The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is considered by many to have made the most sweeping changes affecting corporate governance since the Securities and Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934. About 4 years after its passing, however, many governance experts question whether the time and expense of compliance engender any real reforms. This article examines whether corporations have restructured their boards in response to the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley and finds evidence that companies are implementing changes that should strengthen (...) the monitoring ability of their boards. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the real and only victims of insider trading are those being wrongfully prosecuted under the current broad interpretation of Rule 10(b)-5 of the Securities Exchange Act. The term ‘insider trading’ has no clear legal definition and thus lends itself to prosecutorial overreach. I argue that such overreach characterizes the numerous insider trading investigations and prosecutions currently being pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Rather than any valid application of (...) securities law, these prosecutions reflect political opportunism and the influence of powerful special interests within the securities industry. I conclude by advocating that Rule 10(b)-5 be applied as originally intended, namely to deter active securities fraud and price manipulation only. (shrink)

The Prudent Investor Rule creates a potential ethical dilemma for investment advisors selling over-the-counter financial products issued by their firms. The "opportunity" to defraud investors using complex, over-the-counter derivative securities designed for client-specific risk management is much higher than for exchange traded securities. This paper emphasizes the ethical responsibility held by trustees and their organizations to eliminate potential conflict of interests through internal control and monitoring. Independent evaluations of the performance of investment advisors and independent appraisals of (...) complex over-the-counter securities are important in reducing the risks of conflicts of interest. Recent lessons learned from the corporate ethics crisis and requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act would suggest that conflict of interest must be eliminated with third party validation of derivative pricing. By performing due diligence and validation, the trustee is able to satisfy the requirements under the Prudent Investor Rule. (shrink)

This paper covers the home-made bombing used at the 2013 Boston Marathon annual races even though we knew before the trial began that the verdict will have to be 'guilty' because the people of Boston demanded that verdict and received the first lap of the verdict on 8 April 2015. Neither beautiful technical rulings nor breaches of prosecution disclosure rules nor metadata queries nor tampered evidence would have held sway at this trial.

Under the present judicial interpretation of federal securities law, an individual is prohibited from trading on non-public information that has been misappropriated in contravention of a fiduciary duty. Trades made using non-pubIic information that has not been misappropriated are not prohibited by Rule 10b-5, promulgated under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. The current requirement of misappropriation to trigger Rule 10b-5 liability creates a gap that permits transactions that are both ethically and economically undesirable. Judicial (...) or legislative reforms are recommended to close the gap and help ensure the fairness and efficiency of securities markets. (shrink)

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires the disclosure of changes to or waivers of corporate codes of ethics. Because the nature of amendments or waivers can vary, we expect the text of Item 5.05 to include different topics within different filings. We examine the population of these disclosures in Item 5.05 8-K filings from 2004 to 2020. While previous studies utilized small samples (fewer than 50 observations) to examine limited aspects of these filings, we use the population of (...) these filings from 2004 to 2020 (2121 8-K filings) to elucidate the nature and details of the disclosures. We assess whether Latent Dirichlet Allocation—a computational linguistics technique—can help discern the underlying topics represented in filings. While the Securities and Exchange Commission identifies two topics—amendments and waivers—the Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis reveals four topics (three related to amendments): (1) code updates and clarifications; (2) combining codes of conduct for all officers and employees, or splitting codes to include a code directly applicable to senior financial officers; (3) codes of ethics waivers; and (4) substantive code changes. The overall trend is for fewer 8-Ks to be filed in recent years, with updates and clarifications becoming the predominant filing type. Our results further indicate that Item 5.05s related to updates and clarifications, and those related to combined or split codes, use fewer words and are more easily readable than those disclosing waivers or material code changes. Although we find no significant price reaction to Item 5.05 8-K filings, we find significant trading volume and volatility reactions, suggesting that these disclosures could give rise to differences in opinion among investors, which is consistent with the US Senate's assertion that these disclosures are of interest to investors. (shrink)

