Davos Men to Fellow Citizens: Eat Globalist Cake

Jeff Greene is a multi-billionaire who made his money in real estate and speculation in subprime mortgage securities. Recently, he warned that “Our economy is in deep trouble.” A leading reason, he explained, was that “globalization and the exponential growth of technology, which have destroyed millions of jobs already, will undoubtedly eliminate millions and millions more jobs during the next several years. Many manufacturing jobs that we lost will come back to the U.S., but most will be filled by robots and software.”

Greene with his wife.

Conspicuously absent in his statement is any mention of how mass immigration has made jobs increasingly scarce for American workers and how it will continue to do so if current immigration policy remains in place. This omission is not surprising because Greene is an immigration booster like most members of his billionaire class. In 2010, when he ran for U.S. Senate in Florida, he stated that legal immigration was important for the economy.

One of several homes owned by billionaire Jeff Greene.

Specifically, he endorsed visas to foreign students in our universities to let them stay and work in the U.S. Those advocating this policy typically justify it by claiming that there are not enough Americans available to fill jobs in skilled fields such as computer programming and engineering. This alleged shortage is a myth promoted by companies preferring foreigners because they can pay them less.

One voice of elite opinion endorsing this strategy was Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan, with a current net worth of $10 million, generously suggested that American skilled workers made too much money and that admitting more foreigners into our workforce would help alleviate the problem of “income inequality.”

Jeff Greene displays a similar generosity, despite his professed concern about our country’s poor economic prospects. What we need to do, he recommended, is pull in our belts a few more notches. Said the billionaire, “America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we can have less things and a smaller, better existence.”

Greene made this observation after flying on his private jet with his family and two nannies to Davos. There in the Swiss resort town, he attended the meeting of the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of the world’s corporate and political elites. Also attending the meeting was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who strove mightily to flood Britain with immigrants – even though his Labour Party supposedly represented the working people of that country. After a day of conferencing at Davos, Greene announced that he and Blair were having dinner together.

The late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington had a low estimate of the Forum, and disparagingly referred to the type of people attending it as “Davos Men.” They have, he said, “little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.”

The regard that Davos Men seem to have for their countrymen recalls the alleged response of French Queen Marie Antoinette when told that the peasants were starving: “Well, let them eat cake.” Perhaps these lords of finance and politics believe that they are powerful enough to get away with their cavalier indifference, as they tell contemporary “peasants” to eat the consequences of globalism.

Yet still, they might recall what happened in France after the queen’s supposed comment. Peasants aren’t pleasant when denied hope and opportunity. If Marie Antoinette were around today, she would hardily concur.