Readers will no doubt be aware of the WEF and of the many interesting and informative articles and posts about the organisation that can be found online.

You may be aware, for example, that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as being the secret love child of Fidel Castro, is a WEF puppet. That WEF founder Klaus Schwab is planning to make us all subsist on an unvarying diet of insects. And, of course, that Bill Gates, in partnership with the WEF, has found a cheap and effective way to distribute the COVID vaccine via our drinking water.

The third Insights column is usually reserved for a little light satire, but not today. Today, we can sensationally reveal that two of our Initiative colleagues are actively conspiring with the WEF. Yes, that’s right: the Waikato Economics Forum.

They’re not even hiding it.

‘Panel at the WEF seemed to go well,’ our Chief Economist, Eric Crampton, stated breezily as he sauntered back into the office.

‘Yes, my talk seemed to go down well, too,’ our Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson added in his usual cheerful way.

Unfortunately for them, we in the end office had been doing our own research. We knew that it would only be a matter of time before we were ordered to remain only 15 minutes away from the office at all times, before our drinking water was rationed, and before the cake at our coffee mornings was replaced with writhing bowlfuls of bugs.

Admittedly, none of this has actually happened. But that just shows how smart these guys are.

Now, you might find it hard to believe that a two-day-long conference in Hamilton is dictating the policies of innumerable governments around the world.

One of my closest friends was similarly sceptical. ‘Come on James,’ he pleaded, ‘This just isn’t reasonable. Obviously, the people who speak at the WEF will have some influence through the talks they give at the event, and they’re going to do a bit of networking. But it just wouldn’t be possible for them to micromanage economic policy the world over even if they wanted to.’

So now one of my closest friends is working for the WEF too!

Of course, I may have gotten this all wrong. Maybe everything on earth isn’t being run by the Waikato Economics Forum.

But I like to think it is. It’s just so much simpler that way.