Glencore’s Misadventure in the Congo Threatens Its Cobalt Dreams | Hacker News Reader

Glencore’s Misadventure in the Congo Threatens Its Cobalt Dreams

bloomberg.com

29 pointsjonbaer12 comments

For reference, credible sources estimate a death toll in the millions in the Congo in the last 20 years [1]. Abetted in no small measure, this Bloomberg piece makes clear, by Gertler and Glasenberg’s business practices. Two douchebags of galactic scale. It makes me sad and angry that such morality exists.

That said, it would be a wonderful thing if the car industry formed a round table ahead of this huge boom to put in place protocols to ensure the missteps of the oil industry are not created again, or do the Glasenbergs and Gertlers of this world win everything?

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/briefing/2018...

It's the financial world's version of "Move fast and break things", where things in this case are people. That amorality exists in tech too, arguably to a larger extent in places like Facebook

The problems in the Congo are largely (lack of) government related. Congo is essentially a failed state and there are large parts of Eastern Congo (where most of the mineral wealth is) that are run by militia groups.

I'm sure parts of the financial industry and some foreign businesses are engaged in destructive practices, but I view them more as capitalizing on the situation than causing it.

There are some positive signs for Dem Rep Congo. This past summer, President/dictator Joseph Kabila finally agreed to step down and hold presidential elections, 2 years after delaying them indefinitely in December 2016. But the opposition to Kabila has so far failed to coalesce around a single candidate to run against Kabila's candidate,[1] and of course there is no guarantee that even if the opposition wins, Kabila will accept the result without a military invasion or threat thereof to force him out, the way Yahya Jammeh in Gambia was pushed out early last year.[2]

It's hard not to be cynical about cycles of former rebel leaders and their families setting themselves up as the new dictators, but at least here, things are looking up.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/congo-opposition-supporters-protes...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECOWAS_military_intervention_i...

That's potentially good news, but I'm skeptical much will come of it. Places like Congo are still quite tribal[0], which is one reason for the large amount of corruption. When you get power you hand out benefits to your people. In developed democracies we often think the benefits of democracy are self-evident, but we forget the long process it took for our own societies to get to the relatively uncorrupt, pretty well-functioning bureaucracies we have today. Plus, Congo has almost no state to speak of. The country hardly has a road network and the government has a hard time projecting power outside of the cities. I believe the infrastructure was better in the 60s than it is today, but I would have to check my facts to be sure.

[0]: I think this will get misinterpreted by some people. I don't mean it in a derogatory way, but as a description of how society is organized in parts of Africa. People can be grouped into tribes and tend to prefer to grant favors and power to those within their tribe. It's like nepotism on a larger scale.

Thats how business works in most of the major African countries I believe based on a few experiences there.

>He bonded with Kabila’s son, Joseph, who was his age and was running the Congolese army. Within a few years, Gertler had paid $20 million to secure a monopoly on the country’s diamond exports. When a bodyguard assassinated the elder Kabila in 2001, Joseph became president—giving Gertler a direct line to the palace just as global commodity prices were starting a decade-long surge.

Bad bodyguard. That will not look good on the resume.

I wonder if the palace guard was a branch of the army?

Probably. That's how it works in much of Africa. Usually the private army is recruited from the leader's own tribe as well.

FCPA seems naive to me. There no way to compete in certain industries in certain parts of the world without engaging in corruption and bribery. Maybe we dont want to compete, or maybe we are just supposed to outsource the grey stuff, but it definitely hurts US businesses.

What gives US prosecutors jurisdiction over a British company operating in Africa anyway? Simply that they have operations in the US?

What would you prefer?

I hate to say it, but Africa was better off under European colonial rule.

Yes, there were obscene atrocities. But atrocities seem to have been committed by every group of humans at some point in time.

Instead, the colonialists would take the natural and mineral wealth, and invest part of it back in the country. They would build infrastructure, provide jobs and basic services.

Even today, countries which were more heavily colonised have better outcomes.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w18162.pdf

https://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/co...

Now, many Africans are ruled by their own corrupt tribal Warlords, where the entirety of the wealth is stashed offshore, and there is no infrastructure and no jobs. Whatever mineral and natural wealth there is is being rapidly diluted by unsustainable population growth rates.

At the very least, the Europeans could have carefully and slowly cultivated a local elite to take over the countries, instead of rapidly bailing out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3679706.stm

this is a strange thing to say about the Congo in particular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S...

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