Not too long ago, the unwritten first rule of the Bilderberg Group was that you do not talk about Bilderberg Group.  Meetings were never announced and participants never acknowledged attending.  Journalists who dared speak of it could quickly be labelled conspiracy theorists.  But times sure have changed.

Since the last decade, coverage of the Bilderberg meeting has slowly creeped into mainstream media coverage.  The group no longer tries to deny that the heavily-armed guards and barricades that surround whichever ritzy hotel or resort it books for the occasion are there for no particular reason.  But even though the group issues lists of attendees and subjects for discussion, the innermost thoughts of the world's most powerful uber-elite business leaders, banksters, royals, and politicians in the US and Europe tend to remain a mystery.  According to the group's code, "There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written.  Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued".

Here's what we know: It starts today at the Taschenbergpalais Hotel in Dresden, Germany. 

Some of the attendees might make you think your privacy is about to become non-existent:  They include ex-CIA boss David Petraeus and former UK MI6 chief Sir John Sawers; Silicon Valley billionaires Peter Thiel of PayPal fame, Alexander C. Karp of the CIA-linked data-mining firm Palantir, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

They'll rub elbows with more traditional billionaires like: Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary; Wall Street Legend Henry Kravis of KKR; Divesh Makan, CEO of Iconiq Capital; HSBC Holdings group chairman Douglas Flint. OF course, the CEOs of BP and Shell Oil wouldn't pass it up.

Politicians and backstage players will abound.  Ex-European Commission chairman Jose Barraso, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger - who continues to be one of the most powerful men in the world despite not holding a government job since the 1970s - will be at the center of it. 

Here's an interesting nugget: The guest list includes Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican from South Carolina.  He has openly expressed his disgust for his party's presidential nominee, fascist demagogue Donald Trump.

No Aussies are on the guest list - at least not publicly.

Named for the Bilderberg Hotel in Belgium where it first gathered under deep secrecy in 1954, the group now issues news releases with vague outlines of the agenda, including the expected - topics like "China", "Migration", and "Cyber Security" - and the unexpected.  The people who control most of teh power in teh world will have a discussion on "The Precariat and Middle Class". 

That means US.  The "Precariat" is a termed coined by British economist Guy Standing, a portmanteau of "precarious" and "proletariat".  It describes a growing class of people in teh so-called developed world who feel insecure in their jobs, communities, and life in general because of plummeting wages and poor job growth.  These are the part-timers, freelancers, minimum wage workers, seasonal employees - people who are one or two paychecks (or a medical emergency) away from bankruptcy.  All of a sudden, Bilderberg cares?