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 requires company executives to certify financial statements and internal controls as a means of reducing fraud. Many companies have operationalized this by instituting a sub-certification process and requiring lower-level managers to sign certification statements. These lower-level organizational members are often the individuals who are aware of fraud and are in the best position to provide information on the fraudulent act. However, the sub-certification process may have the effect of reducing employees’ intentions to report wrongdoing. We (...) suggest that subordinates with knowledge of a superior who committed a fraudulent act and certified that there is no fraud will feel less personal responsibility to report the act, thus, decreasing reporting intentions. Additionally, we suggest that if the fraud is discovered subsequent to the reports being filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, employees will perceive lower management responsiveness to investigate the fraud, which will reduce intentions to report. Using an experimental approach, we manipulate two between-participant variables: the presence or absence of sub-certification by the transgressor and the timing of fraud discovery, either before or after the reports have been filed with the SEC. We find that when sub-certification is present, perceived personal responsibility and intentions to report were diminished compared to when sub-certification is absent. Timing of the discovery of the fraudulent act did not influence perceived management responsiveness or reporting intentions. Supplemental analysis shows that personal responsibility partially mediates the relationship between sub-certification and reporting intentions. Our findings suggest that audit committees and senior executives may want to carefully consider the costs and benefits of the sub-certification process. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, internal corporate investigations have become commonplace in the U. S., with an upsurge occurring as a result of the corporate scandals of 2001-02 involving Adelphi Communications Corporation, Enron, Merck & Company, Riggs Bank, and other companies accused of financial malfeasance. After an introduction, this article first presents the U. S. public policy framework (as implemented through the U. S. Sentencing Commission, the U. S. Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission) encouraging the use (...) of corporate internal investigations and self-reporting of these results to federal authorities; second, evaluates this framework, identifying the public policy issues inhibiting companies from using corporate internal investigations and self-reporting significant results; third, proposes a policy incentive regime which attempts to ameliorate these outstanding issues; and fourth, offer policy recommendations and suggestions for further research on this topic, including increasing the maximum deduction in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines Culpability Score available to a firm for development of an Effective Compliance and Ethics Program (from 3 to 5 points), and self-reporting the results of an internal investigation (from 5 to 7 points); evaluating the effectiveness of these enhancements in legal incentives over a period of 5-7 years after implementation; instituting a formal federal government effort to educate the American business community on the corporate reputation (and financial) benefits of an effective compliance program; and protecting attorney-client privilege and work product protection, through legislative action, to encourage company executives and directors to utilize independent, outside attorneys to conduct fair, comprehensive, and impartial internal investigations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Radical Democracy:John Dewey and Angela Y. Davis on Pluralism and PrisonsAmanda Dubrulein 2013, the multiculturalism act marked its 25th anniversary; at the same time, the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) was celebrating its 40th anniversary (Elizabeth qtd. in Eng 2–3) The OCI was created in response to the prison riot in Kingston Penitentiary that occurred in 1971. Yet, 40 years after, prisons in Canada still face "overcrowding, the (...) shortage of professional staff, programming cuts, the confinement in the institution of a number of people who did not require maximum security confinement, too much time spent in cells, a lack of adequate channels to deal with complaints" (Elizabeth qtd. in Eng 3). The "Annual Report on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act 2019–20" (subtitled "Building a Better Canada Through Diversity") lists four principal objectives of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act: "the retaining and fostering of identity …, overcoming barriers to participation …, promoting exchanges, and language acquisition" (Canadian Heritage 10; emphasis added). One can then see that there is a marked disconnect between the ideals of plurality and participation that Canada supposedly rests on and the practices of the systems it maintains.Drawing on John Dewey's conception of democracy and Angela Davis's critique of the prison industrial complex, I aim to show that a state cannot truly be pluralistic or participatory while continuing to engage in carceral practices. To do so, I will first explicate Dewey's conception of democracy,1 then I will lay out the contemporary problems surrounding incarceration in Canada, and, finally, I will end with a discussion of abolition as a constructive practice.Discussions of democracy often center on the mechanisms of voting. We have formed the habit of believing that democracies will carry on as long as citizens perform rote political duties (Dewey, "Creative Democracy" 225). Yet, as Dewey saw and as we continue to see, a healthy democracy cannot [End Page 40] be maintained through rote action alone. Instead, it requires "conscious and resolute effort" because democracy is not a mere political system ("Creative Democracy" 224). Instead, as Dewey phrases it, it is a "way of life" and therefore has moral implications. A democracy cannot flourish where there is no community (Dewey, "Creative Democracy" 225). This is accomplished through dialogue and debate with others and the recognition of the transactional nature of associated living. The purpose of a state is to supply the "right conditions" so that every person can lead their life and flourish in their own capacity (Dewey, "Creative Democracy" 227).The public is composed of individuals who act and associate with each other; every individual is "subject to all kinds of social influences which determine what they can think of, plan and choose" (Dewey, The Public 115). Yet when people come together and discuss their wants and needs, new ideas are tested, and new beliefs are formed. This creates an unsettling of current modes and processes of political action (Dewey, The Public 103).2 Thus, Dewey argues that one of the main tasks required for maintaining (and reclaiming) democracy is the constant "discovering [of] means by which a scattered, mobile, and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests" (The Public 174). For this to occur, the creation and recognition of community is central. For Dewey, community is not merely "physical and organic" (though it often is this), it is also "moral … emotional, [and] intellectual" (The Public 177–78). For the individual, who becomes a part of this association, democracy involves the responsibility of sharing with others the "capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs and in participating according to the need in the values which the group sustains" (Dewey, The Public 175). For the group, democracy "demands liberation of the potentialities of [its] members" to flourish "in harmony with the interests and goods which are common" (Dewey, The Public 175). The flourishing of the group can only come about when we, as individuals, recognize the worth and potential of those around us and our capacity, when combined to direct the community, as a community.Thus, critique plays an important role in democracies: we... (shrink)

The Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) Act was passed in 2002 in response to various instances of corporate malfeasance. The Act, designed to protect investors, led to wide-ranging regulation over various actions of managers, auditors and investment analysts. Part of SOX, and the focus of this study, targeted the disclosure by firms of “pro forma” earnings, an alternate (from GAAP earnings), flexible and unaudited measure of firm performance. Specifically, SOX directed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to craft regulation which would (...) reduce – and preferably eliminate – any pro forma earnings disclosure which might be “misleading”. Examining earnings press releases over a 3-year period, this study addresses three questions. Were firms disclosing pro forma in a potentially misleading manner, what was the nature of this potentially misleading disclosure, and did SOX affect the disclosure practices? We find the following. In 2001 (prior to SOX), 53 firms – over 10% of all U.S. S&P 500 firms – were disclosing pro forma earnings in a potentially misleading manner. This was being done most commonly by using traditional GAAP terminology (e.g., “net income”) in the press release headline to describe what was later in the press release revealed to be a pro forma amount (i.e., “net income excluding special items”). By 2003 (subsequent to the SEC regulation), potentially misleading disclosure practices were seen in less than 1% of the earnings press releases of S&P 500 firms. This significant reduction suggests that managers, prior to the regulation, were either careless in their pro forma reporting practice, or were intentionally – and unethically – attempting to mislead investors. Either way, we conclude that the SEC regulation was both necessary and effective. (shrink)

