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May 13, 2015
Politics and Stupidity
After the Congo second war (1998-2001), the country has thereafter been recovering from a series of conflicts that broke out in the 1990s. This long period had several effects on the economy and it led to a social slump. According to KPMG, (2014, p. 4) the Congo is slowly recovering from decades of decline caused by systemic corruption since independence in 1960 and the conflict that began in May 1997. These factors have dramatically reduced the national output and the government revenue; it has increased external debt and resulted in the deaths of more than 5 million people from violence, famine, and diseases.
In fact, these experiences influenced the collapsed economic sector. More and more, the government and other existing international organizations are working on normalizing the economy including restructuring the chain of investments by targeting specific economic actors and sectors.
Since the country is dependent on natural resources, the restructuration targets specifically companies working in the mining sectors. The main focus is on how to integrate the existing mechanisms which govern the mining companies' behavior such as their linkage to the corrupted economic sound of the country. It is from these factors that various authors conclude that the causes of the conflict are directly linked to the natural resources curse. Beyond of this lays a controversial debate on the contribution of the mining sectors in the Congolese development.
This paper critically assesses the positive as well as the negative role of conflict finances downplayed by some extractives industries in the socioeconomic development of Congo.
In the next pages, we will present the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) country profile, the role that multinational corporations can play or are playing in the socio-economic development. We will present some "rogue" mining companies and "responsible" companies.
1. Quick Outlook of the Congolese Economy
DRC is a low income country, ranging 186 out 187 in the Human Development Indicator (2013). She has a population size of around 68 million and covers an area of 2. 344. 858 km2 with a GNI per capita of US$160. In 2012 the per capita income was rated around US$220. DRC remains among the most potential rich countries and she is a goop supplier for precious metal for the global market. The major exports are crude oil, diamonds, cobalt, copper, gold, coffee, tobacco, sugar, and wood products. It imports maize, wheat, food stuffs, transport equipment, and fuel (FAO, 2012). According to the World Bank (2014), "DRC has the potential to be one of the richest countries on the African continent and a driver for the African economic growth with 1,100 minerals and precious metals".
Since 2010, the Congolese economy has performed well with an amazing economic growth of 8.5% in 2013. It is ranked the 4th country after Sierra Leone, Chad, and Ivory Coast in the economic performance (Africa Outlook, 2014). This result is due to the normalization within the mining sectors, the implementation of prudent fiscal and monetary policies, and the investment in infrastructure. Robust extractive industries have played an important role in this economic performance and the terms of trade of have been favorable to DRC due to stable trends in the commodity prices.
However, the Congolese financial system is shallow and underdeveloped (IMF Country Report No. 14/315, 2014) and it has contributed to the non-performance of the country in the business climate. The Business Climate Index 2014 ranked the Congolese environment 183 out of 189. This factor has a negative impact of attracting external investors.
The Congolese political economy is "a violent economy" surrounded by a history of wars. The presence of several actors in the conflict trade including the conflict entrepreneurs (predatory elites – looters, organized criminals, military manager, and political entrepreneurs), the conflict opportunists, and conflicts dependents cannot to sustain the stability of the Congolese economy.
In the political context, DRC is a fragile country due to weak institutions and the tense security situation in the eastern provinces. However, peacebuilding and economic recovery efforts are being carried out. As noted by the HDI (2014), the poverty rate is higher even though it fell from 71% in 2005 to 63% in 2012. Despite the eastern Congo crisis, DRC is a reconciled society expressed by the mutual acceptance of the different ethnic groups.
Despite the nature of its violent economy, DRC receives several investors, specifically in the mining sector. Some of these investors are working in the conflicting zones controlled by rebel groups and others in the zones under the state control. In the opinion of majority of Congolese, most of the multinational corporations working in the conflict zones sponsor the rebel groups in order to create a scenario without the control of the government where they can freely make profit from the resources. The next sections will provide a critical analysis of the role of multinational corporations, addressing the case of DRC.
Marius Mufutua Kayembe
( Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations, MAII)
The discource of Economic Security in Understandind Internationa Security
The central concern of human behavior is the question of security. The old understanding of security considered only the state's behavior to protect its boundaries due to the prevalence of the realist ideology with the international arena. After the Cold World with the increasing number of intrastate conflicts, an imperative concern arose in understanding to which extend the concept of security can be expanded. One the expansion was to infuse the role of economics as a type of security. This paper discusses the design of economic security in the new reform of security and to what extent security is influenced by economic variables. It aims at indicating how the economic security is the logic scheme towards the realization of the other forms of the security.
Since centuries, several challenges emerged in understanding the synergy which drives human behavior and its implication and commitment in building and shaping a sustainable environment. The central concern of such behavior is the question of security. As noted by several authors, security is widely used, but it is difficult to define it unless an operational definition is given to guide a concern. Hence, in this paper, security is defined as set of mechanisms and policies towards war and peace in a given territory, such as a nation, a region. Such definition aims at understanding the shift of narrow national security to the broad notion of security.
The security reform wanted to respond to the holistic approach of development. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have restructured in suggesting indicators which create the real total and safe environment of citizens in a given territory. Causes of insecurity are not only external (territorial level or trans-border between nations) but internal disputes cause more insecurity than expected. Unemployment, inequalities in resource distributions, poverty, and low level of education can lead to strike, protestation, irredentism and become later one the feared threat to the state stability. Consequently, there is a need to create new axis to security. Therefore, security targets not only defense security as related to national security but explore social opportunities, environmental issues as well as economic issues.
This paper discusses the design of economic security in the new reform of security and to what extent security is influenced by economic variables. It aims at indicating how the economic security is the logic scheme towards the realization of the other forms of the security. Our reflection will be hinged on three parties a) how economics can be used for maintaining peace or war in international level, b) how economic measures can help to protect the most vulnerable people of the society and c) the role of economics in enabling collective action and capacities to eliminate extreme poverty.
1.1. Line of demarcation
National security is linked to politics, while economics is considered to be out the public affairs of the administration of the city. Whereas, the broaden agenda of the twenty first century have shifted the economics from a simple practice of private system to become an influence, even the command which influence the decision making of political leaders. This brings to this conclusion that it is difficult to distinguish political and economic power, since each is always present in the other.
From a comparative perspective, national security is not bargaining related question while economic security is shared point among states. National security refers to the ability to withstand aggression from abroad and involves winning this economic war[1]. This includes the protection of land and possession of natural resources which are essential commodities of the economic well-being of a nation. This implies that national security is serving the economic axis of a state.
Conversely, the economic factors downplay a big role in the stability of the states in two ways by supporting the military expenditure and sponsoring internal policies to reduce the intensity of internal threat to state stability. To that the point, "the economy is important only to the extent that it provides the material and financial means to attain (or 'produce') national security"[2]. For the realist legacy to security, the economic dimension is crucial among other reasons because it is seen as one of the key criteria by which great states are defined. Great states over the world are economically stronger and militarily the most equipped. Thus, the economic dimension is crucial because economic resources are one of the key criteria by which can be estimated and it defines the great power[3]
During this twenty-first century the role of economics in international security and international relations become more relevant. For Huntington, "in a world where military conflict between major states is unlikely, economic power will be increasingly important in determining the primacy or subordination of states" [4]. This issue will be discussed later on geo-economics and geopolitics section.
Simply, economic security concerns access to the resources, finance and markets necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power[5]. It is war fought with other tools. For Cable[6], economic security refers most obviously to those aspects of trade and investment which directly affect a country's ability to defend itself: freedom to acquire weapons or related technology, reliability of supplies of military equipment, or threats of adversaries acquiring a technological advantage in weapons. This economic dimension of security pins point to which extent security is subordinated to economics.
Neocleous[7] suggest three ways in which economic strands get involved in the security studies. The first strand is directly linked to the definition of the economics which deals with the production; distribution, and the consumption of the means to livelihood, with the aim of continual betterment of life[8]. For Neocleous[9], the extent to which the state system is obviously cut through by the dynamics of production, consumption and class, the budgetary constraints on grand strategy both internally and internationally. The second strand holds the hypothesis that the main actors in global politics certainly never divorced security from political economy because economics and national security have been linked to some extent or an "absolute distinction" can never in any case be made between political and economic power, since each is always present in the other[10]. The third strand focuses on academic approaches of security which pointed to the integral relationship between economics and security during the 1940's after the World War II and during the cold war: the military and intelligence services, while international political economy developed an independent path, more or less treating economic power independently from security questions.
1.2. Security Dilemma in the context of economic security
The realistic perspective of the international relations considered each state as the primary actor of its own security in anarchical system; all states maintain military capabilities for their own defense therefore each state seeks to enable and produce self-defeating efforts to achieve national security, from which window emerges the fundamental element of realistic security thinking, " the security dilemma : state defense-offense"[11]. In digging the concept of security dilemma, two ways can link economic security to the traditional security.
The first locates the security dilemma in the unhappy circumstance that 'many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others and which refers to war economies[12] . The second assumption deals with the allocation of national resources between economic welfare and military security. This involves the "division of resources between guns and butter, and the actual level of consumption of both goods are determined by two factors: the productive capacity of a society, and its preferences"[13]. The state is reduced as monad without alliances. This approach ignores the fact that "security is a special form of politics […] but not all political conflicts are security issues"[14] . It implies that the threat to security is more various than the mere will of political destabilization.
