Opinion
By Sigrid Weidenweber, 4-8-23
As previously promised, today I will tackle the Great Reset as proclaimed by the World Economic Forum. The world, or better our planet, has experienced many different resets. From plate tectonics, the interaction of lithospheric, solid plates tearing the mantle of the earth, to punctuated equilibrium, the grand reset in the development of its denizens, these events can truly be called grand.
However, we are now promised a reset of all economic and environmental functions in the world, of course, for the betterment of mankind. In 2022, professor Klaus Schwab, economist and lecturer, and Thierry Malleret, a co-founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), published a book called Covid-19 : the Great Reset. They discussed in this publication the Covid-19 pandemic as a reset for the “weaknesses of capitalism.” As, according to their thinking, capitalist weaknesses were revealed through their failings in dealing with a pandemic.
Klaus Schwab, although benefitting greatly from the capitalist system, has always had a less than benign view of its function. In 1971 he published a book Modern Enterprize in Mechanical Engineering, in which he presented the idea of “stakeholder capitalism,” an idea that I discussed cursory in my last article. Klaus Schwab promoted in his book the concept that capitalism must deliver benefits not only for the shareholders, those invested in the enterprise, but all stakeholders, no matter how loosely associated with the business. Only thus, he argues, can be achieved long-term growth and prosperity for all. This idea, promoted abundantly, has been adopted by local governments, corporations and international governmental entities.
In practice the theory does not hold together but falls apart, ending like many socialist countries in bankruptcy and default. Since the stakeholder concept is the overarching theme of the Great Reset, I decided to present my favorite example. I closely observed the inefficiencies of a stakeholder company for 18 years as a California citizen. It is California’s PGE, a semi-private stakeholder company.
Its 5 core stakeholders are: customers, employees, suppliers, communities and investors. It is ruled and overseen by the California Energy Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and the California Independent Systems Operator (ISO). These regulators are responsible to facilitate California’s multi-billion dollar wholesale electric market. CPUC makes the rules and policies for electricity and natural gas rates, which are provided by private companies, among many other regulatory instructions.
In perusing the three above mentioned commissions and their duties, rules, and regulations one can get dizzy trying to ascertain where the money trail leads. I have not seen the end of it. To understand how much a shareholder loses in benefits to the stakeholder concept, forensic accounting teams would need to be employed. As of June 2022, PG&E had acquired US $53.8 billion of debt. This is an increase in $11.2 billion of debt in just one year. How is such debt sustainable by a semi-private company?
Here is some accounting of where the money goes. PGE employees have access to exclusive discounts, special offers, and access to preferred seating and tickets to Bay Area attractions, theme parks, shows, sporting events, and much more. In addition, employees get Medical, Dental, and Vision Plans to cover all illnesses, injuries, and medical conditions. PGE covers 92.5% of insurance costs and provides HAS, free programs for employees and families, their emotional wellness and, mental health needs. Add to that, their 25% discount on their PG&E services. Wow!
To other “stakeholders,” CARE and FERA help 1.4 million customers pay their energy bills according to eligibility.
Furthermore, there are the social and political contributions made by these semi-private corporations. PG&E helped fund the careers of Democrat California governor Gavin Newsom and his wife to the tune of $208,000. Other Democrat politicians and campaigns received $2.1 million from PGE. These data are provided according to an ABC 10’s analysis. Both data were presented after analysis during the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, and after pleading guilty to 85 more felonies. The felonies were deaths caused by PGE and its neglected equipment.
The political donations went to California Democrat officeholders, political party organizations, and campaigns for ballot propositions. By now, dear reader, you probably understand what it means to be a stakeholder. You also understand, that PGE, being an investor-owned utility has squandered funds on social and political schemes, while neglecting what should be its core mission: provide good service to the paying public, and create maximum gain for its investors. It failed greatly in this respect. It has been documented that necessary repairs on electric lines, poles, and other essential equipment had been neglected and deferred for many years, leading to horrific wildfires. These catastrophic fires in 2017 and 2018 were attributed to PG&E, leading to its 2018 bankruptcy. In the 2018 Camp Fire, 84 people were killed. Their relatives were never compensated for the assessed amount of restitution.
However, Gavin Newsom protected PG&E after the company pleaded guilty to the felony. Not only that but Newsom, the stakeholder, signed new financial protection into law to protect PG&E. To this end, he hired the New York law firm of O’Melveny and Meyers to draft the protective laws together with the Investment Bank of Gussenheim, before signing them into law. It becomes clearer now, how the Stakeholder thing works. The tax payer, not the stakeholders, paid $ 3 million to the above-mentioned entities to save PG&E. The “consumer stakeholder,” of course, reaps no such benefits. Contrary to what the mission statement should provide, consumer rates go up every quarter, for the other “stakeholders” must keep their benefits, in the face of mounting debt and avoided bankruptcy.
This is but one example of a “stakeholder entity.” Can you imagine the waste and crony-capitalism produced by just a few such mini-monopolies? I shudder to think how much more redistribution of wealth can be achieved with the draconian rules of the Great Reset. We all realize that large corporations provide perks for their employees as an incentive to retain them, however, that does not mean that all of them operate in the PG&E stakeholder style. Here is a simple definition to remember: Shareholders control the board through their vote—like citizens control the government. Stakeholders are controlled by the board and have no vote. According to my definition, the stakeholder board is a totalitarian regime.
Having clarified the stakeholder concept, let’s return to the Great Reset. Michael Rectenwald, the chief academic officer of American Scholars, in a concise, pithy contraction, explains it thus. I rephrase: Another way of describing the goals of the Great Reset is that it represents “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” A two- tiered economy with a few profitable monopolies, controlled by the state on top, and socialism for the majority below. They even have a word for the hapless masses below, it is netizens. This blend of the words internet and citizens is an indicator how easily we will be controlled through the global electronic village.