The thesis of this article is that there has never been any ground for the controversy between the doctrine of free will and determinism, that it is based upon a misapprehension, that the two assertions are entirely consistent, that one of them strictly implies the other, that they have been opposed only because of our natural want of the analytical imagination. In so saying I do not tamper with the meaning of either phrase. That would be unpardonable. I mean free (...) will in the natural and usual sense, in the fullest, the most absolute sense in which for the purposes of the personal and moral life the term is ever employed. I mean it as implying responsibility, merit and demerit, guilt and desert. I mean it as implying, after an act has been performed, that one " could have done otherwise " than one did. I mean it as conveying these things also, not in any subtly modified sense but in exactly the sense in which we conceive them in life and in law and in ethics. These two doctrines have been opposed because we have not realised that free will can be analysed without being destroyed, and that determinism is merely a feature of the analysis of it. And if we are tempted to take refuge in the thought of an "ultimate ", an "innermost" liberty that eludes the analysis, then we have implied a deterministic basis and constitution for this liberty as well. For such a basis and constitution lie in the idea of liberty. -/- The thesis is not, like that of Green or Bradley, that the contending opinions are reconciled if we adopt a certain metaphysic of the ego, as that it is timeless, and identifies itself with a desire by a " timeless act". This is to say that the two are irreconcilable, as they are popularly supposed to be, except by a theory that delivers us from the conflict by taking us out of time. Our view on the contrary is that from the natural and temporal point of view itself there never was any need of a reconciliation but only of a comprehension of the meaning of terms. (The metaphysical nature of the self and its identity through time is a problem for all who confront memory, anticipation, etc.; it has no peculiar difficulties arising from the present problem.) -/- I am not maintaining that determinism is true; only that it is true insofar as we have free will. That we are free in willing is, broadly speaking, a fact of experience. That broad fact is more assured than any philosophical analysis. It is therefore surer than the deterministic analysis of it, entirely adequate as that in the end appears to be. But it is not here affirmed that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings, no ingredient of absolute chance. All that is here said is that such absence of determination, if and so far as it exists, is no gain to freedom, but sheer loss of it; no advantage to the moral life, but blank subtraction from it. -- When I speak below of "the indeterminist" I mean the libertarian indeterminist, that is, him who believes in free will and holds that it involves indetermination. (shrink)

A Monumental Figure of Western Thought Wrestles with the Question of God Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contributions have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. Kant's teachings on religion were unorthodox in that they were based on rationality rather than revelation. Though logically proving God's existence might be impossible, it is morally reasonable to "act as if there be a God." His strictly (...) rational approach was considered so scandalous that the King of Prussia forbid him to teach or write further on religious subjects, which Kant obeyed until the king's death. A work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion grounded in moral reason and meeting the needs of an ethical life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Time, Will, and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy by Randall E. AuxierDavid W. RodickRandall E. Auxier Time, Will, and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Press, 2013. 424 pages, incl. index.Randy Auxier’s long awaited book is a major milestone in Royce studies—a systematic tour de force engaging the entire course of Royce’s thought. Auxier’s goal is to achieve an all-round (...) reappraisal of Royce, setting the record straight about major misconceptions accrued throughout the course of Royce scholarship over the past 65 years—if not longer.One of the most significant events in Royce scholarship during the 20th Century was the appearance of John E. Smith’s Royce’s Social Infinite: The Community of Interpretation.1 As Auxier notes: “For the purposes for which it was intended, Smith’s book will never be surpassed in its excellence. Smith’s book is outstanding in numerous ways … but its clarity and brevity are high among its chief virtues” (13). The problem with Smith’s book, for Auxier, is that readers have used it for a purpose it was never intended to serve—that of a crutch or “shortcut to a full understanding of Royce” (13). This tendency has had a compounding effect: “[N]ot only scholarship, but scholarly consciousness about Royce is formed by Smith’s book” (14). [End Page 166]The shortcomings of Smith’s book are partly due lack of available historical information concerning the Peirce-Royce relationship at the time it was written: “The inferences about Peirce and Royce that Smith drew from the available resources were mostly warranted at the time, but they turned out to be only a drop in the pond, if not the ocean, of what was the case” (15–16). But the most damning consequence of Smith’s book is its claim that Royce’s thought underwent a decisive shift in its later stages: “[T]he all-important change in Royce’s conception of the Absolute consists in the shift from the idea that the Infinite thought is an all-embracing consciousness apprehending at a glance all truth … to the idea that the Infinite is actual as a well-ordered system … having a generally triadic form and involving a type of cognition called interpretation” (19).2 Once a bifurcation between the “early” and the “later” Royce is introduced, the tendency is to identify Royce’s “Peircean moment” of 1912 as the decisive point of rupture between the “two Royces”—an incorrect view stemming from the inability to take a longer view of the Peirce-Royce relationship:But our recognition of the intense, constant and long term character of their exchange also eliminates the supposition that that Royce took a sudden turn in 1912. It is not a “Peircean turn” due to some late discovery, it was an insight about how to use Peirce’s theory of signs (which Royce had known for years) as a tool for the application of his (long held) triadic theory of community. … Peirce did not save Royce from absolutism or turn him in any fundamentally new direction.(17)Failure to grasp the integral unity of Royce’s thought results in a tendency to miss the ethical basis of his philosophy—“ethics as first philosophy.” Unlike Smith, and others, who err toward the side of viewing Royce’s philosophical project as an epistemological attempt at a conception of knowledge warranted in terms of ability to provide truth and certainty, “Royce’s method is a hypothetical ontology … not aimed primarily at securing certainty or knowledge, but rather at maintaining intellectual norms … that govern clear thinking and facilitate intelligent practice and action” (23). Royce’s hypothetical ontology underscores the religious dimension of experience because practical, faith-based postulates are recognized as unavoidably intertwined in the process of knowing. Living in a universe of postulates requires formulating ideals as if they were ontologically constitutive; and acting in accordance with these ideals in a way that validates their existence—while recognizing the fallibility and risk of the entire enterprise. Royce’s argument amounts to saying “[W]ell no, we don’t get more than postulates, but don... (shrink)

Since the late 1980s, the fetal origins of adult disease, from 2003 developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), has stimulated significant interest in and an efflorescence of research on the long-term effects of the intrauterine environment. From the start, this field has been interdisciplinary, using experimental animal, clinical and epidemiological tools. As the influence of DOHaD on public health and policy expanded, it has drawn criticism for reducing the complex social and physical world of early life to women’s reproductive (...) bodies as drivers of intergenerational ills. This paper explains this narrowing of focus in terms of a formative and consequential exchange between David Barker, the British epidemiologist whose work is credited with establishing the field, and the discipline of fetal physiology. We suggest that fetal physiologists were a crucial constituency of support for Barker’s hypothesis about early life origins of disease. Their collaborations with Barker helped secure and sustain the theory amid considerable controversy. The trajectory of DOHaD and its focus on the maternal body can be understood, we argue, as a consequence of this alliance, which brought together two distinct conceptualizations of the intrauterine environment, one from epidemiology and the other from fetal physiology. Along the way, we trace the histories of these conceptualizations, both of which were products of mid-to-late twentieth century British science, and show how Barker’s early emphasis on social and economic conditions was superseded by a narrower focus on physiological mechanisms acting upon the autonomous fetus. (shrink)