This new understanding of prudent politic interdependence debates on the possible cooperation; yet the anarchical system in the internal arena is a fact or social construction, but still an alternative towards cooperation is indeed and imperative. The economic interdependence can help a state to pursue cooperation even though the reason of cooperation, economic interests, can be misused for war or insecurity. There is still security dilemma in discussing the role of economic interdependence in state behavior; basically the fear of the state to cooperate with a state is more powerful, knowing that mistrust is still the principle guiding international relations. Therefore, the same economy can be a referential term of peace or war in the international irony.
2.1. Mercantilist theory
Wealth and power are the stakeholders of a state. "The conjunction of economics and security, or 'economic security', has more recently become an increasingly important dimension of both international political economy and security studies in global power[15]". For Dunne and Brauer[16] "without economics there can be neither war nor peace, thus follows that for the state to ensure its defense, it must carefully understand how its economic can feed other societal level[17]. They are correlated; "economics and national security have always been seen as being linked to some extent[18]". Either economics provide expenditure to the security or security protects the economic resources of a country. There is an economic dimension to the successful practice of security politics.
Mercantilists share a static conception of international economic relations in asserting that the country can only progress economically by disadvantaging another country, it is from where we understand the real theory of economic war[19].
In emphasizing on the state's power players, mercantilist theory argues that economy is an instrument of power in the hands of politicians which uses military force to protect this instrument; therefore economics become a factor to influence war[20]. For them, politics dominate economics[21]. This assumption holds a realistic view wherein the main symptom is the national interest defined in term of power[22]. Linked to neo Marxist, militarism is a support of capitalism for the third word exploitation and economic war. Ibbo[23] argues that "capital seeks to maximize profit, and in profit's pursuit seeks to conquer all territories, all markets, all natural resources and all human labor, skills and ingenuity". Therefore they have elaborated the "balance of trade" theory supply in which the "development of trade is of benefit to the country if it generates an excess over imports, the trade balance returning to the nation as money"[24]
Hence, it becomes the combination between Realism and Marxism, Real Marxism, to which extent the Neo-mercantilists stand in assessing that the international political economy during the two latest centuries is driven by the purchase of economic interest over key mineral resources in weak countries by the imperialist. According to the mercantilist, "all means are good to ensure the national economic and political domination"[25] through this statement, they are promoting the sense of an economic war.
For Brauer and Dunne, this fact is highlighting the role that violence plays in the wealth of nations by term of "static peace dividend"[26] to ensure the economic growth of nation by disabling other nations. The static peace dividend focuses on the redistribution of economic activities from violence- related to non-violence related spending; war is a source of income. The state is ready to launch outside its territory to gain interest and use for its own development. For example If Rwanda and Uganda are accused to support several group in exchange with natural resources in the eastern, the Rwandese economy will growth faster and the venues can be used for social needs in Rwanda[27].
2.2. Geopolitics and Geoeconomics
For Brauer and Dunne[28], among the risk factor that may predispose a state to experience large-scale of violence leading to insecurity includes natural resources; low income; low economic growth; ethnic antagonism; neighborhood external instigation or armed conflict, geography competition for scarce resources; inequality; high military expenditure and large armies . The incompatibility of those factors is driven by some personal interests which act as catalyst. Le Billon suggests that some resources-dependent countries have been the one to experience civil wars mostly in the territory where mineral resources and oil are concentrated. "A wealth of natural resources such as oil or diamonds should, in theory, favor a country's economic and social development"[29]. Amazingly, the competition over scarce resources is increasingly source of insecurity. Consequently resource-dependent countries are shaping the violent geopolitics war. The different parties to conflict who cause this insecurity are mostly the local conflicting parties (commodities supply), international intervening parties with vested interests) and multi- national corporations. Thus this section discusses insecurity within the global economy in focusing one of the exchange products within the international trade of natural resources. How the presence of resources become drivers of insecurity. What tension exists between saving the local population life and leaving them in the mercy of predator invader or international market?
2.2.1. Geopolitics
Geopolitics attempts to dramatically simplify international politics by reducing it to the struggle for control of limited number of key areas[30] . The control is motivated for strategic position, economic commodities or security related plan. For Hussein [31] geopolitics is a form of competition for power and legitimacy of territory after the cold war. It determines the new phase of international relations by drawing attention to four possible security model including Unipolarity – the capacity of one state (USA) to project military power on global scale –; Balance of power – a system of competing centers (alliances) of power which don't reflect the dictates of the imperial power (NATO versus WTO), it is a kind of competitive multipolarity- ; Concert of power – cooperation between great power for issues of global security which refers to co-operative multipolarity – and finally Universal system of security – a system with the notions of collective and common security. All those scenarios determine the current international behavior in international security.
Relating to the four perspectives, the geopolitics also determines the role of third party intervention in acting as interest parties to security zone. The third intervention in this case referrers to either unipolarity; alliances of power; co-operative security or the universal system of security. For Brauer and Dunne, "the third parties are never only benevolent. They have interests and will bring these to bear: Cuba intervened in Angola, the United States in Vietnam, and Russia in Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Balkans and in Libya. They may support one side more than the other, push their own interests" [32]. Geopolitics has also justified the motives of the Cold war and the military presence of West and the United States of America (USA) in the Gulf Persian for oil. The geopolitics acts more in external level policy and determines the bargaining within the international relation. It is related more with how a State can maximize and feed its capital from abroad. This scenario describes and designs the bipolarity during the cold war the USA and the Soviet Union, looking to conquer territory, to impose their beliefs and to flourish their economy the curse of the geopolitic strategies is their consequence in the local population and the insecurity.
A good example is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which has become the battle ground of economic international market between the West and China and the Great Lake region countries and its allies[33]. DRC is really the great picture of competitive multipolarity facing the global economy of war that becomes the source of underdevelopment with a lower economic growth, a higher number of unemployment, difficult access to education and health. The level of economic growth and economic development as provided by the United Nations Human development Report (2012) confirms this notification in placing it the last but one. Cater thinks that "resources like diamonds and coltan as such are not valuable for Congolese, which contributes of course to the low price of production. "They […] have little intrinsic worth; it is only within the context of the international market that they have value"[34] In several reports have pointed the activities of some African, European and Middle Eastern companies and the atrocities taking place in DRC. This linkage is alleged by gold mining, the illegal exploitation of natural resources, oil, timber and the arms trade[35] For Congolese, mineral resources are cursed. They don't contribute to their development. Given the level of insecurity for example in the eastern part of DRC, we expect a low movement of people. Notwithstanding the insecurity there is an increase in the level of activities and business in the area held by multi-national corporations, rebel groups as well as local population.
2.2.2. Geoeconomics
Geoeconomics retraces the economic capability being itself an instrument of policy available to states and capable of being applied as force or power[36]. In the same, Cable understands Geoeconomics to be the power supply that is considered as the economic productivity which can be applied as force. As discussed above, the identification metric of great power is their high level of economic capabilities to be international creditor or their contribution to the International Institutions. The USA contribution of the United Nations for example, makes her to become more influential and powerful in decision making than other states with a low contribution to the UN budgets.
For Edward Luttwak[37], geoeconomics is "the pursuit of adversarial goals with commercial means". It is the state policy to have access to its interest by use economic means. It is more about competiveness which has penetrated popular thinking it emphasis that 'each nation is like a big corporation competing in the global market place' in disadvantaging other actors, it is a kind of knock-out competition where states or actors used strategies to weaken other actors. The discourse of Western aid in Africa, the Breton Woods institutions plan for Africa and the Chinese presence in Africa and the Marshal Plan used to block to spread of communism ideology are seen as this kind of competitiveness.
Chinese presence in Africa is perceived as a kind of determination for breaking this western imperialist. Therefore, Chinese venture in Africa as considered as an offense to West. The latest consider Chinese invasion to be multifaceted, multilayered and extremely heterogeneous and dangerous for western economy expansion and interest. As Stefaan Marysse and Sara Geenen pointed " the no strings approach by China is a very welcome alternative to the ' paternalistic' policy of the western donor community, that is now thwarted by a newcomer, who is going to challenge the so-called 'new international financial architecture' designed by the Bretton Woods Institutions" [38].
A current example has been driven by the so-called 'le Contrat Sino-Congolais', a red agreement signed between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) In September 2007 which brought several debates among DRC partners. The deal of the cooperation implied that in exchange for an access to 10.6 million tons of copper and 600,000 tons of cobalt in the Katanga region, in terms of amount, the total revenues from the mines could come at least $40 billion[39]. China would invest US$ 9 billion for national wide construction in vital infrastructures to the country. China state companies will build 3500 km of roads and 3500 km of the railways, 31 hospitals of 150 beds and 145 dispensaries, and the modernization of mining infrastructure[40].
Bretton Woods Institutions are offended because Chinese state is likely to be the buyer as well as the principal seller of the copper and cobalt being mined and to gain more market in infrastructure, agriculture and business. What is directly perceived, China will win the market of those precious materials. As it was been noticed above, Behind IMF and the World Bank, Western countries which indeed invest in those institutions are seeing their interest lost. They have asked for a negotiation of such agreement and they insist on the fact mining and infrastructure activities must be accounted for the international standard including an independent third party with audits being made public. This kind of geoeconomic game assesses that the competiveness within the international market gives to states the possibility to look for market to the save their interests.
