Image of the week: WTF WEF
The springtime, rather than winter, return of the World Economic Forum to the Swiss Alpine town of Davos for the first time since January 2020 has deprived us casual Davos watchers of the event’s most James Bond-esque aspect: the sight of armed security forces on skis. Without that, really what is the point?
After a pandemic in which billionaires added $5 trillion (€4.7 trillion) to their collective fortunes and a new billionaire was created once every 30 hours, according to Oxfam — all while the world sinks into a food crisis — it’s not hard to see why this gathering of the elite attracted protests by activists wondering just how more extreme the lottery of birth can get. This time a handful of millionaires also rocked up, not for the purposes of sampling the delegates’ menu, but to call for higher taxes on that very thing taxes should be levied on: their wealth.
In numbers: Boehly the Blue
$4.5 billion
Estimated net worth (€4.2 billion) of Todd Boehly, who will become the controlling owner of Chelsea football club once a takeover by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Lakers co-owner and Californian investment firm Clearlake Capital is completed.
£4.25 billion
Sum (€4.99 billion) that Boehly and the Clearlake Consortium will pay for the club in a deal approved this week by the UK government and the Premier League.
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19
Years for which Chelsea was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by the UK government in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2003, Abramovich paid just £140 million to acquire the club.
Getting to know: Caroline Dennett
One of Caroline Dennett’s most heroic qualities is her timing. Another is her capacity to be interesting on LinkedIn, which saw her go viral this week. The British safety consultant, the founder and director of the agency Clout, chose the eve of Shell’s annual general meeting in London to announce in a LinkedIn video that she has quit working with the energy giant after 11 years.
The fossil fuel producer is causing “extreme harms” to the planet, has “disregard for climate change risks” and perpetuates “double-talk” on climate, Dennett calmly assessed. Indeed, what Europe’s biggest oil and gas group is really doing is “operating beyond the designs limits of our planetary systems”. Among those who may sympathise with her are the Shell shareholders who voted to reject its climate transition plans on the basis they don’t go far enough — the motion approving its strategy still passed — and the protesters who accused it of ecocide at Tuesday’s agm, glueing themselves to the chairs in the process.
The list: Economic warnings
With Russian forces bombarding Ukraine’s Donbas region, gun violence claiming more lives in the US and autocrat Viktor Orbán declaring a “state of emergency” in Hungary, this has been one dismal week for news. A spate of warnings about the global economy won’t, alas, provide any relief.
1. Food doom: The world faces its biggest test since the second World War, said International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, with anxiety about food prices “hitting the roof”. The outlook has “darkened” and a global recession cannot be ruled out.
2. WW3: Also speaking at Davos, Hungarian-born billionaire investor George Soros said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be seen as the starting point of a third World War “and our civilisation may not survive it”.
3. Snap judgment: On a slightly more frivolous but related note, Snapchat parent Snap warned on Monday night that the economy had “deteriorated further and faster than anticipated” since late April, sparking another sell-off of social media stocks.
4. Westminster thoughts: From Partygate pre-occupied Westminster, UK transport secretary Grant Shapps chipped in with the warning that famine caused by food and grain shortages due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to more deaths than the war itself.
5. Crisis pile-up: “We have at least four crises, which are interwoven,” German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck told a Davos panel. These are high inflation, an energy crisis, food poverty and a climate crisis. Apart from that, everything is fine.