Normativity is assessed as we evaluate and compare the environmental reporting practices of a sample of French and Canadian companies through the lens of institutional legitimacy. More specifically, we examine how French and Canadian firms changed their reporting practices in reaction to the promulgation of laws and regulations in their respective countries, i.e., the NER and Grenelle II Acts in France, and National Instrument 51-102 and CSA Staff Notice NR 51-333, issued by the Canadian Securities Administrators. The firms’ voluntary (...) disclosures according to GRI guidelines are also investigated. Substantive legitimacy theory is used to explore the level of substantive disclosures provided by Canadian and French firms. The findings reveal that the French parliamentary regime is more successful than the Canadian stock exchange regulation in triggering environmental reporting, and that the GRI combined with local regimes prompts environmental disclosures. Notwithstanding the improvements in environmental reporting under all three regimes, a very low level of substantive disclosure is noted in both countries. (shrink)

The extraction of natural resources is a controversial business practice that has profound ethical and economic risk implications for both firms involved in extractive activities and society at large. In response to these implications, the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010 directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to create the first ever rules requiring annual corporate responsibility disclosures. The two proposed rules, requiring disclosure of the source of “conflict minerals” and of payments to foreign governments by extractive firms, conjured intense (...) debate among stakeholders, largely related to the risks of firms providing the information. These risks span from required disclosures increasing compliance costs for firms to non-disclosure threatening human rights. In this study, we seek to understand the way in which stakeholders perceive the risks associated with corporate responsibility disclosures. We analyze comment letters submitted to the SEC related to the two disclosure rules through the lens of Douglas’s cultural perspectives of risk. We find consistencies across the two proposed disclosures with regard to the presence of three risk perspectives within the comment letter discourse for each proposal. We find inconsistencies, however, in the underlying nature of risk perceived across the two rules, which we argue reveals an aspect of risk that incorporates ethicality and is ultimately linked to reputational considerations. We complement these insights by analyzing the market reaction to the proposed regulations. Overall, our analysis suggests that stakeholders’ perceptions of risk have consequences for how risk is perceived and acted upon in the market. (shrink)

The extent to which the scientific method has yielded to analysis in recent years serves only to emphasize by contrast the presence within that method of an irrational element. For it is becoming increasingly evident that whatever one may say of the logical and psychological character of the pre-inductive operations, of the formal processes involved in deducing the consequences of a given theory, of the technique of experimental corroboration, and of certain other aspects of the scientific method, there is one (...) phase of the movement which remains a surd. This is the act of the creative imagination through which hypotheses and theories are called into being. Its mysterious character is exhibited in the terminology which is employed in describing it, in the variety and inconstancy of the conditions which give rise to it, in the apparent impossibility of controlling it, and in the impossibility of recognizing completely the adequacy of its results when it does occur. It is variously described as an act of intuition, mystic revelation, divine insight, a flash of understanding; it arises out of the greatest variety of conditions: acute and prolonged attention to the data in the confinement of the laboratory, or the complete relaxation of a walk in the country, or the intense mental effort upon a problem in a wholly unrelated field; it forbids direction, in fact it seems to arise most readily when the element of effort and control is conspicuously absent; it cannot even be certainly identified, for many supposed acts of discovery prove later to have produced only groundless fancies and absurd creations of the unguided imagination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.3 (2000) 28-39 [Access article in PDF] Chateaubriand and the Politics of (Im)mortality Marie-hélène Huet In the twenty-sixth book of his Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Chateaubriand recounts his 1821 arrival at the French embassy in Berlin. He cites a flattering portrait of him written by the Baroness of Hohenhausen and published in the morning press on March 22: "M. de Chateaubriand is of a somewhat short, yet slender, stature. His (...) oval face has an expression of reverence and melancholy. He has black hair and black eyes that glow with the fire of his mind." 1 At this point, Chateaubriand flatly adds: "Mais j'ai les cheveux blancs; j'ai plus d'un siècle, en outre, je suis mort" ("But I have white hair; I am more than a century old, besides, I am dead") [2:39]. 2 Of course, those startling words, "en outre, je suis mort" do not refer to the year 1821, nor to the time Chateaubriand is writing this account. Rather, they refer to the time we, readers, turn to this specific page of the Mémoires: as you are reading this, Chateaubriand reminds us, I am dead. The words wrest us away from the event he is relating, his arrival in Berlin, to remind us in the most direct terms that our reading of these words necessarily entails the death of their author. Moreover, the French en outre brings us back to the very title of the Mémoires d'outre-tombe: outre-tombe, from beyond the grave.In 1836, Chateaubriand signed a contract with a society of shareholders: in exchange for an immediate payment of 156,000 francs and a life annuity, he sold "the literary ownership of his Mémoires as they existed and as they would exist at his death." 3 Commenting on this transaction, Maurice Levaillant notes: "With this agreement, Chateaubriand bought material security at the price of a concession that he never got over: instead of appearing after a period he had first prescribed as fifty years after his death, his Mémoires would suddenly appear, so to speak, live from his grave" [xv]. As Chateaubriand put it in his avant-propos, the publication would take place "as soon as my bell tolls!" [1:1].The contract for the Mémoires is described as a painful necessity: "No one can know how much I have suffered from having been required to mortgage my grave" [1:1]. The formula "mortgage my grave" is suggestive in that it metonymically shifts the object of economic exchange from the work being sold, that is, the Mémoires, to the grave, which Chateaubriand always associated with literary creation. Indeed, the association between memoirs and tomb that provides the title of the work is echoed and amplified by a constant relation within the text between the grave and the act of writing. [End Page 28]In the avant-propos, a few lines after lamenting the mortgaging of his grave, Chateaubriand also reports that he has secured an islet in the bay of Saint-Malo, the Grand-Bé, to serve as his burial site. 4 Proposing an arrangement rigorously parallel to the desired legal agreement for the Mémoires, he adds that, should he die outside of France: "I wish that my body not be brought back to my homeland until fifty years after an initial burial" [1:3]. A half-century of silent mourning seemed to be the ideal length of time for the public to wait before discovering, and possibly disturbing, both his mortal remains and his immortal work.Not that this intimate relationship between death and writing resulted from the specific circumstances of the Mémoires. Twenty years earlier, in the second preface to the Essai sur les Révolutions, Chateaubriand had already described himself as "a writer who believed he had reached the end of his life, and who, in the destitution of exile, had nowhere to write, but upon his own gravestone" [7]. The tomb stands for death, just as it stands for Chateaubriand's creative works. In an essay... (shrink)

