Your “Elected” Officials Aren’t Stupid - They’re Just Young Global Leaders

An Insider's Look At The Sinister Rhizome of Klaus Schwab’s Young Global Leaders and Their Stealthy Plot to Remake Your World

One of the grandest delusions of our era is the knee-jerk notion that the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab’s annual powwow in the Swiss Alps, poses the ultimate peril to liberty and prosperity in the West. Not quite.

Don’t get me wrong—the WEF’s role in the Great Reset isn’t some trifling sideshow. As a hub for chit-chat, self-congratulation among the zeitgeist’s high priests, and the swankiest schmooze-fest for the filthy rich and powerful, Davos still calls the shots. But a threat? Not anymore—not from the creaky old guard peering down from their alpine perch. They can kick back, sip their cognac, and smirk—their seeds are sprouting; their dirty work’s done.

The real menace lurks elsewhere: the WEF’s youth brigade, the Young Global Leaders (YGLs). These fresh-faced fanatics are the ones poised to choke out freedom and grind every last shred of individuality into dust. Their game plan’s long-term, a slow-burn blueprint to cement the New World Order’s staying power.

Schwab and his cronies aren’t fools—they’ve clocked that flashy, blood-and-iron revolutions from on high fizzle fast. Sustainable upheaval demands patience, a relentless drip of irreversible change—like, say, plunking millions of migrants smack in Europe’s heart, flipping the board for good. That’s where the YGLs strut in, the WEF’s shiny toys built for endurance.

Pinpointing the YGLs’ origin story is a guessing game, but most who’ve poked at it peg the early 1990s—1992, to be exact. That’s when Schwab, hot off communism’s European swan song, christens the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” (GLTs).

No lone genius act, though—this was a remix of a tune he’d danced to himself: Henry Kissinger’s International Seminar. Launched in 1951 by the man himself, it was one of several post-war brainchildren hatched by Council on Foreign Relations bigwigs and the CIA’s freshly minted spooks. The gig? Thwart commie infiltration abroad while grooming future leaders to play nice with Uncle Sam’s whims.

By ’92, with the Soviet corpse still warm, Schwab and the WEF had clawed their way into the global elite’s inner sanctum, itching to divvy up the world. The GLTs were the next chess move—Kissinger’s legacy rebooted with a shinier logo. Back then, amid the post-Cold War hangover, it barely raised an eyebrow. The world was too busy popping champagne to clock the machinations of a then-obscure puppetmaster. Hindsight’s a brutal teacher—we should’ve seen it coming.

First, let’s dissect the GLTs—their roster, their setup, their playbook. Like the YGLs, each GLT cohort clocks in at about 200 handpicked hotshots, plucked from business, politics, academia, sports, arts, and media. All under 43, all supposedly vetted for dazzling feats or plum gigs, per the WEF’s own 40th-anniversary puff piece. Except that’s a slick pile of hogwash.

Take Angela Merkel, poster child of the first GLT batch. What “extraordinary achievement” got her in? By ’93, she’s CDU chair in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern—before that, a political nobody. Or Nicolas Sarkozy, future French prez, also a ’92/’93 alum. Back then, he’s barely crawled from regional obscurity to a middling ministerial post. Vladimir Putin, another classmate, might’ve had a whisper of clout as one of St. Petersburg’s deputy mayors—hardly a titan. These are just three names yanked from the GLT alumni roll. You could swap in José Manuel Barroso, José María Aznar, Tony Blair, Viktor Orbán, or Bill Gates—all GLT grads. Sure, a few, like Blair or Gates, were teetering on the edge of big-time status by the early ’90s, but they’re still just faces in a crowd, not standout stars.

So if it’s not dazzling deeds or clout that snags a GLT spot, what is it? Only Schwab and his selection cronies could spill the full tea. From the vantage point of someone once courted to join the Young Global Leaders during my stint at the CIA, Klaus Schwab’s knack for power feels less like a soccer scout sniffing out raw talent and more like a seasoned spymaster clocking assets ripe for the game—hungry, pliable, yet unpolished, poised to peak under his wing.

Picture Schwab and his posse as ideological recruiters, eyes peeled for a certain breed: a predator’s itch for control, a slick streak of opportunism, and a backbone forged in unwavering conviction. The CIA prized traits like these too—adaptable minds, a nose for leverage, a quiet relish for steering chaos, all wrapped in a shell tough enough to stomach the gray zones.

