The global elites who congregate each year in Davos, Switzerland, are hardly representative of humanity, but you can still learn a lot at the annual conclave about who’s up and who’s down in the world. One of the biggest take-aways of the 2015 meeting was this: America is back. The world’s movers, shakers, and opinion shapers have stopped resenting and ridiculing the U.S. for its leading role in the financial crisis of 2008-09. “When you look around the globe, it’s just very hard to find a lot of big, bright lights on the economic horizon” except for the “amazing” U.S., says Michael Sabia, chief executive officer of the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec. He’s recently put his $173 billion pension fund’s money where his mouth is, buying a Manhattan skyscraper and participating in the purchase of Phoenix-based PetSmart. The Chinese have changed their tune a bit, too. Instead of restating the desire for what Beijing’s leadership calls “a new type of great power relationship,” Premier Li Keqiang told an audience in Davos, “China has no intention to compete with other countries for supremacy.”