Aristotle distinguishes three types of friendship: virtue or character friendship, advantage friendship, and pleasure friendship. He also holds that the civic relation is a friendship, but it is unclear to which of the three types it belongs. There appear to be two candidates. It is either a character friendship, or an advantage friendship. I argue that it cannot be a character friendship, since that would entail that citizens have active goodwill toward one another, and Aristotle claims that such goodwill can (...) exist only among a few relatively rare character friends. However, if the relation is not a character friendship, Aristotle’s claim that the city is more than alliance for security and exchange becomes puzzling. I argue that Aristotle’s view is that the civic friendship is a special type of advantage friendship in that one of its advantages is that it makes character friendships possible. This explains why rulers and citizens should want their fellows not only to act virtuously, but also to be virtuous. (shrink)

The corporate meltdowns of this and the previous decade in the US - WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, and in Australia - FAI, HIH and AWB being among the many examples - have resulted in the governments of those two countries introducing legislation and policy guidelines aimed at minimising future corporate misbehaviour. -/- The US has introduced the Sarbanes Oxley Act, with requirements on corporate accountants and auditors, as well as its whistleblowing provisions. It has revised the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations. (...) New rules for the NYSE and NASDAQ have also been introduced. In addition, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Justice have further strengthened the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977, last revised in 1997. -/- Australia has revised the Corporations Act to include whistleblower protection clauses as well as adopted the ASX Corporate Governance guidelines. Standards Australia has issued its handbook on corporate governance. Although not a business issue, the Australian government has also announced that it will introduce whistleblower protection legislation for the public sector by the end of its first term in office. This legislation will likely influence whatever the private sector does in this respect. The inclusion of whistleblower protection in both Sarbanes–Oxley and the Corporations Act reflects a growing body of research that finds that people internal to an organisation are the most effective way to identify corporate wrongs. The Commonwealth Treasury has recently issued an options paper, stating that the Corporations Act has been ineffectual. It has sought submissions on revisions to the legislation that the Australian Government could take. This paper examines the policies advocated by over 20 organisations and academics concerned with whistleblowing issues. It draws the conclusion that on current indications, even after further reform, Australian legislation and policies are still likely to be less effectual than overseas practices. -/- --------------------------------- . (shrink)

NEMO means Network Mobility which is the extension of Mipv6 and it is invented for accessing internet for the group of people when they are travelling in Vehicle as Network group. During handoff while exchanging Binding Updates between the Mobile Network Node, Correspondent Node and Home Agent, many security threats are present during those messages exchange. It may prone to several standard malicious attacks on the BU and Binding Acknowledgement. An efficient end-to-end security method is required to protect the (...) BU Exchange between MNN, HA and CN. In this paper, a secure architecture is proposed to provide authentication and confidentiality at each level of communication using a 3-Party Key Exchange called 3-PKE-NEMO with the help of Bilinear Pairing Theorem. Handoff delay is reduced without compromising security strength. The whole experimentation of this proposed work is carried out using NS2 simulation tool and authentication proof is given using BAN logic between all the nodes in NEMO. The proposed security architecture is compared with related existing solutions and found to be more secure. (shrink)

A battle is raging for the soul of America, and it is of critical interest to the survival of freedom world-wide. Our nation is surrendering its fundamental values of individual responsibility and self determination. Domestically we exchange our privacy and autonomy for the chimera of security; internationally we abdicate our ability to act in our national interest. Why are we squandering the precious jewels of the greatest political experiment in human history? What actions can thoughtful citizens take to protect (...) and regain their personal freedoms? This important collection of essays is supplemented by lengthy appendices containing the primary reference materials that underlie the author's bold assertions. Readers will fearlessly explore the modern plague of collectivism, especially as embodied by the United Nations; learn the true political, historical, and spiritual roots of the September 11th attacks; revisit the Waco massacre without averting their glance; witness the cynical manipulations of the civilian disarmament movement; and be invited to contemplate the role of transcendent values in the battle to preserve and maintain freedom. (shrink)

Socially responsible investors buy financial securities with two goals: to make a market-based return, and to make companies act in a more socially responsible way. Most research on socially responsible investment deals with investing in stocks traded on major exchanges. We add the case of loaning small amounts of funds to microentrepreneurs through a discussion of a particular case. The case is that of Calmeadow which, in conjunction with the Royal Bank of Canada, set up a microlending project in (...) rural Nova Scotia (Canada). Using Hirschman’s analysis of “exit” and “voice”, we show that while socially responsible investors may make market-based returns for their investments in stocks traded on major exchanges, they have no effect on corporate behaviour because their action consists of exit, and they are easily replaced by other investors. They attain their first goal but not their second. On the other hand, in the Calmeadow/Royal Bank of Canada case, we see that those who lend money to microenterprises can more easily use voice. The relative power difference between the lender and the microentrepreneur enables the lender to make the microentrepreneur act in a more socially responsible way, although only marginally. But because of the market imperfections existing in this case (the very high transactions costs associated with administering small loans), the lender concluded it could not attain a market rate of return. In this case, then, the lender attained its second goal but not its first. (shrink)

The positions that I would support in regard to the question whether philosophy has any relation to practice are as follows. In the first place, there are certain problems of modern civilization, and those amongst the most crucial, with which philosophy alone can deal. In the second place, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the present age will not be deaf to the voice of philosophy, if it can speak with sufficient clearness and power to secure a hearing. The (...) problems to which I refer do not belong to the sphere of science, in the strict modern sense. Science is triumphant in its own sphere, but it is not concerned primarily with the values of human existence, or the activity of the mind by which they are discovered, pursued, enjoyed. (shrink)

