ARE you optimistic about 2024? The answer from the World Economic Forum (WEF) would seem to be “heck, no”. 

Each year, the WEF asks 1,500 of its “community” – elite business leaders, academics, politicians and so on – to cite key risks, and then crunches that with Marsh McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group. The latest reading, released before the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos this month, might make even Pollyanna weep.

Apparently Davos groupies have “a predominantly negative outlook for the world over the next two years that is expected to worsen over the next decade”, with 54 per cent braced for “some instability and a moderate risk of global catastrophes” in the short term – and 30 per cent predicting severe upheaval.