You might scoff—maybe Schwab’s radar isn’t that sharp. After all, Orbán and Putin, two OG GLTs, pretend to have flipped the script 30 years later, spitting in the face of everything Schwab’s clique stands for. Fair point, but it misses the twist: their climb to power leaned on the exact traits—ambition, pragmatism, grit—that got them through the GLT door in the first place.

Those two loose cannons might even hint at cracks in the machine—proof the GLTs weren’t as tameable as Schwab hoped. The program hit pause in 2003, rattled by internal WEF squabbles, to rejig the squad for tighter reins. Then comes 2004: Schwab bags the Dan David Prize, a million-dollar pat on the back for “turning the WEF into a global heavyweight.” The award—named for a post-war tycoon with a history fetish—doles out cash for past, present, and future bigwigs. Schwab, crowned in “present,” funnels the loot into birthing the YGLs, the GLTs’ sleeker sequel.

How to Become A Young Global Leader

According to their own hype, the Young Global Leaders are a posse of “dynamic, inspiring trailblazers” rising to tackle the tangled mess of our era’s woes. They claim a swelling global chorus backs them, clamoring for slick, all-in-one fixes rooted in a “holistic, forward-thinking vision.”

We’ll peel back that glossy veneer later, but here’s the spoiler: it’s a blueprint for a digital, global feudalism where a tiny elite lords over the rest. Most of us? Reduced to lab rats and pawns, fodder for their grand experiment to forge a “new human” and a matching society. But let’s not jump the gun—first, the nuts and bolts.

The YGLs operate as a Swiss foundation, cozied up under the Swiss state’s wing. A 14-member board runs the show, propped up by 40 program alumni whispering advice. Above them sits a 10-strong executive crew, with Klaus Schwab as the top dog and Icelandic tycoon Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson as his sidekick.

Nominations? The board picks who gets a second look. For 2023, you were in the running if you’re 28 to 38, with 5 to 15 years of “recognized achievements,” leadership chops, and standout career cred—no self-nominations allowed. And you’d better be a socially engaged, respected, confident go-getter eager to learn. A jury of WEF insiders and alumni sifts through thousands, plucking 200–250 future kingpins annually since 2005 for a six-year stint. Today, over 1,400 grads swarm every corner of society, solo or networked.

Who’s on the jury? How do they choose? Crickets. But we do know who handpicked the first YGL batch in 2004. Back then, they bragged the panel was stacked with “the world’s top media titans,” which screams one thing: brains take a backseat to media savvy. That stench clings to recent cohorts too.

The ’04 selection ran two-tiered: one crew of “elite journalists” tapped the first wave; a WEF inner circle, chaired by none other than Jordan’s Queen, nabbed the rest. Chew on that—a monarch from an absolutist Islamic dynasty cherry-picking the “saviors” of humanity’s woes. Who’s buying their enlightened, altruistic spiel now?

The other jury’s no prize either—journalists, a breed so discredited they’re practically pariahs. Since the migrant crisis, they’ve ditched neutral reporting for activist capes, preaching “the cause” to school the masses. It’s the same gospel fueling Schwab and his clique.

But back to the YGLs: they’re billed as globe-trotting young guns handed a sandbox to swap big ideas on economics and society, no red tape, just casual vibes. The goal? Spin an intercultural web tackling a “fast-evolving world’s” thorniest knots, cooking up “lasting, widely embraced solutions” for politics, business, and beyond.

The WEF’s obsessed with bonding these players—friends don’t stab each other in the back. Hence the endless confabs and workshops—like “Globalisation 4.0”—where they hammer out shared plots. It’s a lattice of ties, loyalty, and schemes, propping up a New World Order with California Ideology’s glossy sheen. The people, society, the common good they’re sworn to serve? Nowhere in sight.

Who Bankrolls a Young Global Leader?

So how do these Young Global Leaders finance their grand escapades? It’s a fair question, given the lavish sprawl of the WEF’s pet project. Despite the polished PR painting them as selfless do-gooders, the YGLs aren’t some charity doling out their brilliance for free.

Their official revenue for 2018/19 clocks in at a hefty $338 million USD—enough to rival a global European mid-tier firm. But where’s the cash flowing from? Donations and grants chip in $18.5 million, investments and odds-and-ends income add another $20 million, and the lion’s share—nearly $300 million—comes from vague “program services.” That’s a catch-all so fuzzy it’s useless. What are they peddling?

