During his opening homily at the 2024 meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Der Schwaben Klaus — to borrow the moniker from our favorite contrarian, Doug Casey — made it clear he and his ilk weren’t using the word ‘trust’ as a verb, as in:
“to believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of something” or “to allow someone to have, use, or look after (someone or something of importance or value) with confidence.”
Instead the Davos crowd, meeting under the theme of ‘Rebuilding Trust’ were using the word as a noun, as in:
“the state of being responsible for someone or something” or “an arrangement whereby a person (a trustee) holds property as its nominal owner for the good of one or more beneficiaries.”
Trust, Klaus Schwab says, “is not just a feeling. Trust is a commitment to action. To believe. To hope.”
To rebuild trust, he says, “there’s a fundamental need to embody trusteeship, which means to care for the greater good.”
READ MORE: How the world’s elite define ‘trust’