News & Politics   comments_image Comments  Crashing the Party at
Davos   The world's rich and powerful are heading this week to
their annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos,
Switzerland. Hosted by the great global corporations (Citigroup,
Siemens, Microsoft, NestlÃ©, etc.), some 2000 CEOs, prominent
politicians, pundits and international bureaucrats will network
over great food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the
fire contemplating the world's future.   All markets are systems
of rules that determine what sort of people are winners and what
sort are losers. Politics is largely conflict among the
different sorts -- or classes -- over who gets what. In stable
societies, a social contract provides for enough wealth to
trickle down to keep the lower orders from rebelling. Thus, in
the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of defense said
that what was good for General Motors was good for America, most
Americans -- including the United Auto Workers -- agreed. Within
the boundaries of