World Economic Forum Elite in Davos Live in Different World

The majority of people now believe the economic and political system is failing them, according to the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, released Monday ahead of the Jan. 17-20 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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"There's a sense that the system is broken," Richard Edelman, head of the communications marketing firm that commissioned the research, told Reuters.

"The most shocking statistic of this whole study is that half the people who are high-income, college-educated and well-informed also believe the system doesn't work."

The 3,000 business, political and academic leaders meeting in the Swiss Alps this week find themselves increasingly out of step with many voters and populist leaders around the world who distrust elites.

Governments and the media are now trusted by only 41 and 43 percent of people respectively, with confidence in news outlets particularly down sharply after a year in which "post-truth" become the Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year.

Trust in business was slightly higher, at 52 percent, but it too has declined amid scandals, including Volkswagen's rigged diesel emission tests and Samsung Electronics' fire-prone smartphones.

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The credibility of chief executives has fallen in every country surveyed, reaching a low of 18 percent in Japan, while the German figure was 28 percent and the U.S. was 38 percent.

Trust in governments fell in 14 of the countries surveyed, with South Africa, where Davos regular President Jacob Zuma has faced persistent corruption allegations, ranked last with just 15 percent support.

As the first Chinese president to attend the WEF's annual forum in Davos, Xi Jinping may be reassured to learn that his government was ranked as the most trusted, with a 76 percent rating among those polled.

The annual survey, which has been running since 2001, took the opinions of 33,000 people in 28 countries from Oct. 13 to Nov. 16, 2016.