Jackson Hole/Meeting/2025
The 2025 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium was held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming August 21-25, 2025.[1]
Participants
Symposium participants include prominent central bankers, finance ministers, academics, and financial market participants from around the world.[2][3]
A window into the elite's worldview
During a conversation with Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde clarified that despite immense pressure to accelerate interest rate cuts to revive the exhausted European economy, she saw no reason for haste.[4]
She argued that the slowdown of the European economy has not truly cost corporations or capital much at all; in fact, profits had remained excellent. This was primarily because the costs of the crisis have been shifted entirely onto the shoulders of the labor force.
According to her, the situation remained stable for three specific reasons[5]:
- Stagnant Wages: Companies successfully offset price increases and reorganization costs by paying workers less. The partial return from inflation was funded by the fact that wages did not follow price indexation, but instead bowed to the reductions imposed by firms.
- Reduction of Paid Hours: Businesses reorganized production processes to reduce the total volume of paid hours. This effectively increased "surplus value" by eliminating potential new employment and extracting more labor for less pay.
- Vulnerable Labor Segments: The system benefited from workers who passivity accepted lower pay - specifically older workers delaying retirement in exchange for job stability, and migrants, who are used as a decisive tool to suppress labor costs.
According to Alessandro Volpi,
This serves as a vital window into the elite's worldview; while economic commentary is often presented as neutral, it clearly possesses a specific political and class character.
Given this U.S. perspective—where a weakening dollar could cause the Euro to strengthen excessively—one would think Lagarde would seize the opportunity to accelerate rate cuts. This could have incentivized investment and used European debt to reduce inequality and improve living conditions for citizens.
Instead, Lagarde argued the opposite. Despite international conditions that would objectively allow for a more expansive ECB policy, she candidly stated that things are going well and saw no need for further reductions.
This statement is profoundly shocking when you examine her reasoning. Lagarde’s analysis reveals a neoliberalism that, in the face of crisis, demonstrates its worst cruelty. She noted that restrictive monetary policies did not cause the expected damage to GDP (typically, a 1% reduction in inflation costs 1% of GDP). By citing these factors - stagnant wages, the contraction of paid hours, and the exploitation of vulnerable demographics - Lagarde concluded that the strategy is working perfectly.[5]
Known Participants
66 of the 141 participants already have pages here:
| Participant | Description |
|---|---|
| Ufuk Akcigit | Turkish economist who has attended Jackson Hole Symposia |
| Kartik Athreya | Economist who picked up a heavy Jackson Hole meeting habit in 2015 |
| Thomas Barkin | US Central banker who picked up a Jackson Hole in 2019 |
| Ben Bernanke | Attended the 2008 Bilderberg as Chairman of the Federal Reserve |
| Alan Blinder | Princeton economist. Advisor to President Bill Clinton. vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from June 1994 to January 1996. |
| Raphael Bostic | US central banker with a Jackson Hole habit |
| Susan Collins | Maine's Republican Senator |
| Lisa Cook | CFR member who has visited several Jackson Hole meetings since her first in 2018 |
| Pablo Hernández de Cos | Spanish central banker |
| Henry Curr | Journalist who has "led The Economist'’s economics coverage since 2018" |
| Valdis Dombrovskis | WEF YGL 2005, 11th Prime Minister of Latvia turned bankster Eurocrat |
| Janice Eberly | American economist who picked up a Jackson Hole habit in 2018 |
| Barry Eichengreen | Visitor to Jackson Hole meetings, BFs and WEF AGMs |
| Douglas Elmendorf | US economist, TLC, visitor to Jackson Hole |
| José Luis Escrivá | Spanish economist and politician |
| Roger Ferguson | US economist, Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 3 Bilderbergs in the late 2010s |
| Kristin Forbes | A US economist CFR, WEF GLT 2003/WEF YGL 2005 with a Jackson Hole habit |
| Jacob Frenkel | Serial WEF AGM, Bank of Israel/Governor 1991-2000, CFR, maybe the second most Jackson Hole visits in the world |
| Carlos Garriga | Central banker who has attended a lot of Jackson Hole Symposia since his first in 2021 |
| Esther George | Heavy Jackson Hole habit |
| Austan Goolsbee | Skull and Bones economist. Obama advisor. One of the WEF's 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow. Fan of heavy COVID-19 bailouts |
| Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas | French economist |
| Joe Gruber | Central who attended several Jackson Hole Symposia since 2021 |
| Patrick Harker | US Central banker who picked up a Jackson Hole habit in 2019 |
| Peter Blair Henry | US economist |
| Thomas Hoenig | US economist who picked up an extraordinarily heavy Jackson Hole habit in 1991. Possibly more so than anyone else in the world. |
| Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan | US-Turkish Bilderberger economist who in 2021 pushed COVAX jab initiative for poor countries, since "no economy recovers until everyone recovers". |
| Neel Kashkari | US central banker who picked up a heavy Jackson Hole habit in 2016 |
| Lawrence Katz | WEF GLT 1993 economist who appeared at the 2025 Jackson Hole |
| Lesetja Kganyago | Attended multiple WEF AGMs as Governor of the South African Reserve Bank |
| Edward Knotek | US central banker |
| Donald Kohn | US central banker, then Brookings Institution. |
| Christine Lagarde | Bilderberger President of the European Central Bank, heavy WEF AGM habit, found her guilty of negligence over the Tapie Affair but not punished. |
| Philip Lane | Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. Since 2019 Chief Economist at the European Central Bank |
| Edward Lawrence | Academic who started attending Jackson Hole Symposia in 2018 |
| Sylvain Leduc | Central banker who picked up a Jackson Hole habit in 2019 |
| John Lipsky | Single Bilderberger bankster. Briefly acted as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in scheme to save Wall Street banks. |
| Maya MacGuineas | |
| Tiff Macklem | First visited the Jackson Hole in 2005, but only picked up a Jackson Hole habit in 2020 after he had become Bank of Canada/Governor |
| Michael McKee | Broadcaster with an ongoing Jackson Hole habit |
| Joachim Nagel | German central banker |
| Maurice Obstfeld | US economist |
| Ruth Porat | Morgan Stanley, Google... |
| Adam Posen | US economist, TLC, CFR and Brookings member who picked up a heavy Jackson Hole habit in 2012 |
| Jerome Powell | 16th Chairman of the Federal Reserve |
| Randal Quarles | US businessman central banker |
| Olli Rehn | Attended the 2007 Bilderberg as European Commissioner for Enlargement. FIFA COVID-19 Relief Plan steering committee chair |
| Martin Schlegel | Swiss central banker |
| Howard Schneider | JH visitor who "covered international economics at the Post" |
| Chiara Scotti | Italian central banker who started attending Jackson Hole Symposia in 2023 |
| ... further results | |
References
- ↑ https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/jackson-hole-economic-symposium/2025/
- ↑ https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/jackson-hole-economic-symposium/economic-symposium-conference-proceedings/
- ↑ https://www.kansascityfed.org/Root/documents/11503/Final_Text_Roster.pdf
- ↑ https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2025/html/ecb.sp250823~2f476a9a97.en.html
- ↑ a b https://youtu.be/3SB3erVCm3I
