BusinessBusiness
Bloody Bling
Where do the diamonds of the nouveau riche actually come from? A significant chunk these days probably originates in Marange, Zimbabwe – By Bartholomäus Grill and Ray Ndlovu
The Kimberley Process aims to end trade in conflict diamonds. But it doesn’t address cases like Zimbabwe, where the government has brutally seized control of the burgeoning diamond industry.
Back to Marange? “No, never again!” says Farai Chikumira. “I’m happy to still be alive.” The young man had survived the diamond fever of June 2006 in Marange when villagers found the first sparkling stones. In no time at all, 15,000 poor fortune hunters flocked to the region. Chikumira was one of them. He had come to this new El Dorado equipped with a shovel, pick ax and screen. He wanted to get rich quick – but his dream almost became his downfall.
Chikumira is a pseudonym, used out of fear of informers working for the regime. When we meet at a diner in the provincial town of Gweru, he always has a wary eye on the other patrons while talking about the murderous rivalry between the prospectors, the criminal syndicates and the terror by the security forces. “The worst was the dogs they set on us,” he said.
Don’t play with our food
Speculators unfairly push up prices on commodities markets – By Heike Holdinghausen
A World Bank study has concluded that speculation was largely responsible for the food price explosion in 2008. The drama on the markets and streets obscured the structural imbalance that keeps a billion people in the world hungry.
Who could forget the images from spring 2008? People brawled over bread in front of bakeries in Cairo. In Bangladesh, it took the military government to suppress protests after rice prices suddenly skyrocketed. The government in Haiti was dismissed after soaring grain prices sparked food riots. A recently published study by the World Bank has found that speculation on financial markets played a significant role in the 2008 commodities crisis.
Things are looking up (for now)
Germany reports encouraging figures but what if… – By Uwe Jean Heuser
The economy is growing and even consumer spending has turned a corner. Yet the underlying dangers remain. Banks are uncontrolled and unstable, and foreign markets anything but robust.
As late as April, the German government was forecasting 1.4 percent GDP growth for this year. At the time, that seemed optimistic. In the fall, when the government’s next official forecast is due, those numbers may more than double. Germany’s economic output could expand by 3 percent. Carmakers, machine builders, you name it – many industrial firms are producing full tilt again, needing every pair of hands they can find, and are glad they kept most of their staff on.
Caught between rich and poor
The middle class in Germany is in decline – By Ulrike Herrmann
The number of full-time workers paying into the social security system in Germany has been dropping for years. In 2008, it accounted for only 22.4 million of the 40.3 million-strong labor force.
Thomas Greiner, a geologist with a doctorate, has never had a long-term job. He is now 45 years old, and still living from project to project. A two-year post at a research institute in Berlin has just come to an end. Now he is hoping to get a job substituting for a junior professor on sick leave for the next three months.
Greiner has been forced to accept the ups and downs of his employment situation. “At least I can usually get up in the morning when I want to,” he said. He is not the only German who has had to come to terms with an uncertain working life. The number of full-time workers contributing to the social security system is experiencing a steady decline.
Almost half of the labor force in Germany is eking out a living with part-time jobs, or running a small business. Many of them want to work more. The Federal Statistical Office recently announced that around 8.6 million are under-employed. But only around three million show up in the official unemployment statistics.
Fiercely discounting
Dirk Rossmann’s trade secret is quality brands cheap – By Hannes Koch
Dirk Rossmann loves books. For years, he has probably spent more time reading than he has keeping up to date with his company’s fortunes. He is currently reading four different titles simultaneously, one of them a biography of German poet Theodor Fontane. “Achieving composure is the beginning of being effective,” he said.
Rossmann says he has never written an email. His employees deal with modern forms of communication and present them to him in paper form. There is no computer on his desk. He doesn’t wear a watch. For the interview, Rossman – sporting an oval pair of glasses and a grayish-white three-day beard – sits in a corner of his office on a sofa with large, comfortable pillows. Rossmann, 63, wears a white shirt and no tie; from time to time he asks his press spokesman what time it is.
Rossmann’s outer calm stands in stark contrast to the daily battles raging in the drugstore business. The company plans to open four new stores a week this year. “What we’re experiencing here is a war between systems,” he said.
His two biggest competitors, the drugstore chains Schlecker and dm, have come under sustained attack. If they perform well in one shopping area, he will open a store there. The two market leaders do the same to his company – the third largest in the sector. He says he sometimes feels a bit uneasy considering the excesses of global capitalism. But when it comes to his own company, his vision is clear: “Growth is absolutely necessary. We have to grow against our competitors.”