Economic Policy

The World Economic Forum (WEF) confirmed on Wednesday that it has launched an investigation into allegations against its founder Klaus Schwab following a whistleblower letter that reportedly prompted his resignation.

In a statement released Wednesday, the WEF — a non-profit best known for its annual gathering of global elites in Davos, Switzerland — said its board unanimously supported the decision to initiate an independent investigation, confirming an earlier report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab is under investigation by the organization he created after a new whistleblower letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct by the longtime leader and his wife.

The anonymous letter was sent last week to the Forum’s board and raised concerns about the Forum’s governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the Forum’s resources without proper oversight, according to the letter and people familiar with the matter. 

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is facing renewed scrutiny from the very institution he built, after a whistleblower’s letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct involving both him and his wife Hilde.

President Trump is entering a critical week for the economy amid growing fears that his penchant for tariffs could stall growth and undercut progress on inflation.

Trump has described Wednesday as “Liberation Day,” when his administration will impose sweeping reciprocal tariffs on other nations with duties on U.S. goods. The March jobs report will also be released on Friday, providing additional data about the strength of the labor market, particularly in the wake of thousands of federal government employees fired by the administration.

At the heart of Argentina’s chronically crisis-prone economy is a political system that encourages unconstrained public spending and overregulation in the extreme. It is the system set up by Juan Domingo Perón in the 1940s that strengthened in subsequent decades, and that President Javier Milei promised to cut down with a chainsaw and replace with classical-liberal policies of the kind that made his country one of the most prosperous in the world a century ago.

It usually takes years for a president to leave his mark on the economy. Donald Trump has done it in just a few weeks. His plan to raise tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China has rattled markets and boardrooms. Some businesses are seeing signs that deportations could affect their workforces. More than 40,000 federal employees are preparing to resign and others are rethinking their futures under pressure from Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

Why would we make Canada’s scuffling economic performance our problem?

The slogan of James K. Polk’s supporters in the 1844 presidential campaign was “54° 40′ or Fight,” referring to their desire to take a substantial slice of what would eventually become Canadian territory along the Pacific Northwest coastline.

Three decades before he was tapped to lead the Treasury Department, Scott Bessent was asked to help break another country’s financial system.

Then 29 years old, Mr. Bessent, working for the financier George Soros, helped “break” the Bank of England with crushing trades against the British pound. He was on a small team at Mr. Soros’s investment firm that, in 1992, amassed a $10 billion bet that the pound was overvalued.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary operates a hedge fund that reaped a massive windfall two years ago — even as global markets sagged under the punishing weight of inflation, according to a report.

Scott Bessent’s investment firm Key Square Capital saw its flagship fund score a 29% return in 2022 by betting that high rates of inflation would persist longer than what the Federal Reserve predicted.