Two guesses float: training gigs, though that’s just a fancy “origin unknown” sticker—and you can bet those sessions drill New World Order gospel. Or, more likely, the WEF’s pimping out its Rolodex, charging tycoons top dollar for face-time with political puppets at hollow seminars, symposia, and working groups. Billionaires fork over fortunes for the real prize: a backdoor into democratic machinery.

Put it bluntly: the WEF’s whoring out its protégés. That lucre fuels the ideological brain-scrub, priming the YGLs to ram through the Great Reset per Schwab’s playbook. It’s a financial hamster wheel—near-genius in its churn. How well’s it working for the ultra-rich?

The COVID mess minted a new billionaire every 30 hours while shoving a million into abject poverty every 33. Figures like Bill Gates, Uğur Şahin, and Albert Bourla didn’t just ride the pandemic—they steered it. And who reaped the rewards? Davos 2020, peak plague, saw 119 billionaires hobnob with 53 heads of state—proof the West’s power’s slid from voters to vaults.

The YGLs, as a machine and as players, are the spawn of this shift—foot soldiers for a gilded clique that’s already cashed out democracy. Economic theory’s got the memo: concentrated wealth distorts power—call it plutocracy with better branding.

How to Think Like A Young Global Leader?

Now we wade into the YGLs’ “Vision and Mission,” straight off their homepage—a document so dripping with smug platitudes you’d swear it’s a parody. At first glance, it’s a yawn-fest of trite drivel from an outfit that’s slapped “save the world” on its letterhead. No meaty reasoning, no airtight logic—just a vibe that screams “scribbled by a garden club intern five minutes before clock-out.” But squint harder, and the fog lifts: behind the bland fluff lurks a stark preview of dystopia, at least for anyone not tapped for the new global aristocracy.

The “Thinking and Acting” section kicks off with three buzzwords—“Inspire,” “Connect,” “Transform”—each paired with a bite-sized blurb. Under “Inspire,” we get: “YGLs are driven to wield their talent and clout as a force for good. We nurture collective and individual leadership to breed sharp, visionary global decision-makers and change agents.”

“Force for good”—a phrase dangling there, undefined, like a motivational poster in a dentist’s office. That’s a problem. “Good” isn’t a legal or political yardstick; it’s a moral squish-ball. Folk wisdom’s got it right: law and justice aren’t twins. So when someone plants an vague “good” as their political North Star, law gets kicked to the curb. History’s a grim teacher here—gulags, concentration camps, every flavor of hellhole rose under banners of fuzzy “goodness.” Even Google ditched “Don’t be evil” when it dawned on them—shocker—that it greenlit abuse.

Modern rule of law obsesses over curbing power grabs and corruption; the YGLs? Not a peep. For a crew styling itself as the world’s next overlords, dodging that debate’s a glaring red flag. Aristotle’s been wrestling with this for 2,000 years—Plato’s philosopher-kings faced tougher vetting than this lot. Yet the YGLs coast by on mushy bumper-sticker slogans.

Next up, “Connect”: “YGLs believe that by pooling their diverse skills, experiences, and networks, they can achieve more together. We foster collaboration in the global public interest.” Same old song—stunning banality meets sly omission. Teamwork saves the world—who knew?

But what’s this “global public interest”? What magic thread ties a Lapland reindeer herder to an Indonesian rubber farmer? Crickets. It’s not just lazy—it’s cagey. Vague ideals like these are catnip for control freaks; they bend to whoever’s loudest. Political theory’s got a term for it: empty signifiers—pretty shells for stuffing with agendas. The YGLs don’t define it because they don’t have to—yet. For now, it’s a blank check, and they’re the ones cashing it.

Then “Transform”: “YGLs are trailblazing and bold. We spot and back them to amplify their impact, delivering bigger, stronger, faster results in their fields, making the YGLs’ mark felt worldwide.” This is a middle finger to measured, rational problem-solving—start a change, watch the fallout, tweak as needed. Real life’s messy; theory hits reality and sparks fly. Not for the YGLs—they’re cocksure, barreling ahead, damn the costs or facts like science or sociology screaming “no.” Change isn’t a tool; it’s their god. Their dream? A society in perpetual, breathless flux.

Sure, societies shift. It’s organic, slow, like a living thing. A sane democracy rides that wave, adapting. Force it—like today’s gender-reeducation camps—and you’re begging for a nanny state at best, a totalitarian chokehold at worst, micromanaging your every breath. The YGLs aren’t adapting—they’re engineering, and that’s the rub.

