Once a year, the global elite gather at the World
Economic Forum or WE’s annual winter conference in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the future of
the world without our input. But you probably knew that already. That part I already knew.
What you may not know, though, is that the W hosts another annual summer conference in China
called the annual meeting of the new champions. It seems this year’s edition didn’t get much media
attention, though. That’s why today we’re going to bring you up to speed on everything that happened
at this year’s so-called summer Davos and what it means for you and the markets. My name is Guy
and unlike your stepfather’s latest wedding, this video is something you don’t want to miss.
Let’s start with a quick recap. If you watched our summary of last year’s annual meeting of the
new champions, you’ll know that the event focuses on the next individuals and institutions that
are likely to change the world. In other words, it focuses on the next generation of elites
being propped up by the W. Now, for context, the W is aware that if it wants to continue to
be relevant, then it needs a steady stream of new elites to rule over us. And to that end, the
WE has been working on recruiting young global shapers who ensure the W’s agendas are met
in cities and young global leaders who ensure the W’s agendas are met in countries. In fact,
many young global leaders have gone on to become presidents and prime ministers. And no, this is
not a conspiracy theory. This is not a conspiracy. Many of you will know that the WE’s founder and
former chairman, Claus Schwab, famously revealed in an interview that the WE had quote penetrated
the cabinets of governments in major countries, helping to install leaders such as Angela Merkel
in Germany and Justin Trudeau in Canada. We’ll leave a link to that clip in the description
if you don’t believe us. It is crazy. Now, speaking of Klouse, some of you will also
know that he stepped down as WE chairman a few months ago. If you watched our summary of this
year’s Davos conference, you’ll know he literally congratulated himself for making the world a
better place with the help of the elites at the W. Others would argue that the W has in fact
made things worse and that his departure marked the beginning of the organization’s end. As it so
happens, this seems to have been the vibe at this year’s annual meeting of the new champions, which
took place at the end of June in Tenzin, China. The difference in atmosphere between this year’s
and last year’s conference was noticeable, at least to us. It’s just not the same when you
don’t have Klouse coming on stage to say he wants to replace all of us with robots in a Bond villain
accent. Instead, we got Borgger Brenda, the president and CEO of the W, who gives off the aura
of a creepy school teacher rather than cutthroat globalist technocrat. Well, makes a nice change, I
suppose. On that note, what’s interesting is that the WE has yet to announce a new chairman at the
time of shooting. After cloud stepped down, former Nestle chairman and CEO Peter Brabeck Lechmmeta
was announced as interim chairman and continues in the role. Now, if that name sounds familiar,
that’s because Peter is infamous for claiming that water is not a human right a few years back. Peter
has since changed his stance, at least according to Nestle’s website. In any case, it’s clear
that Peter is a lot more cutthroat than Borger, and it gives us a sense of what the W’s next
chairman is going to be like. Nobody seems to be rushing to take the role, and it’s easy to see
why. As things get harder around the world, the average person is looking for someone to blame.
The W is perhaps the easiest target as it consists of the most powerful individuals and institutions,
many of whom are directly responsible for creating the stagnant economy and growing wealth inequality
that we see today. The more these trends continue, the more scrutiny there will be around powerful
organizations like the West. At the same time, we’re starting to see a bifocation in the
global order with two distinct polls emerging, a Chinese poll and a US poll. This fact could
be felt at this year’s summer Davos. Speakers were hesitant to say anything that could result
in a tariff choke slam from Trump and nearly whispered when discussing things like the tensions
between the US and China or the bricks moving away from the US dollar. Thankfully, they said enough
that it’s worth covering, and there is a lot to cover. But before we get into all that, if you’re
enjoying the video so far, then be sure to smash era. And it took place right when things were
getting spicy. Israel had just struck Iran and it looked like the conflict was on the brink of
escalating into a regional war. For reference, Iran exports 90% of its oil to China and
China imports 15% of its oil from Iran. You’ll recall the summer Davos took place in
China. This made for a very tense backdrop. In any case, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll
break down our summary of the conference by day, starting with the panels on day one. The first one
that caught our eye was called, quote, “Contours of a new economic order.” In case it wasn’t clear
enough, it focused on the changing world order I noted earlier. After the moderator noted that Iran
and Israel were fighting as they spoke, Colombia professor Jeffrey Frerieden stated the obvious,
and that’s that the US has kept the world largely in order since the 1950s, but that this order
is starting to turn into chaos. Notably, Jeffrey pointed to the weakening of institutions such as
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which helped project US dominance globally. John
Hopkins University professor Anguan Yuen chimed in with her hot take, which was that the reassuring
and re-industrialization we’re seeing in the US and elsewhere has nothing to do with economics.
