ST. PETERSBURG INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM 5/22-24/’14, St. Petersburg, Russia

This post is about the economic forum Russia is hosting in 9 days & how the Americans & Europeans have withdrawn their participation in line with the new cold war. The pdf file of the forum’s 41 page Program is available upon email request to my email address. Also there have been some additional topics added to the upcoming Bilderberg Conference, & these will be added to my blog’s list as well as listed below.

ORDERS FROM THE TOP “DON’T PARTICIPATE”. Obama made it clear to American CEOs that he does not want them participating. German Chancellor Angela Merkel did the same with German CEOs. This means that Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, Alcoa, Daimler Benz, Cisco Systems and others will not participate. In all, eleven European CEOs have cancelled their attendance.

AN INTERESTING PROGRAM. The Forum has 80 topics that will be covered. If we start at the beginning of the program we discover the first 6 topics are: 1) Challenges & Solutions: Addressing Obstacles to Business-Driven Growth, 2) Translating Challenges into Opportunities: acting together, 3) The Cashless Society, 4) The Future For Cultural & Economic Relations between Russia & the U.K., 5) The Importance of open Data for Enterprise & Development, 6) Technologies Promise for Russia’s Oil Future.

Each Topic has a brief synopsis and lists people like the moderators. An example is the topic: “Realizing Russia’s Competitive Edge”. Here is what the Program says about it:
Panel session 
FOREIGN BUSINESS IN RUSSIAN REGIONS: SECRETS OF SUCCESS Recent years have witnessed Russian regions actively attracting foreign companies to the implementation of investment projects. Measures for simplification of conduct of business as well as improvement of business climate and growth of investment potential of territories are being taken. What are the results of these efforts for foreign companies? What are their achievements and prospects in the Russian market? What can one advise to foreign colleagues? 
Moderator: Sergey Cheremin, Minister of Moscow Government, Head of the Department for External Economic and International Relations of Moscow”

UNRELATED DEVELOPMENT, the NEW BILDERBERG TOPICS which will be added to the agenda: 
The strategy of the EU Cabinet, 
Institutional issues with Ukraine, 
Economic policy orientations
Europe 2020 strategy
Trade with the US
Justice, fundamental rights & Citizenship
Europe’s Group of Ethics.

MY SUMMARY. As I ponder all these issues, I think back on yesterday’s post about facing difficult choices. Will humanity & its World’s leaders make good choices?? Tolstoy in “War & Peace” made an evaluation that I disagreed with when I read it, but have often pondered. He said that someone like Napoleon did not invade Russia—unless all the millions of other Europeans had not also each made the choice to invade. Tolstoy placed responsibility for events, not just on the leaders, but upon all of us. Interesting.