The YGLs’ itch for relentless upheaval in society’s fabric lays bare their totalitarian power grab like few strategies ever could. By dictating and shaping fresh perspectives, they shove entire communities—and the people stuck in them—into a pressure cooker, forced to scramble and conform to the new normal.

What emerges is a warped dynamic between rulers and ruled, straight out of the “Hare and Hedgehog” fable. The hare—the governed—can’t keep up with the hedgehog’s decreed social whirlwind. In the end, the hare’s toast, not from some grand defeat, but because the grind saps its strength and will, exhausted from chasing a finish line that keeps darting ahead. That’s the YGL game: break you by outpacing you, all while calling it “progress.”

YGL Principles

Now we barrel into the principles the YGLs swear by, both among themselves and with the world beyond their WEF nursery—a quartet of chestnuts: Generosity, Authenticity, Respect, and Impact, cooked up by the program’s own flock.

Take “Generosity”: “We carve out time to hear each other, propping one another up on a deep, human plane. We strain every sinew to polish each other’s work. We’re inclusive. We prod and poke, turning diversity into a flex of strength.” It’s a word salad that could mean anything or nothing—basic human decency tarted up as a revelation.

Outside the YGL bubble, this is just how people get along. That they hoist it as a standout virtue hints at a crew so warped they think common courtesy’s a trophy. The clincher—“We strain every sinew”—reeks of that backhanded zinger from a job review: “He tried real hard…” Ouch.

“Authenticity” fares no better: “We haul our true selves into the fold. We bare our souls. We chase humility, owning what we don’t know to soak up lessons from others. We prize each other as people, beyond the hats we wear.” Again, what’s with these clowns slapping fortune-cookie wisdom on a pedestal?

If this were a self-help circle or a woo-woo retreat, fine—mutter your mantras and pass the incense. But this is the self-anointed global elite-to-be. You’d expect more than limp platitudes that’d lose a staring contest with a daily horoscope. It’s a neon sign blinking: these folks might be hollow husks under the polish.

Then “Respect”: “We talk straight, even when we clash hard. We build trust and keep our word. We aim for daylight in our dealings and hold each other’s feet to the fire.” Up to now, it’s been all fluffy drivel—here, they toss in a dash of mockery.

That first line’s a gut-punch to, say, the French or Canadians who dodged COVID jabs and got flayed by YGL poster boys Macron and Trudeau. One sneered he’d love to “dump shit” on the unvaxxed; the other branded dissenters “racist, misogynist extremists” and “science deniers,” dangling military crackdowns.

Respectful dialogue? More like a middle finger. The rest—keeping promises, transparency, accountability—is straight out of Kindergarten 101 or a merchant’s handbook. For a $300-million-a-year outfit, touting this as profound suggests they’re strangers to duty or honor. What’s left to deduce? Maybe this “elite” can’t spell “integrity” without a cheat sheet.

Finally, “Impact”: “We act as a force for good, standing for something bigger than ourselves. We dream up a better world and move on our own steam. We tap varied talents and webs to outdo what we could solo. We smash barriers that stall progress elsewhere.” Here, the YGLs swan-dive into cult-ville—warrior monks crusading for a “higher cause,” not God, but their own ideology.

That “better world” is a secular promised land, sculpted by their network’s daily grind—a “March Through the Institutions 4.0.” And that bit about smashing barriers “stalling progress elsewhere”? It’s a bullhorn blaring their itch to torch the old—traditions, customs, roots. The past’s the enemy; history’s a shackle. To them, progress means a soulless human machine, ripe for rewiring whenever the zeitgeist twitches. Ties to home, nation, faith? Dead weight. Those roots anchor free will—exactly what the YGLs tag as obstacles to raze.

This isn’t one war cry—it’s two. First, against anyone not saluting their flag; second, a blitz on the cultural bedrock of any society—call it people, nation, or kin. One salvo’s bold; two’s overkill, a sign they’re dead serious about their wrecking spree. Strip away the homepage’s twee clichés, and the YGLs’ game shines through: a “New Man,” unmoored from history, faith, or culture. Why? A society’s glue dissolves when its shared spine crumbles—resistance to the New World Order with it. That endgame, paired with the WEF’s clout, crowns the YGLs a top-tier menace—maybe the menace—of this brave new dystopia.

Inside Klaus Schwab’s Head