It has to do with populism and national security. This makes it fundamentally different from the
other kinds of industrialization trends we’ve seen in countries like China, which are primarily
economic. Notably, Ang said that this fact means that other countries which were counting on
industrialization to grow their economies will have to take a different strategy. To bring you up
to speed, many economists believe that economies follow a sort of natural progression of growth
from production to consumption. So it looks like either the economists or the developing countries
will have to come up with a new approach. Ang said that countries like China, which managed to
industrialize before the door started closing on the old kind of economic globalization, should be
able to pivot from production to consumption. The caveat is that people don’t consume or invest when
there’s lots of uncertainty. As you’ll soon see, this is a big problem that the W is struggling to
address. And it’s an even bigger problem when you consider that the W wants AI and robots to replace
labor. Now, I’m not sure if they’ve noticed, but AI and robots do not consume. Humans do. So, if
you want to grow the economy through consumption, you need to empower workers and not replace them
with technology. This is a fact that Carlson Tong, the chairman of Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing,
seems to have forgotten. But back to Jeffrey now. He was one of the only big cheeses we saw
speaking at the W who understands how big of a problem uncertainty is for consumption
and the flow of capital. He’s the only one who highlighted the fact that uncertainty is
highest in developing countries which happen to be the ones that need the most consumption
and capital investment in order to grow. He also underscored the need for long-term certainty. Now,
we couldn’t help but be reminded here of something chilling that Black Rockck CEO Larry Frink
said in an interview a few years back. Quote, “Markets don’t like uncertainty. Markets like
totalitarian governments.” And quote, “Democracies are very messy, as we know in the United
States.” Link is down below, FYI. Put simply, powerful individuals and institutions prefer
countries like China because they know exactly what to expect in the future and can plan for it.
The scariest thing about this fact is that you could argue that the average person also prefers
this totalitarian stability. It would help explain the rise of more authoritarian parties around the
world. The only real difference is that some are leftwing and some are right-wing. Anyways, another
panel that caught our eye was titled quote top 10 emerging technologies of 2025. Now, believe it or
not, but the discussion wasn’t all that focused on AI. Instead, it was focused on biotechnology with
panelists discussing everything from drugs that permanently live inside your body to sensors that
will exist in your body and that can be detected by objects in your surroundings like cars. If
you’re terminally online, you might have seen the viral clip of a scientist named Matthew Laauo
proposing genetically modifying humans to make them allergic to meat so they eat less meat and
save the planet or whatever. Matthew doesn’t seem to be a part of the W, nor were his comments made
at a W event, but it was along the same lines as the top 10 emerging technologies panel dystopian.
Anyhow, yet another panel that caught our eye was titled quote chief economists briefing. That’s
because it continued discussing something that was briefly discussed during the contours of a new
economic order panel and that’s the EU’s role in this emerging world order. Jeffrey had briefly
noted that the most fascinating relationship to watch in the coming years will be that between
the EU and China. In the chief economist briefing, Thai economic adviser Santitan Satiri argued
that the EU could become the third pole in the new world order. The key word there is could.
He acknowledged the fact that just because the EU has the chance doesn’t mean that it can
capitalize on it. Many challenges remain, namely the fragmentation of European capital
markets and the sovereignty of EU economies. If you watched our recent video about the
EU’s plans to use the savings of Europeans to fund its ideological agendas, you’ll know
that these plans are essentially a backdoor for parts of the economic and capital markets
union that was previously rejected by most EU countries. When you remember that institutions
like BlackRock prefer authoritarian regimes, it paints a pretty bleak picture for Europe under
the EU. And this ties into another panel that caught our eye which was titled quote reading the
US economy. It perfectly portrayed the approach that the global elites have towards us plebs
as data points in their models. First, American university professor Robert Kman suggested that
he was happy that many people who came into the US illegally aren’t being caught because it will
make the economy strong. Then Bloomberg editor Stacy Vanick Smith said that reshoring will cause
wages to rise, which is a bad thing because it’ll cause inflation. As a not so fun fact, panelists
at previous WE discussions had revealed that the US needed a steady stream of 500,000 new workers
a month to ensure wages remained under control. This could explain why there was so much illegal
immigration under the previous administration. Whatever the case, it appears that the average
person is starting to realize that abstract measures like GDP don’t directly reflect their
quality of life. However, it appears that the average person still doesn’t understand that the
powers that be need GDP to rise, even if it’s at your expense. That’s just because if GDP starts
to slow, debts become harder to repay and powerful institutions and individuals will default. If
you need evidence of this, look no further than the efforts being made by Black Rockck and Co.
to get retail investors to start buying private equity and private credit. Many analysts have
rightfully pointed out that their attempts to sell institutional products to retail is evidence
of problems behind the scenes. Italian politician Valentino Valentini actually confirmed this during
a panel titled quote trade trends and endgames. He revealed that exits in the private equity space
are becoming more difficult which is why they’re trying to do it through the public markets. He
also said that EU countries need to give up their negotiating power to go along with the consensus.
