9/30/2007, Canon IXUS950 IS Anyone expecting to find the centerpiece of World Peace and Unity will be sorely disappointed by Geneva. Some streets are alternating series of Rolex, Tag Heuer, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Rolex, etc… Others are alternating between Swiss banks and stores where heads of state and ambassadors’ spouses can spend money at a rate 10x what New York’s Madison Avenue has to offer… $80,000 furs, $300,000 wristwatches, and the like.
The streets lined with flags and NGOs from around the world do little to ameliorate the constant thought of “well maybe this shopping mall is why some nations need so much help and the money is never to be found.” Maybe this is why the cherubs are fighting:
As a capitalist and an entrepreneur, I’m all in favor of limitless wealth… and as an evolutionary realist I recognize that Leaders have had vastly greater resources than the people who are their property since, well, the first critter realized that it could take stuff from another. But somehow I found it particularly obscene in Geneva, because I arrived with a naïve expectation that this was a place where people who want to care for the world’s poor come together to see what can be done to help.
These thoughts completely overshadowed my ability to appreciate the otherwise charming old-town streets.
