Is this the end of Davos man?

meeting of the World Economic Forum () is a study in contrasts: business and politics, East and West, north and south, a few insiders cloistered in wintry Davos and the billions of outsiders on whose fate they pontificate. This time around, as thousands of the world’s movers and shakers belatedly descended on the Swiss ski resort between May 22nd and 26th, the big disparity was between the gloom about the state of the world and the joy of shoulder-rubbing in person (minus the snow) after a two-year pandemic hiatus. The macro mood was sombre for good reason. High inflation doesn’t feature in the Bible but other than that the list of s’ top concerns currently reads like the Book of Revelation: war (in Ukraine), pestilence (particularly China’s destructive effort to stamp out covid-19 at home), famine (everywhere, if war and pestilence aren’t staved off). On top of that, one Western boss after another got an earful from their emerging-market counterparts about the global knock-on effects of the American-led sanctions against Russia on food and fuel prices.