"COMMITTED TO improving the state of the world." That's the slogan of the World Economic Forum. But a more honest one would be: "Committed to plundering the world for the superrich."

Since 1971, the WEF has organized an annual meeting for CEOs of the world's largest corporations, investors, politicians, bought-and-paid-for journalists and various academics. The forum is funded largely by 1,000 corporations that pay up to $300,000 to be members of the global elite club.

WEF regulars read like a Who's Who of global big business: Microsoft guru Bill Gates, Steve Case of AOL-Time Warner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jack Welch. The companies represented at the WEF "account for some 80 percent of global industrial output," says the Financial Times newspaper.

WEF members "control many of the world's governments and the bulk of its economic and military capabilities," adds the Economist magazine. "Although 40 or so heads of state will troop to [the WEF]…the event is paid for by companies, and run in their interests. They do not go to butter up the politicians; it is the other way around."

Of course, a few players have retired--so to speak. One WEF regular of the past was Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, "a big wheel at the forum," according to the Financial Times. Last year, the Irish Times reported, Lay "held forth as a 'real economy' player on the lessons of the dot-com bubble." This year, he'll be too busy showing up in Houston courtrooms to defend his behavior at Enron--or so WEF organizers must have thought when they decided to scrub him from the agenda.

The WEF conference has long been held at the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Davos. But this year, the meeting was moved to New York City--out of "solidarity" with the city following the September 11 attacks.

In fact, attendees at last year's Davos conference faced a massive protest mobilized from across Europe. WEF organizers don't want a repeat--and are counting on New York cops to live up to their notorious reputation for cracking heads.

This year's meeting will be co-chaired by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his billionaire successor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime WEF member. Bloomberg is planning to spend millions to contain protests against the WEF--even as he calls for even more cutbacks to a city budget that Giuliani already slashed to the bone.

New York has been hit hard by the recession--and hundreds of thousands of working people are in desperate need of help to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads. But Bloomberg is proving that his priorities are the same as the WEF's--protect the wealth and power of the rich at the expense of everyone else.

That's why thousands of protesters will propose a different agenda: New York rebuilt for people, not for profit.

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