JSE Chairman, Mr. Allan Lewis was the Guest Speaker at the JSE’s e-Campus Graduation Ceremony on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. Please see his presentation below:
Address to the Graduates of JSE E-Campus
It is with respect and admiration that I heartily congratulate you the graduates of the Jamaica Stock Exchange’s E-Campus diploma course. My respect is heightened because all of you have been able to satisfy the rigorous requirements of the diploma programme while working full time and meeting your professional responsibilities and taking care of your family commitments. At the same time, my admiration is underpinned by envy because you have been doing something that I wish I could spend all my time doing and that is to enhance my skills by gaining new knowledge and information.
As I congratulate you I hope you appreciate that rather than thinking you have become more educated having acquired these new skills and techniques, one must be aware that many of the dogmas today may be rendered obsolete in a short time. It was only a few years ago that one of the bedrock and unambiguous theorems of economics was the assertion that “man and woman always acted rationally” but that notion has now been clarified and only has currency to help students learn the models of mathematical economics. The empirical evidence is clear, we do not base all our decisions on the outcome that provides the maximum utility or benefit as my economics textbooks asserted.
The concept of remaining sober as we become more educated has been highlighted by thinkers and writers who are much more eloquent than I could ever be. G. K. Chesterton wrote “The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.” Will Durant conjured up this gem “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” Sir George Savile is reported to have written “Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught”. My final quotation in this vain is from Mark Twain who wrote “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned”.
How do we reconcile my sincere congratulations; utmost respect, and deep admiration with the ideas inherent in the aforementioned quotations? I would suggest that a common theme is the notion that education is much more than the assimilation of concepts and formulae. I believe that education should be viewed more as a continual process; a constant search to make connections among apparently unconnected concepts.
So once again I will employ the thoughts of more eloquent men and women. In this case, Anatole France who wrote “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.”
One well known example of a successful business product and model being derived from a number of apparently unconnected inventions is the photocopier made famous by the US Corporation Xerox. John Brooks in the book “Business Adventures” describes the story of xerography. The first machine that was able to duplicate written pages was actually developed for sale in 1887 by the Chicago based A B Dick and Company and there were numerous other companies using different designs and technologies until the late 1950’s when xerography technology was developed and introduced by the Xerox Corporation transforming the company. The Company was not among the Fortune 500 in 1961 but by 1967 it was the 126th largest public corporation in the United States.
I tell this story because the scientists at Xerox did not invent any of the 5 basic technologies required: sensitizing a photoconductive surface to light by giving it an electrostatic charge; exposing this surface to a written page to form an electrostatic image; developing the latent image by dusting the surface with a powder that will adhere only to the charged areas; transferring the image to some sort of paper; and fixing the image by the application of heat. These steps were well known among scientists and inventors in conjunction with other processes but were entirely new in combination.
Yes the scientists at Xerox were able to create an innovative product and service that we now take for granted. But there is another takeaway from the story of the Xerox Corporation; specifically, it is unlikely to have occurred in the absence of the New York Stock Exchange. Yes the “grandfather” company of the Xerox Corporation was a private company called the Haloid Company formed in 1906. However it was not long before the original founders attracted new investors. The shares of the Haloid Company were first traded “over the counter” before being listed on the NYSE in 1961. It is the intersection of business inventions and innovations and a recognized securities exchange where women and men can safely, conveniently and transparently raise capital and buy and sell shares that provides a catalyst for economic development.
We at the Jamaica Stock Exchange and its subsidiary companies have a purpose that we believe is of significant importance. We are contributing to the growth and development of Jamaica, by facilitating the mobilization, exchange and expansion of capital. We promise investors that by buying and selling stocks and other listed securities through the JSE they will increase the likelihood of improving their financial security; We promise the securities dealers and brokers scope to increase the wealth of their shareholders and clients; we promise the companies that have securities listed on the JSE opportunities to expnd their businesses through easier access to the capital required to fund growth; We promise our team members at the JSE more chances for personal and professional development as they contribute to the performance of the JSE and the growth and development of their country.
I suggest that what makes your accomplishment so important; and so worthy of recall and recognition is that you are associated with this noble objective of helping to transform our nation from one that is struggling to grow, into a country that is steadily developing. A country where it is evident, that every year a significant and noticeable number of Jamaicans are able to improve the quality of their lives through their own enterprise and initiative.
We all desire a nation where more and more persons feel safe and secure whether in their private homes or public spaces. We all dream of Jamaica providing increasing numbers of children with quality education that will provide them with the tools to transform their own lives. We all look forward to a time when Jamaicans receive quality health services whether suffering from well-known chronic illnesses such as diabetes, or dangerous viruses such as Chikungunya or Ebola.
I maintain that the Jamaica Stock Exchange is one of the important institutions in the country. Institutions require professionals to properly execute their purposes and roles. Tonight we celebrate as you, the members of the E-Campuses most recent group of graduates are now better prepared to execute the various roles required for the JSE to achieve even more during the upcoming years.
I
must confess that these ideas are not my own. The importance of the Jamaica Stock Exchange as an institution is also recognized by the great modern thinker Frances Fukuyama who, in his most recent work “Political Order and Political Decay”, lists three conditions that are necessary but not sufficient for economic development. He asserts that the building blocks for sustained economic development are: (1) a strong state; (2) the rule of law; and (3) democratic accountability. By facilitating economic development; the JSE supports these necessary conditions by providing Jamaican citizens – through tax revenues – with the resources to fund the activities most efficiently provided by the state. Specifically, the law enforcement and justice systems that are required for the desired type of political economy more akin to Denmark’s rather than what obtains here today.
However I must warn you the graduates who we honour tonight that you have the weight of great responsibility on your shoulders. The stock exchange will only be successful in providing a desired public good if it is seen as ethical, transparent and secure. Consequently you will be expected to conduct yourselves with integrity and according to the ethical standards of your professions. This means always putting the interests of your clients first; eschewing the temptation of unfair and unlawful practices such as insider trading, or dumping securities in the accounts of less sophisticated investors; and finally, never trading primarily to generate fees and commissions. Even in the absence of legislation I hope you will be seized with the fact that your self interest will be better served by employing the principle enunciated in Proverbs 11(24) “Give freely and become more wealthy; Be stingy and lose everything”.
Perhaps that is the real evidence of a well-educated society. When we learn the lesson that we will all be better off if we put the interests of others ahead of our own. When we behave according to the suggestion of the Chinese scholar Chuang-Tzu who said “To have enough is good luck; to have more than enough is harmful. This is true of all things but especially of money”.
My intention tonight has not been to supply you with advice. Instead I hope to have conveyed my own beliefs for you to ponder and critique. Please accept my sincere gratitude at having been invited to this function celebrating your worthy achievements, and what is more, I look forward to sharing many more of your successes in the months and years to come.
Thank you and God bless you all.