In a given range, the first concept of security was more focuses more on the defense security in highlighting the strength of each state to secure its borders against any threat to its peace. The attention given to military security defense does not take into account the preventives measures to address the root causes of internal and social threats because; the attention was more external than internal. However in the aftermath of the Cold war, the increasing number of intrastate conflicts due to several factors such as nationalism, irredentism, and poverty and among others enforced the idea of understanding security in broader perspective in including the preventive measures that address social problem as well economic grievances susceptible to causes deadliest conflict.
3.1. The Neo-Economist
The new model of economic security focuses more on the use of economic factors to ensure peace and development. For the classical economists (Jean-Baptist Say [41], Malthus [42], David Ricardo [43] legacy of Idealism (Kant)[44], the development of economic interdependence owing to the market, outside public action, ineluctably leads to international peace or international stability[45]. Acting under the principle of comparative advantage of Adam Smith[46] and the Free Trade Liberal theory, The Neo-Economist argues the international trade and the free markets which connect people will reduce war and establish prosperity, peaceful relation, among states and individuals, hence commerce would replace war. They enhance commercial business since they believe that "free trade is the best human means for securing universal and permanent peace" (an 1842 title) and warfare is counterproductive[47]. For List[48], the pacification of international relations is gained through economic development. Say believes that peace will be possible when all the nations will reach the same level of economic development that the industrial progress will help in removing the possibility of wars of aggression and insecurity[49].
Two basic assumptions guided this school. First peace is a condition of economic development, through enabling the establishment of free trade and the evolution of economy towards an increased liberalism guarantees the advent of a lasting international peace in internal arena[50]. The Neo-Economists suggest that the economy war can be managed in establishing an economic mechanism, without any political consideration.
The limitation within this theory is that the principle of laissez-faire and laissez-passer has created an anarchical environment in which non-states actors become the potential threat to national and transnational security. In this case, we do not yet see the real demarcation between security – state –stake holder whether nationally or internationally and security as a set of policies for developmental needs in the grassroots level. Furthermore, this assumption deals with interstate conflict in ignoring the internal conflict that can emerge from the grassroots. Mostly it defines the concept of political economy where the states and the market are the stakeholders. It deals more with international market, economic growth which is limited on productivity growth, long-term opportunities for production, and income generation does not focus on the way this is distributed or consumed[51] .
The challenge is that, the new economist in holding liberal capitalism view ignores the grassroots level. Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of liberal capitalism is "uncertainty and risk" that actors face when the market does not meet their expectations[52] Therefore the state should set policies to overcome those troubleshoots. A real economic security would like to focus more qualitative and equity aspects of economy, such as rural development, the wellbeing of women, and the elderly, and minority or disadvantaged populations. Therefore, it may take into account the measures of personal happiness, communal vitality and resilience[53]
3.2. Economic security and developmental needs: ending poverty
The emergence of the new order of economics of peace is guided by the policies of the political economy. The latter is perceived and mainly criticized as the basis of inequalities in which only the "bourgeois" are the major player in the global or national economy. Later one, without the participation of the entire society, it become the whirlwind of insecurity internally or globally. Yet economic security as related to political economy of globalization should shift from its pure form of capitalism where the form of decentralized market gives access to certain classes of the society to level where it does not serves the real needs of the marginalized population, the poorest of the poor.
Technically, there is a distinction between, social market economy (political economy) which combines the allocation of resources in competitive markets with income redistribution and social policies which mainly refer to unemployment insurance, pension payments, and health insurance[54]. The correlation of both helps a country to face the competiveness of the international market. The first focuses on the benefit that a state gains over the international bargaining self-interest and the second is a countermeasure of the international bargaining and intrusion of domestic policies. In any case, economic globalization seems to have contributed not only to sustained global growth but also to increasing inequality in many countries as well as downward wage pressure for unskilled workers in other countries. The true challenges of these are the consequences of weak economies which cannot survive and cope with the international competitive market; it regenerates poverty among local population. Great powers have found the way to deal with that in building an economic security as safeguard for the betterment of the population, still poor states are struggling to cope with the wave of the globalization and the competition of the international market[55].
In meeting the crossroad of economic security, some scholars are looking to understand what can be the relation between economic growth and development[56]. If development is understood as the entire process to empower population with opportunities for better life, including their safety, the economic growth should create the environment of such progress. Conversely, the Africa Progress Panel 2013 gave an argument such
Africa's economic fortunes have changed dramatically in the past decade. Economic growth has been driving up average incomes, and most countries in the region have recovered strongly from the global recession. Resource-rich countries have contributed to the region's impressive growth record, but their record on human development is more chequered. Rising inequality seems to be the main reason for the disappointing overall record on reducing poverty[57].
It implies that the economic globalization seems to have contributed not only to sustained global growth but also to increasing inequality in many countries as well as downward wage pressure for unskilled workers in many countries[58]. To some extent, if economic growth does not foster economic development, the economic security becomes an elusive and pervasive for academic debates rather than "strategy of social transformation". Development is the accomplished security form that each human being intends to get or to reach. For Sachs, the development is acquired by the satisfaction of preconditions infrastructures (roads, and ports), human capital (health and education) that the international market or the global economy cannot offer unless measures are taken to encourage people to find their way with local manufacturing. The attention should be on agricultural inputs, on investments in basic health, investments in education and the capacity to offer power, transport, and communication services and safe drinking water and sanitation[59]. The synergy of these different factors determines the course of development or the well-being of population and is likely to reduce insecurity. To this also can be added the all strategies of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) based on poverty reduction strategy which shaped on eight axis including eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, improve and reduce maternal health by three quarters, fight HIV/AIDS. Different efforts have been done to achieve the core objectives in these different sectors though one cannot that in 2015, the world will be developed. [60]
A particular concern on dealing with economic security is mainly the youth unemployment. The teeming unemployed youths engage in nefarious acts in order to satisfy their basic needs; youth who supposedly are hope for the future generation. What they do join terrorism, why do they become criminal, one the reason is to find what they need (such food, shelter) for survival. For Singh, Singh, and Singh[61], young people joining those different cops of terror because governments do not structure policies to respond to social, political, even economic challenges. For example, the extreme poverty in the Asian part (Bangladesh, Afghanistan) makes young people vulnerable to the ideology of terror, thus an economic policy empowering people with new opportunities and employment for example will a way toward the problem of insecurity[62]
In Republic Democratic Republic of Congo, the lack economic security can be addressed in two ways, the number of children joining militia group mostly in the eastern part and the level of criminality in big cities like Kinshasa. The informal economy is the one sustaining people life in DRC, even though the Annual Report of the World Bank of 2013 have shown that DRC has made some economic progress, but it does not reflect the reality on the ground. According to Africa Progress Panel the "Democratic Republic, on the world's best-endowed resource economies, is at the bottom of HDI"[63]. This can justify the increasing youth criminal group such Kuluna or Diable Rouge who become source of insecurity. Those groups have no political, ideological, religious motivations. They can be exploited by any political group which can offer them unless food. This is the same scenario in the eastern part with the increasing of child soldiers working for those warlords in the mining fields who don't have any access to education, to employment; therefore they look by their own how to survive. This observation is based on the research of Collier and Hoeffler on how for example the non-enrollment in secondary schooling is highly correlated to the outbreak civil war[64].
This assumes that internally, there are potential and tremendous security threats to state which can disable the entire system. Therefore, the economic security should be understood as the capacity of the state to foresee in preventing internal causes of security in empowering of vulnerable people and in offering them opportunities. Some states have taken some preventive measures to face this challenge; this gives the preventive side of economic security.
3.3. Preventive side of economic security
Sometimes confused to the social security, economic security is linked to preventive measures taken by the state to ensure the life expense and the way a state stand to secure its economy after a long period of conflict. It can also refer to policies to protect the society against beggars. For Elliot (1939) if economic security is going to mean "the duty of the government to promote the general welfare, you can see into what large areas of public policy the question of the content of economic security is carried"[65]. Economic security is the entire welfare of the citizens. In this perspective, economic security can be understood as the degree to which individuals are protected against the risk of finding themselves without an income or with an income that is not sufficient to guarantee them a dignified standard of living[66]. It involves policies and institutions to implement those strategies. At this point economic security cross cut with social protection. According to Giuliano Bonoli, "social protection here is understood as a form of state intervention that takes place only after resources have been allocated according to market principles"[67]. The all social insurance, health insurance can be understood as a part of economic security. The preventive measures are not taken by the state but can be provided private sector while the state plays the role of watchdog and regulator.
The preventive approach to security corroborate with the thesis that the state is not only one to offer security, but non state actors or the private sector become the major player in the security reform, even though, the state can still have control on that, but still the increasing and the independence, for example in the free market, is likely to go beyond the state control. It implies directly that the economic security have expanded the content of security as well as actors. The United Nations have agencies which together work to ensure the entire human security such food security. More and more the state is losing the total control of security while other actors are becoming more significant in addressing pertinent issues related to security challenges.
One but not last, economic security is a key tool to state organization and structure without which a state is compared to a car moving without fuel and can break at any time. It is compared to a standing shaped man and well-dressed but who can fall at any time because he is hungry. Fuel and hunger are the basic components to sustain those tools. The same way economics is the skeleton of state – understand as political organization- in shaping its external relation with other states and in providing to its citizens a safe and alive environment. There is no way a state can survive without money or human resource labour.