Sanctions such as those applied by the United Nations against Yugoslavia, or rather the actions of implementing and maintaining them, at the very least implicitly purport to have moral justification. While the rhetoric used to justify sanctions is clearly moralistic, even sanctions themselves, as worded, often include phrases indicating moral implication. On May 30, 1992, United Nation Security Council Resolution 757 imposed a universal, binding blockage on all trade and all scientific, cultural and sports exchanges with Serbia and Montenegro. In (...) addition to expressing the usual "concern' and "dismay" regarding various events, the language of this Resolution also includes, on three occasions, unmistakably moral language "deploring" failures in meeting the demands of earlier resolutions.' There is no question that sanctions have political, economic, military and trategic consequences for the sanctioned state, perhaps exactly as desired by the sanctioning party. However, the question raised in this essay is whether in addition to these consequences, sanctions also produce morally reprehensible consequences that undermine their often-cited moral justification. If so, international economic sanctions are an immoral means of achieving primarily political goals. Six morally significant consequences are: 1) The unethical, elevated susceptibility of the sanctioned to olitical (and other forms of) manipulation, 2) the inherent and unjust paternalism in the process of sanctioning, 3) the abandonment of strict moral criteria on virtually all levels of evaluation, primarily inside the sanctioned country, but also in sanctioning states best exhibited in the attitudes toward the sanctioned, 4) the general decline in moral consciousness, 5) the subsequent rise of many forms of violence within the sanctioned state in connection with the increase in lawlessness, and a general decline of expectations in all areas of life, and 6) the continual, arbitrary redefining of conditions for a final lifting of sanctions. In light of this moral phenomenology we shall argue that sanctions, lacking in moral justification, are simply a means for achieving the mentioned immoral goals. Furthermore, the argument will be that sanctions are a form of siege and, as such, an act of war, requiring the sort of justification that would be needed to justify a war. (shrink)

Plea bargains are the stock-in-trade of the modern American prosecutor’s office. The basic scenario, wherein a defendant agrees to plea guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence, is familiar to viewers of police procedurals. In an equally famous variation on the theme, the prosecutor requests something more than an admission of guilt: leniency will only be forthcoming if the defendant is willing to cooperate with the prosecutor in securing the conviction of another suspect. In some of these cases, the (...) defendant is a low-level criminal who has information on a high-level malefactor who is of more interest to the police. In others, the defendant and the person she is asked to testify against are of the same criminal rank, but evidentiary weaknesses induce the prosecutor to seek the aid of one suspect in order to convict the other. In this latter version, the classic tactic of film detectives is to offer the bargain to both defendants in the hopes that one will crack and agree to reveal what he knows about the other. The defendants could either be in custody for different crimes or be accomplices in the same offense. -/- The last variation (involving accomplices) is the subject of this Article. I take issue with the prosecutorial tactics in these cases because of the risk they create of punishing the comparatively virtuous person more than the comparatively vicious one for the same acts. As I will argue, it is the less honest person who is more likely to accept the prosecutor’s deal, leading the more honest person, who resisted temptation, to suffer greater penalties. -/- I contend that this scenario offends distributive justice, runs counter to the idea (accepted by some) that a proper goal of the state is the cultivation of good character in the citizenry, and is perverse insofar as a person will suffer more from the prosecutor's dilemma insofar as she is more or less a person of conscience. These negative considerations notwithstanding, I do not call for the abolition of accomplice plea bargaining but argue that the problems I raise should be considered when weighing its pros and cons. -/- This article was published in the company of a strong critical response by Guha Krishnamurthi, whose contribution I greatly appreciate. (shrink)

This series of articles systematizes the events of settlement and economic development of vast spaces of North America, Australia, South Africa and North Asia, which are related to the movement of gold and diamond hunters. A chronological survey of the events is offered, the general phenomenon analyzed as well as specific aspects of its historical, mining, geological and organizational constituents covered. The material is divided into three separate but thematically united parts which describe the phenomenon of gold rush-spontaneous large-scale gold (...) mining at newly discovered deposits in remote parts of the world in the second half of the 19th century - the early 20th century. The impact of gold rushes in North America and Australia on the processes of global economic and financial transformations is shown. Large outputs resulted in setting a monetary gold standard which had been in place up to World War I: a wide turnover of gold coins, displacement of silver which began to act as token money as well as free exchange of paper money for gold coins. The above contributed to a sustainable development of world money relations which gave rise to a global financial system in the modern sense; a significant banks' influence on economic transformations as well as establishment of international centers for financial capital. Huge gold reserves were purposefully accumulated in the USA which, extracting an ample quantity of gold in its territory, bought up a considerable part of the world gold output, which eventually secured the key status of the American currency in world trade. Extracted gold played a key role in provision of financial resources for large-scale industrial development of the industrial epoch. Numerous migrations of working people from gold mining sites promoted the development and settlement of remote territories as well as the utilization of their natural resources in the global economic development. (shrink)

This series of articles systematizes the events of settlement and economic development of vast spaces of North America, Australia, South Africa and North Asia, which are related to the movement of gold and diamond hunters. A chronological survey of the events is offered, the general phenomenon analyzed as well as specific aspects of its historical, mining, geological and organizational constituents covered. The material is divided into three separate but thematically united parts which describe the phenomenon of gold rush-spontaneous large-scale gold (...) mining at newly discovered deposits in remote parts of the world in the second half of the 19th century - the early 20th century. The impact of gold rushes in North America and Australia on the processes of global economic and financial transformations is shown. Large outputs resulted in setting a monetary gold standard which had been in place up to World War I: a wide turnover of gold coins, displacement of silver which began to act as token money as well as free exchange of paper money for gold coins. The above contributed to a sustainable development of world money relations which gave rise to a global financial system in the modern sense; a significant banks' influence on economic transformations as well as establishment of international centers for financial capital. Huge gold reserves were purposefully accumulated in the USA which, extracting an ample quantity of gold in its territory, bought up a considerable part of the world gold output, which eventually secured the key status of the American currency in world trade. Extracted gold played a key role in provision of financial resources for large-scale industrial development of the industrial epoch. Numerous migrations of working people from gold mining sites promoted the development and settlement of remote territories as well as the utilization of their natural resources in the global economic development. In the proposed third part, the authors cover events in North Asia - in the Urals and Siberia. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders. Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, (...) and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources. (shrink)

