Davos and the Redistribution of Wealth

 

A report by Oxfam has predicted that 50% of the world’s wealth will be in the hands of the wealthiest 1% of the population by next year.  What is amusing about that prediction is that it comes at the time of the latest Davos meeting.

Davos is a gathering of the super-wealthy and the top Government leaders.  It presents a wonderful opportunity for the politically-inclined to profile themselves to the world media, to show a passion for improving the lot of the world’s poorest.  It is equally a wonderful opportunity for those with wealth and buying power to exercise that buying power to secure their position in the next round of money-grabbing, and for the politicians holding the strings of power in their respective countries to negotiate the price for the year’s round of corruption.

Has any decision that has come out of Davos done anything to improve the state of the world for the 99% who will by next year hold less than half of its wealth?  Has it ever occurred to you why the money-hungry politicians see Davos as an extremely important event?  Have you ever seen a poor politician attending Davos?

Any thinking citizen, especially one living in South Africa, where the greed of the politicians, satisfied at the cost of the taxpayers and the expense of the poor, must be concerned when the nation’s leaders, right down to the CEO of Eskom, the demonstrably least competent power utility in the world, find Davos a must-go meeting.  Certainly, their dealings with the super-wealthy could be conducted behind closed doors in other places, but the concentration of influence-peddling in Davos makes it the premier venue to wrap up the deals for the coming year.

The amount of public money spent on these conferences and visits, if the Government were a public company, would require a detailed report to at least the Board of Directors.  Why should Jacob Zuma and his cohorts be immune to the need to justify their actions, and to report on their achievements, or lack of them?  Every concerned citizen has witnessed the disregard (or possibly fear?) that Zuma and the Ministers and heads of the public bodies funded by taxpayers’ money have of reporting to the representatives of the taxpayers.  Zuma ran from Parliament in August, when representatives of some of the people demanded an accounting by him for the money found by the Public Protector to have been incorrectly appropriated by him for the building of his Nkandla palace.  Now, the Speaker has announced that Zuma will appear to answer questions before Parliament in March, six months later!  She has chosen to exempt him from questioning before, during or after his State of the Nation propaganda speech in February.  Can this be an acceptable level of accounting by the President to the people?  Will the Speaker permit questions to be asked of Zuma regarding the deals he makes at Davos, Beijing or Moscow?  Will she demand that Zuma actually answers such questions as may be asked?