H sounds kind of authoritarian, doesn’t it? But back to BlackRock. On the second day of the summer
Davos event, the opening pleenery was held. It was hosted by Borgabar Brenda, the aforementioned W
CEO and president and featured a keynote speech by Chinese Premier Lee Chiang, who insisted
that globalization is not disappearing, it’s merely changing, undergoing a quote new path. If
you watched our recent video about Larry Frink’s letter in the Financial Times, you’ll know that
BlackRock is already thinking about this so-called second draft of globalization. In theory, it means
giving more power to workers and building public infrastructure. In practice, it means importing
cheap labor to build private infrastructure, which will then be monetized by asset managers
like BlackRock. And it’s not just the bluecollar jobs either. In a panel titled quote building an
agentic economy, vonvu, the co-founder and CEO of an English learning AI called Elsa, revealed
that many American companies are not using AI to replace workers. They’re using AI to train
cheap overseas labor and then replacing homegrown workers with this cheap overseas labor. Of course,
English language skills are just one part of that. On a different note, another panel called quote
currencies in flux actively discussed the decline of the US dollar. What’s funny is that every
panelist was walking on eggshells except for one, Diana Chilea, senior fellow at the Asia Society
Policy Institute. She not only ranted about how the sanctions on Russia in 2022 hurt the US
dollar’s dominance, but argued that the Liberation Day tariffs had the same effect. Meanwhile,
Cornell University professor Ezoir Prasad pointed out that the euro’s use in central bank reserves
has been falling just as much as the US dollar’s use in central bank reserves, suggesting it won’t
be the currency that dethrones the US dollar. Now, this makes sense considering that the EU is
closely aligned with the US and this makes the euro just as problematic as the US dollar in the
eyes of many countries. London School of Economics professor Jyn Caillou took a different angle.
She correctly pointed out that there’s still a US dollar shortage globally, meaning that the
demand for US dollars is likely to continue indefinitely. As a fun fact, this is because of
the tens, possibly hundreds of trillions of US dollar denominated debt that exists. This debt
is effectively a demand driver for US dollars globally. Diana dialed up the rhetoric by pointing
out another important fact, and that’s that it’s not the US dollar that’s a problem, per se, but
the rails that it runs on. This is something we discovered in our research of the bricks and
its proposed bricks currency. What’s needed is an alternative payment system, not an alternative
currency, per se. The system the bricks is working on is Enbridge, which Diana also referenced. As
a cherry on top, Diana reminded everyone of oil’s role in driving US dollar demand and claimed that
1if of all dollar demand comes from the oil trade. This is presumably why jurisdictions like the EU
and China are so obsessed with getting away from fossil fuels and moving towards green energy.
Not only does it make their energy grids more independent, it also makes them less dependent
on the US dollar. Both Jyn and Ezo reiterated these facts with Jyn repeating that the US
dollar and the US-led financial system are two separate things with Ezoir repeating that
there continues to be enormous US dollar demand as evidenced by stable coins which are mostly US
dollar denominated. Ezoir’s conclusion was legit. Stable coins aren’t the solution to problematic
currencies. The currencies themselves must be fixed. Whereas the problem with the euro is
fragmentation. The problem with the Chinese yuan is the free flow of capital. Without the free flow
of capital, it’s not possible for China to have capital markets that are deep or liquid enough
for investors to park their money in, never mind the risk of confiscation. Until either or both
of these problems are solved, the US dollar will continue to remain dominant. This relates to the
third day of the event where a panel titled quote understanding China’s approach to AI caught our
attention. Aside from the fact that energy was a hot topic due to the electricity demands of
AI, University of Southern California professor Angela Jong Huer revealed that US AI companies
are focused on building powerful models while Chinese AI companies are focused on applications.