Since 2010, Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act has required the Securities and Exchange Commission to give a significant financial reward to any whistleblower who voluntarily discloses original information concerning fraud or other unlawful activity. How, if at all, might such “incentives” change our understanding of whistleblowing? My answer is that, while incentives should not change the definition of whistleblowing, it should change our understanding of the justification of whistleblowing. We need to distinguish the public justification of whistleblowing, (...) its public defense, from its personal justification, the defense the whistleblower should be able to present to conscience. Motive is relevant only to the personal justification—but, since motive is relevant to that, statutes should be written so as not to interfere with personal justification, for example, by offering incentives when compensation would do. Though the paper’s focus is Section 922, its argument and conclusions are quite general. (shrink)

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has gained significant popularity in recent years across borders due to the increased investigation and penalties under the law. The following case is a real-life case that highlights the main provisions of the FCPA. Using cases in teaching an auditing or ethics course is much needed to develop students’ professional judgment, critical and analytical thinking skills and communication skills. Presently, there are a few cases that address the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its effect (...) on financial reporting and auditor responsibilities about illegal acts. The Armor Holdings case is interesting and information is publicly available regarding the circumstances that describe the bribery act, lack of whistle-blower protection, the tone at the top, and the accounting treatment. In addition, the increase in actions brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the FCPA since 2010 heightens the relevance of this case and underscores the need for students to learn the skills necessary to ensure compliance with FCPA and related key regulations such as the Sarbanes Oxley and the Dodd Frank Act. Therefore, cases like this one provide a rich tool to navigate topics and enforce students’ learning of client’s illegal actions and their consequences. These skills are invaluable in practice. (shrink)

The object of this thesis is the examination of the concept of political representation in the corpus of Hobbes, Locke, Hegel and Marx. Through the method of textualreconstruction I foreground the concept’s salience in their writings. Political representation constitutes a unitary political society as the basis of representative government by entrusting to a separate part of the political community the exercise of the legislative and executive functions on behalf of the political society. Hobbes’s author-actor model grounded the concept of political (...) representation by introducing the act of the transfer of will to a representative by authorisation. Thereby he established the problematic relationship of permanently alienated, absolute, representative power acting in the name of the political community. Locke conceptualised political representation in a way that restored to political society the power to determine the legitimacy of its representative government in case the latter transgressed the norm of acting for the public good of society. Hegel, in turn, assigned to political representation the crucial function of integrating civil society into the power system of the state thus securing the identity of subjective and objective freedom in the rational state, though political representation bestows only formal freedom to civil society’s involvement in the affairs of the state. For Marx, the relationship of political representation makes the representative polity appear as a democratically governed political society within which individual freedom and the public good are secured. This is vitiated by the rift between political society/state and civil society. Marx censures liberal and republican theory for ignoring the primacy of civil/bourgeois society over the representative political society. As a consequence,he argues,the representative polity is not a form of self-government but other-determined and neither freedom nor the public good are realised. Instead, under the regime of private property, money assumes the authorial function of organising social exchange and human relations, shaping the representative polity after its own image, and thus it renders democracy as popular sovereignty a lie. (shrink)

According to Islamic Law, it is possible to authorize more than one attorney for a job to perform a task. However, there are various situations and opinions about acts of attorneys independent of each other. When those attorneys are appointed with separate contracts, they can act separately to perform the task of the power of attorney subject. Attorneys assigned under the same contract must act together as a rule. The client can grant the attorneys permission to act independently. According to (...) the Ḥanafīs, attorneys can act separately in situations where both attorneys’ views are not needed. Views of both attorneys are needed in cases such as divorce without in exchange for payment, contract of mandate, delivery of a grant of which itself and grantee is specific, usurped goods, return of the sold goods in void contracts and payments of client’s debts. Joint-performance of such incidents is necessary in order not to effect the result or to secure the client. Regarding attorneydom, it is performed by one attorney to avoid confusion on trial even if it is one of the situations in which views of all attorneys are required. General principles related to the subject are stated as per above in Islamic Law sources. Yet, all possibilities about separate or joint performance of power of attorneys appointed together in the same contract are not mentioned. In this article, views of Islamic schools of law will be presented on appointment of more than one attorney for a disposition and related principles within the Islamic Law are tried to be determined. (shrink)

Aristotle distinguishes three types of friendship: virtue or character friendship, advantage friendship, and pleasure friendship. He also holds that the civic relation is a friendship, but it is unclear to which of the three types it belongs. There appear to be two candidates. It is either a character friendship, or an advantage friendship. I argue that it cannot be a character friendship, since that would entail that citizens have active goodwill toward one another, and Aristotle claims that such goodwill can (...) exist only among a few relatively rare character friends. However, if the relation is not a character friendship, Aristotle’s claim that the city is more than alliance for security and exchange becomes puzzling. I argue that Aristotle’s view is that the civic friendship is a special type of advantage friendship in that one of its advantages is that it makes character friendships possible. This explains why rulers and citizens should want their fellows not only to act virtuously, but also to be virtuous. (shrink)

This essay studies Genesis 12:10–13:2 with a literary close reading approach that takes seriously the text’s literary, historical and theological constituent elements. After a brief history of interpretation, it situates the narrative in its historical context, which is followed with a narrative critical reading of the text. The analysis of the text unveils the dissimulations of Abram, who manipulated his wife, Sarai, into thinking her beauty posed a threat to him, while his primary motive rested with the pursuit of economic (...) gain in the face of the severe famine that had impoverished him in Canaan. Abram also succeeded in making Pharaoh believe that Sarai was his sister, on which account he exchanged her for material again. This analysis affords insight into the insecurity, anxiety, feelings of alterity of immigrant populations in their liminal conditions, the mistrust of immigrants by the state and host communities, and the ensuing power play with its concomitant perils. Through these, the passage speaks anew to contemporary communities of faith in view of the prevalent and ever-increasing migratory trends of the 21st century. (shrink)