Leaving asides the military expenditure area where economics is a servant of defense security, the concept of economic security is widely taken to underline the way a state suggest policy for the development of its citizens. Economic security is more the basis for satisfying developmental need of citizens. This shift leads to the dilemma between individual securities versus national security wherein security is used to individuals from all threats either internal or external than protecting the "absurd state" which service is given to small range of citizens[68]. In this context each citizen should be considered as a "whole unit" of the entire society therefore a specific attention should be given, failure he can become a threat to state overall security design.
In this case, the safe and alive environment is not only structured by proliferations of arms race it must should be "a collective action through effective government provision of health, education, infrastructure, as well as foreign assistance when needed[69] by each citizen.
This underpins also a holistic economic security and all the means which surround human life and its existence because human safety and prosperity depend at least as much on collective decisions to fight disease, promote good science and widespread education, provide critical infrastructure, and act in unison to help the poorest of the poor, than fighting external aggressors. It is not only the way a state constructs and strengths its weaponry against military invasion or respond to macro-economic challenges which will create a steady environment for development but it is in the way a state polishes its economic strategies to sustain its intern structure and become "an effective response" to its population needs. This is possible is the defense security spending should is cut off and used to productivity-enhancing physical, human, institutional, and social capital which refers to a dynamic peace dividend. It is from this perspective that economic security meets its focus point of the human development when it focuses on national developmental needs of the citizens.
Africa Progress Panel, Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa's Natural Resources for all. (Switzerland: Africa Progress Panel, 2013).
Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (New York, NY: Haverster Wheatsheaf, 1991).
Charles Carter, "The Political Economy of Conflict and UN Intervention: Rethinking the Critical Cases of Africa", In Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman, Eds. The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance (London: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 19-46.
David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3rd ed. (Canada: Batoche Books, 1821).
Edward Luttwak, Disarming the World's Economies (Washington, DC: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1990).
Emmanuel Kant, Essai Philosophique sur la Paix Perpétuelle (Paris : G. Fishbachelier, 1880), Retrieved http://archiviomarini.sp.unipi.it/208/1/N0075749_PDF_1_-1DM.pdf
Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War (London, New York: Random House, 2004).
Friedrich List, Système National d'Economie Politique (Paris : Chapelle Editeur, 1841).
Giuliano Bonoli, "Social Policy through Labor Markets: Understanding National Differences in the Provision of Economic Security to Wage Earners", In Comparative Political Studies, 2003, 36 (Sage publications) or online version http://cps.sagepub.com/content/36/9/1007
Global Witness, China and Congo: Friends in Need, (March 2011) retrieved from http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/library/friends_in_need_en_lr.pdf, (London: Global Witness Limited, 21st October 2014).
Jacques Nzumbu, Pouvoirs et Affaires dans une Zone à Déficit de Gouvernance : Les Enjeux de la Réforme Minière en R. D. Congo de 2002 à 2009 (Kinshasa : CEPAS, 2011).
James Sperling and Emil Kirchner, "Economic Security and the Problem of Cooperation in Post-Cold War Europe", In Review of International Relations, 24 (1998), 221-237.
Jean-Baptiste Say, Traité d'Economie Politique (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1972).
Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: the Economic Dimension of our Time (New York, New York: Penguin Press, 2005).
John K. Galbraith, La Paix Indésirable ? Rapport sur l'Utilité des Guerres (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1984).
Jurgen Brauer and J-Paul Dunne, Peace Economics: A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence-Afflicted States (Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace, 2012).
Luciani Giacomo, "The Economic Content of Security", In Journal of Public Policy, 8(2), (1998), 151-173.
M. Ibbo, ed. Reflexions on the Crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Harare: Sapes Trust, 1999).
Mark Neocleous, "From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication Order". In Security Dialogue, 363-84 (Sage Publications, 2006).
Michael Todaro and Stephen Smith, Economic Development, 4th ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2012).
Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005).
Paul Welfens, Social Security and Economic Globalization (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, 2013).
Philippe Le Billon, "The Geopolitics of Resources Wars: Resources Dependence, Governance and Violence", In Philippe Le Billon, Eds, The Geopolitical Economy of Resource Wars (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 1-24.
Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilization", In Foreign Affairs, 72, (1993), 22-49.
Samuel Hussein, Ed. Challenges to Global Security: Geopolitics and Powers in an Age of Transition (New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2008).
Singh Aleya, Singh Vinod, and Singh Mahadevi, Eds, Manmade Disasters (New Delhi: APH publishing Corporation, 2010). [1] Paul Collier and Anker Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War (Washington, DC: World Bank, October 21st, 2001).
Stefaan Marysse and Sara Geenen, Les Contrats Chinois en RDC : l'Impérialisme Rouge en Marche in L'Afrique de Grands Lacs : l'Annuaire 2007-2008 (Retrieved http://www.ua.ac.be/objs/00210769.pdf, 20/10/2013, 2009), 287
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1978) retrieved from http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf, 115th Oct. 2013.
United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals: 2014 Report (New York, NY) retrieved October 13, 2104 from https://www.un.org./Milleniumgoals/.
Vincent Cable, "What is International Economic Security", In International Affairs, 71(2), (1995), 305-324.
William Schabas, "War Economies, Economic Actors, and International Criminal Law", in Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzschke, eds. Profiting from Peace: Managing the Economic Dimension of Civil War (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 425-443.
William Y. Elliot, "The Struggle for Economic Security in Democracy", In Social Research, 6(2), 298-312
[1] Luciani Giacomo, The Economic Content of Security in Journal of Public Policy, 8(2), (1998), 151-173.
[2] Luciani Giacomo, The Economic Content of Security , 151-173
[3] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 66.
[4] Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilization, In Foreign Affairs 72, (1993), 22-49.
[5] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey, 47.
[6] Vincent Cable, What is International Economic Security? In International Affairs, 71(2), (1995), 305-324.
[7] Mark Neocleous, "From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication Order". In Security Dialogue ( 2006)
[8] Jurgen Brauer and J-Paul Dunne, Peace Economics: A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence-Afflicted States (Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace, 2012), 10.
[9] Mark Neocleous, From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication Order. In Security Dialogue ( 2006)
[10] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey, 47.
[11] Mikael Sheehan, International Security : an Analytical Survey, 58
[12] Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, (London, New York: Random House, 2004).
[13] James Sperling and Emil Kirchner, Economic Security and the Problem of Cooperation in Post-Cold War Europe, In Review of International Relations, 24 (1998), 221-237.
[14] Paul Welfens, Social Security and Economic Globalization (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, 2013).
[15] Mark Neocleous, "From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication Order". In Security Dialogue ( 2006)
[16] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics : A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States ( Washington, DC : United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012)
[17] Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Haverster Wheatsheaf, 1991), 232, 237.
[18] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey, 65.
[19] See Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, (London, New York, NY: Random House, 2004).
[20] See Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, (London, New York, NY: Random House, 2004), 24.
[21] John K. Galbraith, La Paix Indésirable ? Rapport sur l'Utilité des Guerres (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1984).
[22] See Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle of for Power and Peace, 5th ed. (New York, NY: Knopf, 1978).
[23] M. Ibbo, ed. Reflexions on the Crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Harare: Sapes Trust, 1999), 10.
[24] Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, (London, New York: Random House, 2004), 25.
[25] Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, 27.
[26] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics : A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States ( Washington, DC : United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012), p. 9
[27] This particular case challenges to some extent the annual reports that are published by the World Bank on the Economic growth of each country. If for example Rwanda is doing well or the USA are doing well, we better understand the fact their involvement in destabilizing other countries can be part of it and they become somehow "dirty economies "
[28] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics : A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States ( Washington, DC : United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012), p. 89
[29] Philippe Le Billon, "The Geopolitics of Resources Wars: Resources Dependence, Governance and Violence", In Philippe Le Billon, Ed, the Geopolitical Economy of Resource Wars (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 1-24.
[30] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey, 20.
[31] Samuel Hussein, Ed. Challenges to Global Security: Geopolitics and Powers in an Age of Transition (New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 33.
[32] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics : A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States ( Washington, DC : United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012), p. 89
[33] Jacques Nzumbu, Pouvoirs et Affaires dans une Zone à Déficit de Gouvernance : Les Enjeux de la Réforme Minière en R. D. Congo de 2002 à 2009 (Kinshasa : CEPAS, 2011), 23
[34] Charles Carter, "The Political Economy of Conflict and UN Intervention: Rethinking the Critical Cases of Africa", in Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman, Eds. The Political Economy of Armed Conflict : Beyond Greed and Grievance ( London : Lynne Rienner, 2003), 33,
[35] William Schabas, "War Economies, Economic Actors, and International Criminal Law", in Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzschke, eds. Profiting from Peace: Managing the Economic Dimension of Civil War (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 425.
[36] Mikael Sheehan, International Security: an Analytical Survey, 70.
[37] Edward Luttwak, Disarming the World's Economies (Unpublished CEO) (Washington, DC: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1990), 308.
[38] Stefaan Marysse and Sara Geenen, Les Contrats Chinois en RDC : l'Impérialisme Rouge en Marche in L'Afrique de Grands Lacs : l'Annuaire 2007-2008 (Retrieved from http://www.ua.ac.be/objs/00210769.pdf, 20/10/2013, 2009), 287.