So, the Great Reset defines how to address the “weaknesses of capitalism.” Weaknesses that were supposedly exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to my sources, the only weakness exposed was a lack of common and scientific sense, with the following vehement totalitarian zeal to suppress any knowledge contrary to the governmental, despotic dictates. Even the Ukase of the Tsars did not have the totalitarian impact of the Biden total vaccination mandate.
It is interesting to note here, that in May 2018 the WEF in collaboration with the John Hopkins Center for “Health Security” conducted a simulation of a national pandemic response, entitled CLADE X. The simulated pandemic concerned a strain of parainfluenza virus “with added genetic elements of the Nipah virus-CLADE X.” The simulated exercise proved, of course, that millions of people in the U.S. and the world would succumb to the virus and preparations to combat such a pandemic had to be instituted forthwith.
Then, in October 2019the WEF once again collaborated with Joh Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to simulate another pandemic, entitled “Event 201” that concerned a novel corona virus. Interesting to note is the fact that this occurred only two months before the China release of the Covid-19 virus. Because of the two simulations and their findings, together with their recommendations, the World Health Organization immediately declared it a pandemic, leading to world-wide lock-downs and the collapse of businesses, industries and social media censorship. The following intended or unintended collapse of 60% of all small businesses was an added benefit to the adherents of Marxist theory, stating that the bourgeoisie must be exterminated for communism to succeed. However, the eradication of small businesses is not only of interest to Marxists but also of large global concerns. During the pandemic shut-down large concerns and businesses like Amazon, Costco, and others, which were never shut down, made enormous gains while small businesses lost.
The simulations, furthermore, led to the adoption of biometric surveillance technology, an emphasis on social media censorship to suppress “misinformation,” (the facts provided by health professionals disagreeing with the government line,) and the media effort to overwhelm the public with governmental, authoritative material, as provided by Dr. Fauci.
Next in the Great Reset is the stated concern for “Sustainable Development Goals,” as formulated by the United Nations. The WEF, in partnership with World Health Organization, (WHO) promised to help finance the United Nation’s climate change agenda. 197 countries signed Agenda 2030 that benefits most of them greatly and diminishes the power and life style of most European countries and America.
As America is called to commit $400 billion to this scheme, and its citizens are forced to pay premium prices for oil, natural gas, food and consumer goods, China, Vietnam, India, Russia and other countries are free to pollute because the reasoning is they have to catch up to our standards to achieve equity. Simply defined, to achieve equity a well-to-do person can be stripped of all possessions until his, or her, homeless neighbors, receiving the bounty are equally well off. Equity is communism’s and the WHO’s fallacy. Since man began to live in caves and hunt big game, there were always differences in man’s physique and brain power, making survival unequal. In the meantime, to reduce us to a more equal state with others in the world, our muddle-headed president, incapable of finding his way off a stage without direction, is threatening us with the elimination of gas-stoves, washers, driers and dish-washers.
There is also a shared project, with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s.) It is the “shared blueprint for Peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future.” Equity is to be reached in meeting the globe’s needs. Child neonatal mortality is to be greatly reduced, universal health coverage for all is to be achieved.
Recruitment, training and retention of WHO’s health workforce is another goal. Life under water is another goal, and of course, the restriction of farming in the transformation of the food-system. The imaginative list of world improvements goes on and on. It all sounds grand and inspiring. And yet, one wonders if these people sitting in Davos have ever been in the real world. I have been. In Pakistan, Africa, India, Turkey, Russia…on and on. The greatest successes in these places that I witnessed were not achieved by WHO, an organization sadly missing in the villages, hospitals and orphanages I dealt with, but by NGO’S (Non-governmental organizations.) First off, to reduce neonatal mortality the mother must, at least, have enough food to sustain her health. I cannot even begin to envision how to find the food, or the transport to deliver it, to cover the monumental need I witnessed.
However, it would take me more time I am willing to spend researching all of the stated goals contained in the Great Reset. Frankly, most of what I discovered reads like science fiction because no quantifying facts how to achieve them underly the goals and statements.
Let me return to more sinister aspects of the Great Reset. It delineates that non-woke corporations and businesses must be forced out of the market so that stakeholder capitalism can be implemented. Michael Rectenwald, chief academic officer for American Scholars, calls Karl Schwab’s stakeholder capitalism “Corporate Socialism.”
The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben bestows upon it the appellation “Communist Capitalism.” Which brings me to my last point. In my opinion, the Great Reset leads straight to a system we already know. It is China’s system of Capitalist Communism that allows huge capitalist state-controlled enterprises to benefit the communist regime, while keeping the population in bondage. This aspect was clearly revealed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when whole parts of cities were enclosed and confined without resources, leaving people worse off than cattle in a coral.
To sum up the Great Reset’s aims: The world will be controlled by enormous monopolies, which, in turn, are controlled by elites, who in turn are controlled by a few, or just one, Tsar. On the bottom, be prepared to be one of them, are the coolies, indentured servants to the elite. Coolies, own nothing, for all belongs to the state, the monopoly, of which they are stakeholders. I leave you with this thought to begin your own research.
Correction in a previous article: Klaus Schwab is not the founder of the Firm of Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab Investment Corporation was founded by Charles Robert Schwab—Founder and Chairman, in 1975.
Born in Germany in 1941, Sigrid Weidenweber remembers the horrific aftermath of Fascism. At the end of the war, she found herself living under Communism. Both of these totalitarian regimes left indelible marks on her psyche. She developed a healthy distrust of governments usurping too many powers in order to control people supposedly for their own good. MORE
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.