bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Anthony Rowley

The state of the world was looking grim, stocks had collapsed, recession loomed and sentiment had slumped. Yet business moguls, financiers and officials met to declare optimism about the future. It was 1929 in New York – but there are odd parallels with the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
After Wall Street crashed and the Great Depression got under way, then-president Herbert Hoover convened what were known as “no-business meetings” where barons of industry met behind closed doors and did nothing beyond issuing absurd statements claiming that everything was under control.
These exercises in confidence-boosting achieved nothing beyond intensifying the decade-long misery that was to follow until Western rearmament at the outbreak of World War II boosted production. Yet world leaders seem intent on trying this same trick again.
The Davos meeting was expected to be a sober affair, given the current state of a world mired in inflation, recession fears, war (in Ukraine), US-China tensions and other post-pandemic blues.
Instead, to the surprise of many, something akin to The Sound of Music was heard emanating from the Alpine resort where the WEF is held. As the Financial Times rather airily phrased it in a summarising headline, there were “reasons to be cheerful”.
Predictions about the global economy in 2023 had been uniformly bleak, the FT noted; “but the [Davos] consensus was that things are not as bad as they seemed”. International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva also said the situation “is less bad than we feared a couple of months ago”.

These are the kind of instant judgments we expect from market commentators but not from policymakers and advisers who are supposed to weigh their words carefully, or from businessmen who need to take a long-term perspective on investment.
Yet Christian Sewing, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, talked of “more optimism on the economy” while Jean Marc Ollagnier, CEO for Europe at Accenture, reportedly said that European CEOs are being “optimistic about the year ahead”.
What was behind this extraordinary “volte face”, as economic commentator Enzio von Pfeil termed it in his commentary for Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK. “I am leery,” he said, “of that sudden switch of view by the IMF and I wonder why major investment banks suddenly are talking-up the global economy?”.
Why indeed? After the bureaucrats, bankers and businessmen returned home in their private jets, the world was still in the same political and economic mess as when they arrived. None of them challenged world leaders to end the bellicose conflicts and competition at the heart of the problem.
That is what they should have been doing, because even presidents and prime ministers need to pay attention when big money talks – and big money is rarely present in such quantity as it is at the annual Davos gatherings.

Instead, business oligarchs opted to copy the “no-business” meeting style, seeking to downplay rampant inflation, wage pressures, slowing economic growth and signs of banking system stress.
As prices continue to rise (which they will, even if by more modest increments than of late) and as business lay-offs increase, unemployment will inevitably rise, which is good for inflation but bad for political stability and the legitimacy of governments.
Inflation is far from over simply because the rate of price rises has moderated. What has not sunk in is the fact that prices and the cost of money have risen sharply from a very low base, and that is going to hit consumption and investment hard.
As Edward Moya, a foreign exchange specialist at Oanda, noted in a commentary, “tech earnings from Microsoft to Texas Instruments clearly paint a picture of a macro slowdown”. The outlook, he added is “rather bleak as it seems it will take a while before sales can rebound”.

This is critical. As the latest corporate earnings season unfolds, it is obvious that the 20 per cent slump in 2022 was far from being a healthy “correction” that will provide a stronger base for renewed share price appreciation.
It’s worth noting, too, the argument of former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard that even when inflation abates and interest rates fall, “recent inflation has not reversed the structural factors that created the low-demand, low-investment environment known as ‘secular stagnation’.”
Governments can no longer afford huge fiscal or monetary handouts to boost confidence and consumption. So if a major recession is to be avoided, pumping out a positive narrative becomes an imperative for political leaders and for business and finance. It is time to “talk up the market”.
Surge of Davos optimism can’t mask world’s many pressing problems
One of the great hypocrisies of the debate was that while China is vilified for its alleged transgressions against Western values, some of the WEF business chiefs were happy to cite its reopening as one reason for optimism about the global economy.
What they seem to overlook is that China’s reopening could mean that it pulls ahead while monetarily and fiscally constrained Western powers are forced to look on as they fall behind.
Abraham Lincoln reportedly said in 1887 that, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”. That lesson was forgotten at the time of the Great Depression and seems to have been forgotten again now.
Anthony Rowley is a veteran journalist specialising in Asian economic and financial affairs


Davos elite are fooling only themselves with their ‘everything is fine’ messaging

A logo on a window at the Congress Centre during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 19. Photo: Bloomberg

Kristalina Georgieva, International Monetary Fund managing director, attends a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 20. Photo: EPA-EFE

Private jets are seen at the Swiss Air Force base, Dubendorf airport, Switzerland, on January 18. The base is used as parking for the aircraft of participants of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Photo: AFP 

Pedestrians cross a street in Tokyo’s Ueno district on December 30, 2022. Japan’s consumer inflation rate hit a 41-year high of 4 per cent in December. Photo: AP

Opinion

Comment

World

Business

Markets

Economy

The cheerful mood at the World Economic Forum is at odds with a world mired in war, inflation, US-China tensions and recession fears
Business leaders should have been demanding an end to the conflicts and competition ailing the global economy; instead they sought to downplay them


The cheerful mood at the World Economic Forum is at odds with a world mired in war, inflation, US-China tensions and recession fears. Business leaders should have been demanding an end to the conflicts and competition ailing the global economy; instead they sought to downplay them.


Banking & finance

World Economic Forum

Central banks

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Stocks

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Opinion | Davos elite are fooling only themselves with their ‘everything is fine’ messaging

The cheerful mood at the World Economic Forum is at odds with a world mired in war, inflation, US-China tensions and recession fears Business leaders should have been demanding an end to the conflicts and competition ailing the global economy; instead they sought to downplay them

The cheerful mood at the World Economic Forum is at odds with a world mired in war, inflation, US-China tensions and recession fears

Business leaders should have been demanding an end to the conflicts and competition ailing the global economy; instead they sought to downplay them