« "He didn't think a novel was a proper vehicle for my ideas." | Main | Same Difference »
February 21, 2003
Davos gloom
Journalist Laurie Garrett attended the recent Davos World Economic Forum, hung out with movers and shakers from around the world, then wrote a chatty email to a friend filled with gossip on the mood of the 5,000 or so people who really run the world. Then someone posted the content of her email to MetaFilter and gave the world a glimpse of just how unsettled the mood was.
Bruce Sterling's latest Viridian Note helpfully provides an annotated version of Garrett's comments.
"Not surprisingly, the business community was in no mood to hear about a war in Iraq. Except for diehard American Republicans, a few Brit Tories and some Middle East folks the WEF was in a foul, angry anti-American mood. Last year the WEF was a lovefest for America. This year the mood was so ugly that it reminded me of what it felt like to be an American overseas in the Reagan years. The rich ? whether they are French or Chinese or just about anybody ? are livid about the Iraq crisis primarily because they believe it will sink their financial fortunes."
(((Gee, y'know, maybe the Bush tax cut will win 'em over. Oh wait, these are EUROPEAN rich people.)))
[...]
"The WEF was overwhelmed by talk of security, with fears of terrorism, computer and copyright theft, assassination and global instability dominating almost every discussion."We live in interesting times...
(((Y'know, folks, sometimes it's a little disquieting to actually be living in a 1980s William Gibson novel.)))
Posted by John at February 21, 2003 11:39 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://soreeyes.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/287
Comments
That'll teach me to have eliminated Viridian from my blogroll the night before last. :-)
Swiped this from you, with credit, here.
Boy, those Metafilter people sure know squat about how actual journalists and professional writers actually write.
Posted by: Gary Farber at February 23, 2003 01:22 AM