And that reminds me, there weren’t nearly as many discussions about AI as you’d expect given the
theme of the event. And even the discussions that were about AI focused on things that are
adjacent to AI such as energy and infrastructure. For example, Lee Hayau, the dean of the Chong
Hong Graduate School of Business, predicted that there will be a decoupling between Chinese and
US AI infrastructure. In fact, he went as far as specifying that quote, “Trump will do something
to hold China back.” While this could have simply been a reference to restrictions around AI
chips, it could just as easily be a reference to the possibility that there will be an escalation
between China and Taiwan that’s caused by the US. This isn’t speculation. Xi Jinping reportedly
alleged that the US wants to trick China into attacking Taiwan. And this pertains to another
panel titled quote geopolitics an unfolding story where Harvard Kennedy School professor Graeme
Allison talked about another hot topic at the event the thusidities trap. For those unfamiliar
this describes a historical phenomenon where the world is plunged into chaos as an established
power is threatened by an emerging power. In this case, China threatening the US. To put things into
perspective, a 2012 study conducted by Harvard found that there were 16 cases of a rising power
threatening an established power over the last 500 years. In 12 of these 16 cases, the result was
war. So 75% of the time, Jyn actually dropped that statistic during the previously mentioned panel.
By the way, news flash, but this suggests there’s a high chance that the US and China will go to war
at some point. Oddly enough though, Jyn claimed that China’s domestic issues are bigger than its
international issues at this point in time. To clarify, she was also a part of the geopolitics
panel. Now, this honestly isn’t too reassuring because many American analysts claim that China
will attack Taiwan as a means of preserving domestic order. After all, creating an external
enemy is the best way to unite a population, supposedly. But back to the AI stuff, another
oddity was the fact that panelists continued to talk about China’s Deepseek moment, even though it
happened way back in January. In case you missed it, Deepseek is an open-source Chinese AI that was
apparently more powerful than many US AI models. The catch is that Deepseek was much cheaper to
develop, calling into question all the AI spending that’s been happening in the US. Now, besides the
fact that these panelists would say that the AI model matters less than the AI application in the
same breath, we actually didn’t see anyone provide any groundbreaking applications for AI. This was
surprising because the entire purpose of the event was to find the young people working on these
up and cominging technologies, but it was mostly buzzwords and discussions around infrastructure.
It seems that even the application focused Chinese are struggling to find applications for AI. One
of the only exceptions seems to be robotics, but even then panelists working for robotics
companies admitted that robots would continue to be designed for specific tasks. The idea of
some generalpurpose humanoid robot that replaces people still seems to be science fiction, at least
until AGI gets developed. Come to think of it, it’s possible that OpenAI’s upcoming GPT5 model
will come close to counting as AGI. And it’s safe to assume that technology companies will
have every incentive to claim this as a means of boosting their stocks. In case you missed
the memo, GPT5 will be announced sometime over the summer. It goes without saying that it’ll
have some interesting effects on the US and on China for that matter. Now this brings me to the
big question and that’s what all of this means for you and for the markets. Based on what was
said at the west summer Davos, the answer to the former seems to be more economic, political, and
social uncertainty because of a gradual decoupling between the US and China. The answer to the
latter isn’t any different. turbulent and volatile markets as investors try and position themselves
accordingly. The key takeaway from this year’s annual meeting of the new champions is that the
world is changing and that nobody knows what the new world will look like, not even the W’s biggest
thinkers. Although they hint at things like wanting more authoritarian governments to create
certainty, they don’t seem entirely on board with the idea because those governments could easily
turn against them. One thing is for sure though, and that’s that the WE is desperate to stay
relevant in this changing world. The good news is that this doesn’t seem to be working because
recent changes in politics and public opinion seem to have stopped the W’s agendas dead in their
tracks. The bad news is the W isn’t giving up and still seems dead set on achieving its ideological
goals by 2030. FYI, the reason why you see the 2030 date everywhere is because that’s when the
United Nations’s sustainable development goals or SDGs are supposed to be met in every country.
The SDGs include dystopian technologies like CBDC’s and digital IDs which are intended to
be implemented in public private partnerships. The ESG investment ideology explicitly seeks to
help achieve the UN’s SGS. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with our coverage of ESG and the SDGs,
you’ll know that those SDGs were first called the Millennial Development Goals or MDGs, and they
were supposed to be met by 2015. This deadline was missed mostly because of the global financial
crisis. So, the UN rebranded and tried again. Some would say we’re headed for a similar scenario
with another financial crisis possibly around the corner. So this begs the question of whether
the outcome will be the same. Will the plans of the global elite be foiled because of the next
financial crisis like last time or will they use it to their advantage to implement their new
world order this time around? Give us your answers in the comments below. And once you’re done, check
out our video about why consumer debt could be the trigger for the next financial crisis using the
link in the top right. If you made it this far, thank you as always for watching and I’ll see
you in the next one. This is Guy signing off.