[39] Global Witness, China and Congo: Friends in Need, (March 2011) retrieved from http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/library/friends_in_need_en_lr.pdf, (London: Global Witness Limited, 21st October 2014), 4.
[40] Global witness, China and Congo : Friends in Need, 4,
[41] Jean-Baptiste Say, Traité d'Economie Politique (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1972).
[42] Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1978) retrieved from http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf, 115th Oct. 2013.
[43] David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3rd ed (Canada: Batoche Books, 1821).
[44] Emmanuel Kant, Essai Philosophique sur la Paix Perpétuelle (Paris : G. Fishbachelier, 1880), Retrieved from http://archiviomarini.sp.unipi.it/208/1/N0075749_PDF_1_-1DM.pdf
[45] Jean-Baptiste Say, Traité d'Economie Politique (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1972).
[47] Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War, ( London, New York : Random House, 2004), 33
[48] Friedrich List, Système National d'Economie Politique (Paris : Chapelle Editeur, 1841).
[49] Jean-Baptiste Say, Traité d'Economie Politique (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1972).
[50] Fanny Coulomb, Economic Theories of Peace and War (London, New York: Random House, 2004), 33.
[51] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics: A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States (Washington, DC: United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012), 12.
[52] Vincent Cable, What is International Economic Security, in International Affairs, 71(2), 306, (305-324), 1995.
[53] Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, Peace Economics: A Macroeconomic Primer for Violence –Afflicted States (Washington, DC: United Stated Institute of Peace, 2012), 15.
[54] Paul J. Welfens, Social Security and Economic Globalization (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, 2013).
[55] Michael Todaro and Stephen Smith, Economic Development, 4th ed. ( Boston : Pearson, 2012)
[56] Michael Todaro and Stephen Smith, Economic Development, 4th ed. ( Boston : Pearson, 2012)
[57] Africa Progress Panel, Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa's Natural Resources for all. (Switzerland: Africa Progress Panel, 2013), 13.
[58] Paul J. Welfens, Social Security and Economic Globalization (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, 2013).
[59] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: the Economic Dimension of our Time (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2005), 234.
[60] United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals: 2014 Report (New York, NY) retrieved October 13, 2014 from https://www.un.org./Milleniumgoals/.
[61] Singh Aleya, Singh Vinod, and Singh Mahadevi, Eds, Manmade Disasters ( New Delhi : APH publishing Corporation, 2010), 310
[62] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: the Economic Dimension of our Time (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2005), 234.
[63] Africa Progress Panel, Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa's Natural Resources for all. (Switzerland: Africa Progress Panel, 2013), 10.
[64] Paul Collier and Anker Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War (Washington, DC: World Bank, October 21st, 2001), 8.
[65] William Y. Elliot, "The Struggle for Economic Security in Democracy", In Social Research, 6(2), 298-312, 299.
[66] Giuliano Bonoli, "Social Policy through Labor Markets: Understanding National Differences in the Provision of Economic Security to Wage Earners", In Comparative Political Studies, 2003, 36 (Sage publications) or online version http://cps.sagepub.com/content/36/9/1007, 108.
[67] Giuliano Bonoli, "Social Policy through Labor Markets: Understanding National Differences in the Provision of Economic Security to Wage Earners", 109.
[68] Cf. Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post –Cold War Era (New York, NY: Haverster Wheatsheaf, 1991).
[69] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: the Economic Dimension of our Time (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2005), 3.
Le temps que la vie nous donne de passer sur terre n'est pas toujours à la faveur d'une existence paisible.
Il faut que nous trouvions loin des bruits de l'existence des raisons d'être des hommes et des femmes pour les autres. S'il nous arrive de trébucher, le courage de continuer doit dompter notre innocence toujours prête à nous faire aimer du monde.
Jamais nos fautes ne peuvent trahir notre dignité surtout si elles viennent des sources qui avaient englouties notre liberté.
Si les roseaux ne nous permettent plus jamais de cueillir les roses de l'espoir, nous pourrons ramener pour cueillir les roses qui sont sur l'autre rive car elles respirent l'odeur profonde inodore des eaux paisibles. Sur la rivière, les crocos ne pourront jamais nous happer car nous n'avons jamais lutté contre eux et jamais la rose a été leur proie de toujours.
Les luttes de notre vie, les efforts que nous faisons, ne peuvent jamais trahir notre désir de tout aimer pour tout aimer. Il arrive que nous nous trouvions à bout de notre combat, mais la dernière minute de cette bataille est le passage vers une mer profonde qui abreuve notre soif de tout réussir pour le monde.
Il faut partir, toujours partir même si le combat que nous menons n'a pas son sens et de raison d'être au milieu des combles ; peut être qu'il fait des générations désespérées une fontaine intarissable. Alors pourquoi abandonner ?
Marius MUFUTA Cool
« Seigneur Dieu des Chrétiens, des Musulmans, des Hindous, des Bouddhistes et des Athées, " Je préfère encore être colonisé que néo-colonisé ou globalisé (la colonisation m'a appris a lire, a prier et a aimer quoique aliène et sans pilier de stand). Cependant avec le néo-colonialisme ou la globalisation, j'apprends à tuer, à appauvrir et à profiter". Me voici au bord d'un choix qui n'a pas de merci. je ne sais comment m'y prendre. Je suis perdu. Vient a mon aide et manifeste toi comme tu le fais dans ces différentes idéologies religieuses qui croient te chercher et trouver en avant alors que tu es derrière eux les cherchant sans les trouver ». Cool
" God of Christians, God of Muslims, God of Hindus, Gof Buddhists, and God of atheists," I'd rather be that colonized or neo-colonized/globalized (colonization taught me to read, to pray and to love though I am alienated and without pillar stand). However with neo-colonialism and globalization, I learned to kill, impoverish and gain. " Now I haven't any a right choice to make. I do not know how to do it. I'm lost. Comes to my aid and manifest yourself as you do in these different religious ideologies and which believe to seek for you and to find forward when you're behind them seeking without finding them. "
Are we looking for another explanation of the Universe ? of course, yes ! there is a question remains is this universe still a fact by itself or man construction ? yes we can go through theories, we will remember, us scholars, are making it as we create the universe, in the bible and by our intelligence. those years are really the evolution( i avoid to get into evolutionist theory) of the Universe, only if we decided.
See What I feel to be the new society
In nowadays every country has got some particulars problems. They could be politic, economic, social and so one. Those are problem create some time unjust situation among people. There's a need to get an expertise to manage them.
My Own country has loads of tribulations: many wars, violence against women, child soldier, etc. many years ago, Peace and the social interaction among people are missing. This situation is not a fatality. I hope someday to reduce those viruses of conflict and to refresh DRC air.
I'm also especially interested by the peace in the economic systems which are creating an incredible big deep in the world: North countries – South countries, developed countries -underdeveloped countries.
Industrialized country – unindustrialized countries, and so one… There is a sort of mistreatment. There's aside of world which is dominated by others. This unjust situation brings a new sort of slavery and perturbs the human base: freedom.
Expectation: After my Master, I intend to become a peacemaker and manager in order to build with peace volunteers a just world.
Democratic Republic of Congo is a multiculturalism country. We are strengthened by the acceptance of others. Each one wants to be the main or imperative culture. In the fact, others must respect and be led by the latter. We notice this attitude on the politic area. The tendency is to involve tribalism which is an obstacle for progress. Without development, we cannot hope peace.
I have this great desire to participate in the building of a country when peace is the paradigm; a society When relationship among citizens and between states allow to create a network in which reason is the rule of desire to change the face of this world torn by the egoism. The hopeful peace is set by the desire of Justice considered as way to help each person in the society to possess and to express his freedom and his idea.
Moreover, we believe that the riches of a country is the manner of this people to emphasize his culture in each tribe. It must confirm the identity of cohesion. In my former analysis, I aimed on some solutions for maintaining this diversity that I like or prefer to increase on my studies and also after.
Besides, people are now talking about globalization. My opinion is that: globalization covers another kind of economic colonialism in small countries or undeveloped. When we talk about colonialism, we see directly this deep hole hollowed out in the modern society by leaders. The profound gap they have been created confirms this new configuration of the world:
North countries – South countries, developed countries -underdeveloped countries.
Industrialized country – unindustrialized countries, and so one… There is a sort of mistreatment.
This fact prefigures a miss of peace. I'm interested by the peace in the economic systems. Our modern society is led by big economic lobbies. A way to contribute at the economic growth of our modern society is to revisit the use made by big countries to small ones. To look for the way to help countries that cannot support the imperative economy of globalization to build their own development system.
I hope in the days to come, to adapt my purpose in which can be an emergency.
Marius MUFUTA
Une terre à semer… pour un avenir radieux et une espérance.