The generally accepted interpretation of Kant's formula “act only on that maxim which thou canst at the same time will to be a universal law,” is roughly as follows:— Our moral experience is fundamentally a consciousness of the difference between Duty and Inclination, between "doing what we ought to whether we like to or not, and doing merely what we like whether we ought to or not."1 When we have open to our choice different acts, there are some which we (...) would like to do, others we would not like to do, and perhaps others towards which we are indifferent; or we like to do any one of them, or we may dislike all, or we may be indifferent to all. But we must ignore our inclinations, our aversions, our attractions, and our indifferences. We must ask ourselves which of the acts open to our choice ought we to do, no matter what our feelings in the matter may be. (shrink)

This article examines the pressures and players that have shaped business ethics in Canadian corporations, and reports on the status of Canadian corporate social performance in 1995. Business in Canada has not been subject, up to 1996, to a powerful national institutional framework such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Consequently, business ethics in Canada have developed primarily in response to broader socio-political and socio-economic factors than in the US, and will (...) probably continue to do so. Interestingly, the issues, policies and practices developed in Canada may provide insights for US corporations as they respond to broadened pressures. Business ethics in Canada, on the other hand, will benefit increasingly from the US experience as pressures grow for national regulation and statutes governing corruption. (shrink)

The traditional divide between nature and culture restricts to the latter the use of information. Biosemiotics claims instead that the divide between nature and culture is a mere subdivision within the living world but that semiosis is the specific feature which distinguishes the living from the inanimate. The present paper is intended to reformulate this basic tenet in information-theoretic terms, to support it using information-theoretic arguments, and to show that its consequences match reality. It first proposes a ‘receiver-oriented’ interpretation of (...) semiosis. This interpretation implies that the means for recording, storing and processing information exclusively reside in the living world (extended so as to include the artefacts it produces). Then it may be argued that the main difference between the inanimate world and the living one lies in the fact that the very existence of the latter relies on information, which on the contrary is not relevant to the former. Thus, besides matter and energy, information is an entity irreducible to them which must be taken into account in any attempt for describing and understanding life. Information can interact with the real world only provided it is borne by some physical support: it must be ‘physically inscribed’. Contrary to matter and energy, information can be shared, not necessarily exchanged, so a same information can be borne by a number of distinct supports. Any living thing possesses means for recording, storing and processing information which are necessary for keeping it alive and securing its progeny. In particular, its genome contains hereditary information, can be replicated, and instructs the construction and maintenance of a phenotype. The simultaneous existence of a phenotype and of a genome, where the latter bears the symbolic description of the former, is mandatory for enabling the self-reproduction of an organism. Bearing and using information then endows a living thing with the ability to decrease the physical entropy, hence to act as Maxwell’s demon. Not only its own life is maintained against physical entropy, but its self-reproduction multiplies clones of the demon. Taking information as the entity which differentiates the living from the inanimate also supports Rovelli’s ‘relational’ interpretation of quantum physics. Experimental apparatuses then appear as information-theoretic channels from the inanimate world to a living observer. Besides having its own perspective (as stated by Rovelli), each of these channels has its own horizon because its capacity is necessarily finite. As another consequence, we may assert that the physicists’ quest of a ‘theory of everything’ is doomed to failure since, for lack of considering information as a relevant entity, physicists deny the living world, hence themselves. (shrink)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently proposed rules relating to shareholder (independent) director nominations to publicly-traded companies. While shareholder groups, such as institutional investors, consumer groups, and shareholder activists, generally support the proxy reform, the business community, including The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce, are critical of the proposal, arguing that it will 'open the door' to special interest directors, e.g., labour unions or other groups having a social or political agenda contrary to the (...) economic interests of the shareholder owners of the corporation. An analysis of the proposed rules, however, show that the mechanisms offered to nominate and elect independent directors offer little or no threat of any shareholder group placing special interest directors on the board of a publicly-traded company in the USA. The article concludes with a recommended managerial course of action for executives and boards to follow in the unlikely event that shareholders are seriously threatening to place a special interest director(s) on the proxy ballot. (shrink)

This article examines regulation’s understanding of technology in American financial markets as means for rethinking the contours and institutional limits of governance in the age of financialization. The article identifies how the Securities and Exchange Commission perceived markets and their conceptual relation to technology throughout much of the long twentieth century by distilling the “ontologies” expressed by the agency’s leadership. Despite the fact that SEC’s commissioners recognized technologies as playing a central role in the market’s current and future (...) operations, these were never effectively brought under regulatory scrutiny even when such action fell under the commission's jurisdictional remit. Rather than regulating technologies as constitutive of markets, the governance of the material devices of finance was discursively kept at arm's-length by presenting them as intractable objects that were external to financial innovation. Triangulating across several techniques of computational text analysis, this article shows how this interpretation of technology mirrored distinct shifts in how regulators understood markets, from being physical trading sites populated by agents that required vetting and certification to a distributed, multi-sited system surveilled through transparency and disclosure. Throughout these ontological transitions, technology’s inscrutability remained, limiting the capacity of the state and its regulatory agencies to shape the evolution of finance and its underlying infrastructures. (shrink)

A mutual fund family incubates a fund when it creates a privately subsidized fund not available to the general investing public. It destroys unsuccessful incubator funds. The few successful funds will report higher incubation returns than the market return in advertisements intended to attract money from individual investors. This practice is currently allowed by the SEC. The evidence is that incubation returns are not a good predictor of subsequent fund performance and likely serve to mislead unsuspecting investors.

The act of exchanging one thing for another seems to involve a promise. The confidence needed to relinquish something one has on the understanding that one will receive what another has in exchange can be expressed in terms of resolve. In binding oneself, one thinks that if the other binds himself or herself to perform a given action, then he or she will do that action. In cases in which one person's action does not precede the other's, one's promise (...) involves thinking that if the other binds himself or herself, then he or she will carry out the promised action. (shrink)