(Community Matters) Pondering the significance of this Politico posting:
“Davos elite confronts crisis of Western capitalism,” by AFP’s Dave Clark: “Leaders of the global business elite were confronted on Wednesday with the fear that the Western model of capitalism has failed and is about to be shoved aside by emerging powers. Over four decades, the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos has become an emblem of the triumphant market but this year delegates admitted that state capitalism on the Chinese model is in the ascendant. … Four days of public debate and private networking kicked off with a stark warning from a panel of experts that the historic motors of the 20th century global economy will have to reform or die.”
Community Matters 
Oh, please. “the Western model of capitalism has failed”? Do journalists use this type of hyberbole to sell content or to make themselves feel important?
Free markets are still better than planned economies. 30 years from now The US and most of the world will still have more-or-less free-market economies with social safety nets and reasonable limits to prevent abuses. We’re not going to become China, and although China may eventually become the biggest economy, that’s because they are the biggest country, not because their system is better.
In the US and Europe we got out of control in recent decades with consumption – too much consumer debt, overly generous pensions, not enough workers supporting too many retirees, expectations of endlessly rising asset values. And in the US, an elevation of the financial sector to the Elite Sector to which all other industries report, instead of the other way around as it should be.
But that doesn’t mean we need to become China or scrap “the Western model”. We’ve got a lot of problems – income inequality foremost among them – but it’s hardly the end of the world.
And this line: “a stark warning from a panel of experts that the historic motors of the 20th century global economy will have to reform or die.” I’ve been reading those warnings since I was a teenager in the 1970s. This can’t be the first time the delegates Davos have heard it,