Réfléchir sur l'éducation, c'est admettre une analogie qui acquiesce l'éducation comme un facteur latent de la construction de la société. Nul doute que, si la société est le symbole de la cohésion, elle est possible par les animaux(Aristote) que l'éducation a pu humaniser. Dans ce sens, former l'homme, éduquer l'être est au centre de toutes les préoccupations premières de la société, car c'est un moyen de créer une cohésion au sein des individus et d'assurer une prospérité. Pour Eric Weil, « l'éducation a pour but positif de donner à l'individu une attitude correcte dans ses rapports d'action avec les autres membres de la communauté ». Elle est l'outil de la socialisation qui fait quitter de l'état de nature vers un état civilisé. Par ce fait même, le but principal de l'éducation devient la capacité de former l'homme intégral qui soit utile à la société ; de l'élever vers une maturation positive. Un tel objectif poursuivi amène à comprendre que l'avenir d'une société est déterminé par le taux d'individus qui accèdent au système éducatif et la manière pour ses individus de s'approprier des problèmes de leur société en faisant des préoccupations principales. On peut alors, dans cette optique, affirmer que le vrai sens de l'éducation est l'analogie que l'on peut établir avec une terre à semer, à cultiver, à entretenir pour assurer un avenir. Par conséquent, tous nos foyers éducatifs (écoles, centre, nos universités) sont donc des pépinières méconnues mais qui deviennent des fontaines intarissables qui assouvissent les soifs et certains désespoirs de la société.
Il demeure en outre que la vraie éducation est l'objet d'une espérance. Comme ce champ de blé qui projette une certaine espérance, l'éducation est c'est par quoi on peut espérer une perpétuité des générations efficaces et efficientes pour maintenir le sens de la civilisation. Comme, un germoir que le jardinier entretient parce qu'il y a naissance de la vie, parce qu'il prédit une croissance, l'éducation porte une exigence d'un suivi sérieux pour que les fruits que celle produit soit justement la sève qui rende humides tous les désespoirs. Eduquer est par delà tout espérer pour le futur, dans le futur ; c'est prédire et prévenir pour ne jamais céder à la tentation de la perle de l'évangile. Cependant, une telle vision idéale qui semble être un principe, risque de nous plonger dans un fantasme pendant que la réalité présente un autre visage.
Les sociétés malades de la peste (la corruption), des antivaleurs et des délires qui inquiètent l'avenir de l'univers, à nos jours, ce sont celles-là qui ont sacrifié la joie d'espérer par l'éducation. Si le rôle de l'éducation est de former l'homme intégral, ce sujet est un homme conscient, porteur des valeurs, du savoir, porteur de la vie. Si aussi, toutes les civilisations ne se valent pas, c'est qu'il y a soit décroissance et croissance à une période donnée de l'histoire d'une civilisation. On peut extraire de cette thèse que de l'état actuel de nos sociétés en général par rapport à cette intégralité de l'éducation est en crise. Car chacune de nos sociétés a bien des choses à se rapprocher. L'Occident, par exemple a perdu le sens de certaines valeurs morales. Cette perte accuse un certain relativisme moral. Des questions bioéthiques, du tournant du phénomène « sexe libre », et le flux médiatique montrent qu'il y des lacunes au sein du système éducatif occidental. La pure rationalité et le désir de découvrir davantage le font sombre dans une caverne dont les conséquences qui en découlent sont des obstacles de l'espérance. Les problèmes écologiques aussi peuvent relever de ces lacunes d'une éducation qui manquent un certain sens moral, une certaine éthique. Par ailleurs, la crise au sein de la société africaine peut être posée à deux niveaux. Premièrement, il y a une certaine contagion occidentale qui remet en cause certaines valeurs qui doivent figurer dans notre système éducatif, en l'occurrence la décence de l'habillement. Notre mode de vécu lui-même est un copier-coller. Deuxièmement, si l'occident brandit encore un certain rationalisme, c'est en vue de l'invention, en Afrique non seulement que le niveau de l'éducation est en train de baisser, mais aussi elle fait rarement preuve d'une certaine créativité des méthodes pour son développement. Le système éducatif a perdu son premier sens de construction de la société ; il devient un poison dont l'antidote est d'abord une question de mentalité. Les écoles, les universités sont devenues de lieux de transaction de toute sorte de pratiques, sexuelles, agnostiques. La corruption devient le critère de sélection des élites. Bref le fruit produit par nos écoles n'est à pas la taille de défis de la société.
En résumé, du point de vue théorique, l'éducation est le premier moyen qui rend possible la cohésion et le progrès de la société. Sans elle, il n'y a pas de société civilisée, il n'y a pas lieu d'espérer la transmission d'une certaine éducation. Cependant, la réalité nous amène à comprendre que les différents systèmes éducatifs ont perdu certains éléments qui permettent de penser une société où toutes les dimensions, intellectuelles, spirituelles, morales et sociales, sont prises en compte, où elles sont dans une synergie insécable. Il faut pour cela les repenser. Mais la question est de savoir comment y arriver, car les antivaleurs sont devenues la mode normale qui dicte la conduite de notre société.
Marius MUFUTA


text:
India Inc. wasn't expecting much from interim budget (Roundup)February 16th, 2009 - 9:34 pm ICT by IANS
New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS) The following are the reactions from some prominent industrialists and economists to the interim budget presented by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee here Monday:
Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman, Infosys: (It was) more of a report card on the government in the last five years than any specific new proposal. Anything which has a new dimension will probably come in only after the new government comes in.
Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC Bank: Not a disappointment, I did not expect anything in the interim budget. It was never meant to be a giveaway. Interim budget is only an exercise of stating accounts.
Chanda Kochhar, joint managing director and next CEO of ICICI Bank: What is important is to propel consumption, mainly through cuts in interest rates. Somehow it does not seem to be happening.
R.C. Bhargava, chairman, Maruti Suzuki: The government has given very clear direction. It wants to create jobs, it wants investment in rural sectors, which would create demand for cars, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles as well. A risk has to be taken and as inflation is coming down, a fiscal deficit to that level is justifiable also.
Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman, Bharti Enterprises: It (budget) was on expected lines. We will have to wait for the new government and the final budget. It was supposed to be an interim budget, so it has turned out to be an interim budget. Some steps can be taken outside the budget also.
Venu Srinivasan, chairman and managing director, TVS Motor: It is not a budget. It is only a vote on account. I did not expect any major policy announcement or tax concessions. The government has given the tax concessions in two stimulus packages.
Harsh Pati Singhania, president of the Federation of Indian chamber of commerce and industry (FICCI): The government has allocated Rs.30,100 crore (Rs.301 billion) for the rural employment generation scheme and this is a positive move in line with its stated commitment to the development of rural economy.
Uday Kotak, managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank: Acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has stuck to what is good convention.
Sajjan Jindal, vice-chairman and managing director of JSW Steel: I was not expecting much from this. For the next two-three months, we are going to have a policy freeze but monetary policies will address some factors like interest rates.
Rohtas Goel, chairman and managing director, Omaxe Ltd: The budget was completely lacklustre. While one can understand that this was an interim budget, given the adverse business sentiments, government could have taken exception and announced some sops for reviving the market. Benefits for housing would have created a ripple effect in the market and helped in giving a positive push to the economy.
Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director, CB Richard Ellis, South Asia: "Although the expectations from the vote on account was limited as elections are due soon, the real estate industry was still hoping to get some stimulus, and none were announced.
Pradeep Jain, chairman of Parasvnath Developers: It's a non-event for the corporate world. The interim budget is merely a populist budget.
Dalip Kumar, manager (projects) at National Council for Applied Economic Research: How are they going to maintain the economic growth… these are political statements.
D.K. Joshi, principal economist, credit rating agency Crisil: There is a significant fiscal slippage and it is worrying that it is expected to be high despite lower subsidies, which is because of higher spending in infrastructure and the social sector. It looks like there is no scope for fiscal correction.
Amit Burman, vice-chairman, Dabur India Ltd: The interim budget is on expected lines as no big-bang policy decisions were expected. But the UPA government has clearly announced its intent to shield the Indian economy from the global crisis, which is a welcome sign.
Tushar Poddar, chief economist, Goldman Sachs: The minister's speech was more a statement of achievements in the past five years, and merely extended spending and revenue plans for fiscal 2010.
Chender Baljee, chairman and managing director, Royal Orchid Hotels: We are extremely disappointed with the interim budget. We were hoping for some bailout or assistance from the government. Even basic assistance in the form of inclusion into the infrastructure sector did not come through.
Prabal Banerjee, chief financial officer, Hinduja Group: The government did not have much of a choice. They did what they could best do. Anything, which is new, will come only when a new government comes. This is more like what I had expected.
–Indo-Asia News Service

subset: commoncrawl


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And the Heat Goes On: temperatures in the 90s and 100s soared throughout the northeast US last week, reported the Associated Press at the Washington Post, while Hurricane Chris, a zombie hurricane created over waters much colder than thought needed for such storms, became the earliest, most northerly storm to form ever recorded, reports AccuWeather meteorologist Kristina Pydyowski.
Meanwhile, Cool it: Are you hot enough yet? Make Congress nervous! You can tell them here that you're committing your votes to a cooler planet and a heck of a lot more jobs by voting for candidates favoring a quick transition to clean energy. Meantime, make a cool neckband: Wet a terrycloth washcloth completely, place it flat, centered, on a 17-inch (or larger) square cotton scarf, and fold both diagonally into one triangle. From the longest side, roll the triangle into a long roll. Tie it around your neck, with the thickest part in back. Remoisten at will. Great for seniors, too!
California Waters Face Sour Future: Over the next few decades, coastal waters off of California, Oregon, and Washington will likely become acidic enough from increased absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide to harm the rich fisheries and diverse marine ecosystems there, according to a new study, reports Peter Spotts at the Christian Science Monitor.
