green infrastructure or something. So, yeah, they’re a little out of touch. The WEF’s main gig is organizing the annual Davos summit. It’s a super-elite conference where the world’s most powerful government and corporate leaders gather to network while eating $50 burritos. It’s like any number of similar international gatherings like the G20, the Summit of the Americas or the Commonwealth Heads of Government. But this one gets all the attention because its organizers obnoxiously claim that its super-rich attendees are selflessly making society better. As Vanity Fair put it, Davos is where the überrich “schmooze and strike deals under the guise of saving the world.” But just because you have a bunch of powerful people coming to your conference every year doesn’t mean you control them. Donald Trump’s been to Davos a couple times, and let’s just say he’s not really down with their globalist vision of unrestricted free trade. Former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was selected for the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program back in the day, and his main job these days is the very un-WEF pursuit of putting out viral videos about how central bankers suck at their jobs. Another Young Global Leader? Vladimir Putin. If Klaus Schwab could really tell WEF alumni what to do, here’s a guess that he would tell them not to unilaterally launch a devastating territorial war with profound consequences for global supply chains... Canadian Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner was a Davos attendee once upon a time, and in a lengthy essay for The Line, she said it was basically like a really, really expensive academic conference where you might bump into Angela Merkel in the bathroom... Does a milquetoast Swiss club secretly control the Canadian government? Or is the prime minister of Canada a suggestible dope?"
Rupa Subramanya: The best critique of the World Economic Forum came from Chrystia Freeland herself - "before she became a politician, she was a journalist, and her magnum opus was a book called, “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else,” which was published in 2012. I’ve been re-reading the book and was struck by just how on the mark she was. The book’s central focus is, ironically, how plutocrats — the super-elites who sit at the top of the economic, political and social pyramid — attempt, and often succeed, in turning the rules of the game in their favour, by shaping government policy and public opinion. As becomes vividly apparent in Freeland’s engaging read, Davos is the playground where the plutocrats hash out ideas with other members of the powerful elite, from prime ministers and presidents, to celebrities, bankers, academics and others who help shape public opinion and guide public policy in a direction that’s congenial to the plutocrats’ interests. Responding to such critiques, Monck told the CBC that Davos is about exchanging ideas, not setting policy. This is about as disingenuous as it gets. No serious critique of the WEF has ever alleged that somehow it uses mind-altering hypnosis to get world leaders to do what it wants. Rather, a forum for exchanging ideas in a congenial environment serves as a laboratory for policy ideas that can be tested when the assorted worthies return to their home countries. Fittingly enough, the best response to Monck’s dismissal is from Freeland — not the Freeland of today, an entrenched insider, but the Freeland of yesteryear, the journalist who called it as she saw it. In an especially telling passage in “Plutocrats,” she writes: “The vampire squid theory of the super elite is entertaining and emotionally satisfying. It can be fun to imagine the super-elites who went to Wall Street and their Harvard classmates who became economics professors and those who became U.S . senators participating in a grand conspiracy (hatched ideally, at the Porcellian Club) to rip off the middle class. But the impact of these networks is much less cynical, and much more subtle, though not necessarily of less consequence.” When people spend a lot of time together in an environment where work and socializing intermingle, whether in a university fraternity, at Davos or at other venues where powerful people routinely come together, a shared mindset develops of what needs to be done, whether to combat equality, ameliorate climate change or handle the COVID-19 pandemic. That shared mindset is often pushed on and society in order to influence public opinion and, ultimately, government policy. As Freeland wrote, “Some farsighted plutocrats try to use their money not merely to buy public office for themselves but to redirect the reigning ideology of a nation, a region or even the world.” There has long been a revolving door between the top echelons of government, the private sector and academia, especially in the United States, and to a lesser extent in places like Canada. This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s merely a fact. The WEF facilitates this by creating a forum for the world’s political and business elite to mix and mingle. Critics of the theory that wealthy individuals would want to implant the WEF’s left-wing ideology in their home countries might assume that the wealthy, by definition, would be pushing for free markets and minimal government intervention. This is a rookie error, as Freeland aptly notes: “The bigger issue of the relationship between plutocrats and the state can’t be reduced to business batting for smaller government. Often, a big, intrusive state is the plutocrat’s best friend — true of state capitalist regimes like China and Russia and of industries, like the defence business, that live on state largesse, or of companies, like the U.S. steel industry under George W. Bush, that have lobbied for and won protectionist legislation.” None of this should be controversial. It certainly wasn’t when then-journalist Freeland published her book: the only negative consequence she received after it came out, as she herself joked, was that she got uninvited from a bunch of private parties at Davos. Her basic message was widely accepted. Fast forward to today, when basically the same message coming from voices on the right is derided as a conspiracy theory intended as disinformation and misinformation"