Japan Jumps Into Renewables: Japan recently approved incentives for renewable energy that could unleash billions of dollars in clean-energy investment and help the world's third-biggest economy shift away from a reliance on nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, report Yuko Inoue and Leonora Walet at World Environment News.
"Now That We've Melted It, Let's Exploit It" Department: As Arctic ice recedes under global warming with the promise of ice free summers appearing within decades, oil companies such as Shell, spurred by better technology and high oil prices, are pursuing oil drilling up there, reports the Economist.
Driving Clean, Cheap and Electric: Americans are already driving a variety of plug-in cars that run at the equivalent of a dollar per gallon and run cleaner than gasoline, especially when the electricity is derived from clean renewable sources, reports Max Baumhefner at Greentechmedia.
Save Baby Arctic Chicks! Climate change has melted the ice pack food source of Arctic ice birds from 7 miles to 250 miles away from them and made their nesting habitat, Cooper Island, a prime target for hungry polar bears. These Arctic "penguins" and puffins,too, need more bear-proof nesting boxes from humans to keep their chicks safe. Time is running out. The bears are coming in two months. You can help here, and find out more about how dramatically climate change is changing their lives.
Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded when I photographed this mountain not far from our research cabin. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a clean, safe future. If you'd like to tell Congress that you support clean energy and will vote for clean energy candidates, join the increasing numbers of people doing so here. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.


text: After an excellent demo tape, here's the debut LP from this Canadian band that sings in Polish. Continuing on with the sound of their demo (though with much-improved production), this is definitely seems to take a lot of influence in terms of noise and intensity from Discharge's Why? 12", but with more manic, Framtid-style drumming rather than straight up d-beat bashing. The production on this record is also quite extreme, beginning to push into D-Clone/Zyanose levels of intensity at some points, which definitely helps take this to the next level. Definitely not your average noisy, Discharge-influenced hardcore... if you're into slightly more progressive stuff like Double Negative or Shoxx but also like the manic energy of D-Clone or Zyanose this will be right up your alley. Rust and Machine Records


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David Foster Wallace Wrote Two Novels, and The Pale King Is Not One of Them
The American writer David Foster Wallace killed himself in 2008, at the age of 46, having authored two novels. He also had published some excellent nonfiction and short stories. But novel-wise, that was his literary output: two books (one of which was very long).
That basic set of facts made it confusing to read, in the New York Times on Friday, Michiko Kakutani's review of a book published under the title
, and in the name of Wallace, which she described as a "posthumous unfinished novel." This project or literary event had been in the pipeline quite publicly and for a while, yet those three words, as a description of a published book with a specific final length and price (548 pages, $27.99), are moths eating holes in the whole project of the review.
What is this book? If it were a David Foster Wallace novel, Wallace would have sent it to his publisher himself. It was made out of "
," Time magazine reported, stuffed into a duffel bag by Wallace's editor. Maybe, in a world where Wallace kept on living, the collection of words would have turned out to have been half of a novel. Maybe it would have been one compact novel and a one collection of short fiction. Maybe it would have been tinder for bonfire.
It's not so much a problem of Art—David Foster Wallace took himself out of the conversation about what David Foster Wallace wanted, after all—as a problem of craft. The Pale King is not a finished object. Reviewing it as a novel is like eating whatever was in a dead person's fridge and calling it a dinner party and comparing it to the dinner parties the deceased gave in the past.
Evaluation is beside the point. Kakutani, gamely taking things at face value, wrote that the book was "lumpy but often stirring"—well, why wouldn't it have lumps? It's not a finished novel.
And: "this volume showcases his embrace of discontinuity." But why would it be continuous? It's not a finished novel.
"'The Pale King' is less inventive and exuberantly imagined than Wallace's previous novels." But it is not a finished novel.
It is "[t]old in fragmented, strobe-lighted chapters"—but
[H]is novels, stories and articles so often defied closure and grew and grew and grew, sprouting tendrils and digressions and asides — because in almost everything Wallace wrote, including "The Pale King," he aimed to use words to lasso and somehow subdue the staggering, multifarious, cacophonous predicament that is modern American life
—well, fine, but perhaps unlike Wallace's published works, The Pale King defies closure because IT IS NOT A FINISHED NOVEL.
If this object made of paper is to be understood as the final holy relic of a literary saint, wonderful, Wallace was a great writer. Take it as apocrypha and enjoy what's there. But what can a reader of Wallace possibly make of a passage of criticism like this:
Happiness, Wallace suggests in a Kierkegaardian note at the end of this deeply sad, deeply philosophical book, is the ability to pay attention, to live in the present moment, to find "second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive."
Except to say, as a matter of plain truth, that this passage about happiness, delivered via duffel bag, is not "at the end"—that is, David Foster Wallace did not put it there.


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If the 5K is well invested and performing, there would seem to be no hurry. If you already have a traditional IRA, rolling it over to that account is OK. But starting a new IRA would not be wise for that amount unless its a no fee account. If the 403B is expensive or a poor performer, then it would be worth it.So best is wait until you have a low tax year and/or the funds to pay taxes--unless you have a good reason to go faster.
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Join the discussion with over 106,000+ fellow recipe lovers | Don't miss our newsletter! | Make Oma's favorite recipe
My quick and easy potato salad recipe can be made from scratch within 30 minutes! Best of all, this salad tastes delicious hot, warm, or cold! My whole family loves potato salad (especially me!). I just didn't like the traditional way of making it. It would take "forever". First, boil the potatoes. Cool. Peel. Slice. Prepare and gently mix in dressing.
This salad mimics the ones made by my Mutti from the northern part of Germany. That's why there's mayo in this German Potato Salad! What, you say? Mayonnaise? Yes, absolutely. Just the way it's made in many homes in the north. Check my comments below about this.
Someone may be thinking, "This isn't German!" ... but it is. It's fashioned after the potato salad my Mutti made, and she's from Berlin.
In northern Germany, many of the potato salads are creamy (mayo-based) and in southern Germany, the salads have a bacon/vinegary/broth based dressing. However, this is not always the case. Some in the south use mayo, and some in the north like the bacon/vinegary ones.
Two completely different types of dressings. Both totally traditionally German!
You'll love my method shown in the video below. This really quick and easy potato salad recipe has it all. It's tasty; it's quick; it's traditional; and, oh, so German!
Raw potatoes to finished salad in less than 30 minutes!
Be careful when boiling potatoes, because they foam. You are losing some of the nutrients by cooking cut-up potatoes.
That happens anytime you cook cut vegetables. So, don't throw out the cooking water - refrigerate and save for soups.
Potato cooking water is especially good to use as liquid in gravies.
* * * * *
Want nutritional information for a recipe? Copy and paste the ingredient list and the number of servings into Calorie Count. It will give you an approximate calculation.
Words to the Wise
"So don't bother correcting mockers, they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you."
Proverbs 9:8 (NLT)
Top of Oma's Easy Potato Salad RecipeGerman Recipes › Potato Salads › Oma's Easy Potato Salad


text: It is never comfortable to be surprised with yet another darkness from your past when you thought you have overcome it. Depression is not an easy thing to deal with. 8 years ago, I got myself in a deep depression that even I didn't realize. I had my mind in dark places filled with givingRead more


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Common sense would dictate that having a remote service like OnStar in one's car would be a benefit, with the technology allowing for quick emergency response, remote door unlocking and even tracking of stolen vehicles. Like most technologies, however, this one has its down side, and that side has been emphasized by a new report cited recently in The New York Times.
It seems that with a modest amount of expertise, computer hackers could gain remote access to someone's car—just as they do to people's personal computers—and take over the vehicle's basic functions, including control of its engine, according to a report by computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Washington, the Times says.
While the article notes that no such takeovers have been reported in the real world, the scientists were able to hack into a vehicle's systems in an experiment they conducted.
"Because many of today's cars contain cellular connections and Bluetooth wireless technology, it is possible for a hacker, working from a remote location, to take control of various features—like the car locks and brakes—as well as to track the vehicle's location, eavesdrop on its cabin and steal vehicle data," the researchers said. They described a range of potential compromises of car security and safety.
In their remote experiment, researchers were able to undermine the security protecting the cellular phone in the subject vehicle, and then insert malicious software, the article says. This allowed them to send commands to the car's electronic control unit—the nerve center of a vehicle's electronics system, which, in turn, made it possible to override various vehicle controls.
The bottom line is that, vandalism aside, cars that are equipped with cellular technology and services are in greater danger of being stolen. Of course, this hasn't happened yet, but surely having the idea spread worldwide by one of the country's leading newspapers will give some criminals ideas. And this mode of theft has several advantages, including the fact that the thieves will know when you're not in the car, and will be able to open and start it looking as if they had the keys. Further, once the vehicle is procured, the cellular connection could be disabled.
From an insurance point of view, these developments pose an interesting quandary. Should auto premiums be higher for cellular-connected vehicles? Maybe those premiums should be lower for vehicles that demonstrate better-protected wireless systems. With the already poor security capabilities of most wireless devices today, however, one wonders what automakers could do to bolster defenses against such an attack.
Ultimately, we may find that we won't just be able to jump into our vehicles and start them up. Instead, we may need to pass muster with some biometric (fingerprint, retinal scan) device just to gain access to the car. Next, we might have to enter a password in order for the vehicle to start. Sounds like a lot to go through just to take a trip to the supermarket, but just as technology makes things easier for legitimate car owners, it also provides opportunities for the criminally minded among us.
Insurers will have quite a task to determine just how to rate these risks. Stay tuned.
Ara C. Trembly (www.aratremblytechnology.com) is the founder of Ara Trembly, The Tech Consultant, and a longtime observer of technology in insurance and financial services.
Readers are encouraged to respond to Ara using the "Add Your Comments" box below. He can also be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
This blog was exclusively written for Insurance Networking News. It may not be reposted or reused without permission from Insurance Networking News.
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HM Sultan Brunei's Birthday in Kuala Belait Overflows with Joy
|His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar 'Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam. – PHOTOS: DEAN KASSIM, AZROL AZMI & FAZA SURAJ
|Students and residents of Belait District waving the national flag as His Majesty's convoy passes by
|His Majesty consents to a group photo with members of the Red Crescent Association
|The speech delivered by Haji Haris bin Haji Othman, Belait District Officer
|All smiles in Belait District … Performers involved in yesterday's colourful celebration at the Kuala Belait Municipal Field
Belait overflows with joy
Posted date: August 23, 2015
| Faza Suraj |
IT WAS a day of copious jollity as Belait District yesterday came alive for the reception of its benevolent monarch.
Thousands of people flocked to the Kuala Belait Municipal Field as early as 6am to grab the opportunity to greet His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar 'Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam during the monarch's traditional Junjung Ziarah ceremony in conjunction with His Majesty's 69th birthday celebration.
Belait is the third district to host the event which was kicked off in Tutong on August 18.
Also in attendance yesterday were His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office; His Royal Highness Prince Haji Jefri Bolkiah and His Royal Highness Prince 'Abdul Malik.
The anxious wait of thousands turned into excitement as the distant whirring of the Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter which was carrying His Majesty marked the beginning of another Junjung Ziarah – an annual event looked forward by people of all walks of like in the Sultanate as a chance to be close with their beloved King. and residents who have lined the route from the helipad to the venue of the celebration waved national flags with enthusiasm as the convoy of decorated black Rolls Royce cars passed them carrying the ruler and members of the royal family escorted by personnel from the Royal Brunei Police Force.
Upon arrival at the stage, His Majesty and members of the royal family were greeted by Pehin Udana Khatib Dato Paduka Seri Setia Ustaz Haji Awang Badaruddin bin Pengarah Dato Paduka Haji Awang Othman, the Minister of Home Affairs in his capacity as the Chairperson of the Executive Committee for the 69th birthday celebration.
The Belait District Officer Haji Haris bin Haji Othman expressed the undivided loyalty towards the monarch on behalf of the people of Belait District. He thanked the just and wise reign of His Majesty throughout the last four decades that brought about massive development projects and advancements in the urban areas as well as the countryside of the Sultanate.
"This especially can be seen in the projects and programmes which directly or indirectly contribute towards maintaining the peace, prosperity and safety that have been enjoyed by the people of the Belait District as well as the rest of the Sultanate which will be savoured by the current generation and Insya Allah, the next generation."
The event continued with the finals of the National Tug-of-War Competition between teams from the Brunei-Muara District and the Tutong District followed by the prize presentation.
The joy and gratitude of citizens and residents to the monarch were reflected in the performance which carried the theme 'Raja Pencetus Inspirasi Generasi Berwawasan'(An Inspirational Monarch for a Generation With a Vision).
The performance ended on a colourful note as confetti filled the air above the field.
The occasion was enlivened even further with His Majesty meeting with the participants followed by the rest of the attendees.
Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin


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In my first blog post, I discussed the skewed incentives, unfair playing field, and dangerous consequences of high-frequency trading (HFT). Is it any wonder that you could apply the same adjectives to the financial services industry in general? HFT is a destructive force in the markets: It increases the cost of trading for most people, rewards an activity that provides little to no economic value, and damages investor confidence in the fairness of equity markets. It is, however, symptomatic of much bigger and more deeply seated problems in the industry.
Before we tackle these encompassing problems, we should consider several actions that legislators could take to help dampen or eliminate the ill effects of HFT:
- Eliminate for-profit exchanges: The experiment in for-profit exchanges has been an utter disaster. The conversion of NYSE and NASDAQ from privately held, self-regulatory organizations to publicly traded ones has not worked. It is ironic that the financial services industry should be such a great example of capitalism's limitations. Stock exchanges should serve the general population by ensuring fair and orderly markets. Likewise, they should serve the companies that are listed or who want to list by ensuring robust price discovery and capital formation. This is the first step to instituting any reform. Our exchanges must take actions to reduce their earnings per share to ensure a more stable market and economy. That is a tradeoff most public companies are not willing to make.
- Mandate that liquidity providers fulfill obligations in order to collect rebates: If you're willing to take the other side of a buy/sell trade (in other words, you provide liquidity, often called "market making"), you usually receive a rebate from the exchange instead of paying a fee. Electronic liquidity providers perform a critical function and should be compensated for maintaining orderly markets. They take on inventory risk and that can be costly. However, historically there have always been obligations for market makers to continue to provide liquidity even during market turbulence. This is an obligation to which HFT firms are not currently beholden. This must change. The ability to collect liquidity-providing rebates should only be available to those firms willing to stay in the market when conditions become difficult.
- Level the data access playing field:
- Eliminate co-location: For the firm willing and able to pay for it, data center space is available for rental right next to the stock exchange. The closer you are, the faster you receive data. This, of course, only benefits HFT firms (and the earnings per share of for-profit exchanges), providing their servers information milliseconds before the rest of the market. It can be argued that this makes it non-public information. To many of these modern servers, milliseconds are an eternity. When I worked in the industry, I built models that would take 40 microseconds (40 millionths of a second) from when data hit the network card to when the trade was sent out to the market. I have no doubt there are faster systems out there now, and those reaction times will only continue to decrease.
- Eliminate direct market data feeds: These are the feeds coming directly from the exchange providing updates every time something in the market changes. These are only useful if you have tremendous computing power to process upwards of 2 million events per second. (Unless, of course, you can do this in your head, in which case, good for you!). The Foreign Exchange (FX) markets have long worked well under a different model, and I'm not convinced that anyone would suffer from less data. If market data feeds simply sent out a snapshot of the full order book every 100 milliseconds, who would be worse off?
- Reinstate the uptick rule: For almost 70 years if you wanted to sell a stock short (i.e., wager that it would go down in value) you had to wait until that stock's price moved up. A change to this simple rule in 2007 opened the door for many high-frequency traders. If you are a student of history, you know that cyclically the world looks very similar to the time that rule was first passed (1938). Maybe it's time we reconsider? A long list of financial services experts (which notably does not include any HFT firms) agree with me on this one.
Unfortunately, without a substantial public uproar, I'm inclined to think the odds of any meaningful financial reform are very slim:
- It's already 2.5 years since the SEC decided, and most of the financial services world agreed that flash orders should be banned, and they have not been.
- Regardless of how many billions of dollars JPMorgan's prop trading desk loses, they (and others in the industry) continue to argue that institutions with federally insured deposits should still be able to "hedge" by making extremely large bets that look amazingly similar to the proprietary bets that the Volcker Rule is supposed to eliminate.
- The financial reform act negotiated by Congress was already dramatically weakened by the time it was passed, and the industry has deployed its band of lobbyists to weaken it further as the legislation is turned into actionable regulation.
Barry Ritholz gives some excellent suggestions in his most recent column on ending TBTF, while acknowledging that "[a]fter years of deregulation, it has become all but impossible to re-regulate modern banking. There was a brief window during the credit crisis, but that has passed. Today, profits trump soundness. Safety and security are secondary to risk-taking and speculation."
I couldn't have said it better myself. We have no shortage of great ideas for how to fix the system. We simply lack the will and the ability to push meaningful reform through our corporate-controlled, hyper-partisan government.


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Mr. Chesterton is avowedly the maker of fantasies, half allegorical in motive; but like all true allegories, they touch ordinary life at many points. This story will be found as daring and subtle in conception, and as brilliant in presentation as his best work.
sh it seemed to have five or six legs, it alighted upon two, like the man in the queer telegram. It took the form of a large light-haired man in gay green holiday clothes. He had bright blonde hair that the wind brushed back like a German's, a flushed eager face like a cherub's, and a prominent pointing nose, a little like a dog's. His head, however, was by no means cherubic in the sense of being without a body. On the contrary, on his vast shoulders and shape generally gigantesque, his head looked oddly and unnaturally small. This have rise to a scientific theory (which his conduct fully supported) that he was an idiot.
Inglewood had a politeness instinctive and yet awkward. His life was full of arrested half gestures of assistance. And even this prodigy of a big man in green, leaping the wall like a bright green grasshopper, did not paralyze that small altruism of his habits in such a matter as a lost hat. He was stepping forward to recover the green gentleman's head-gear, when he was struck rigid wi
This was, perhaps, the most enjoyable of Chesterton's works that I have read. I say this after having read every fiction of his available on this site.
Manalive is a tale about what it means to live like a child. Chesterton explores his own world, as though looking at it for the first time. In this, I find the storyline both amusing and inspiring. I discovered that much of what I need for happiness is already in my grasp. Too much of the best things in life have been lost to convention, and too many of the greatest wonders in life are routinely ignored. That is the essence of this book. The protagonist is a madman, or perhaps he is the only sane person left in the world. The reader must decide.