Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" 666
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"
John Smith would be proud. (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:1, Insightful)
a) be poor and out of work ... watching the rich pirates having a good life (who are sharing a little of their money to the locals)
a) die on a overfilled boat to Europe / get sent back if you manage to get there.
c) become a pirate
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:there's one born every minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:there's one born every minute (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:5, Insightful)
Its honestly the other way round. Somalia is a failed state, a pure anarchy, and has been that way for a long time. Many of these pirates are teens that have never known what its like to have a government and are desperately poor and close to starving. Its cheaper for them to buy an AK-47 than to buy a meal. The area is in a terrible famine and drought, farming is not sustainable. The fishing grounds have been bleed dry as they were the only productive food source for a time. They have a choice of joining the islamists as suicide bombers, the genocidal warlords as child soldiers or becoming a pirate.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:4, Insightful)
This is unregulated laissez faire capitalism at its finest. I'm so proud, little Somolia is growing up.
Wrong. There is partial regulation.
In a truly unregulated market the vessels losing millions of dollars would instead pay millions of dollars to have all of the pirates killed.
But they cannot do that because they are regulated.
This is nothing more than an example of uneven regulation (which is usually a sign of corruption, I'm looking at you united nations).
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually "pirate" is probably a misnomer - these guys are the Somalian navy. Did it ever cross your mind that it's a little odd for Spanish fishing boats to be off the coast of Somalia, in Somalian waters? The collapse of the Somalian government triggered a "free-for-all" attitude among more disreputable seagoing firms, and the Somali fishermen were suddenly being crowded out of Somali waters by huge foreign firms, many of whom used dangerous and (in other places) illegal tactics to push out the locals. ("Hey, what are you gonna do, call the Somali police on us? Ha!") There have also been a number of vessels dumping wastes in Somali waters, resulting in pollution of beaches in spots along the coastline.
Piracy in this case might better be called privateering - a sort of privately run military aimed at safeguard local fishing rights against theft and prevent encroachment on Somali territory. And if some innocent foreign vessels passing nearby get looted, well, that's just hard luck.
Piracy has never been rare, and usually when there is a government, it winks and nods rather than acting against it. (Queen Elizabeth I was rumored to have made a great fortune through her country's pirates) The Somali "pirates" are primarily condemned so strongly because no government has their backs.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:3, Insightful)
I read it as an implied attack on anarcho-capitalism, which is not the United States' economic model.
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:2, Insightful)
In a truly unregulated market the vessels losing millions of dollars would instead pay millions of dollars to have all of the pirates killed.
It could be that it is cheaper just to wear the occasional losses.
Tomorrow: Somali pirate SEC. (Score:4, Insightful)
To crack down on insider trading and other white collar crime.
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference in attitude comes from four things: First, the pirates who are primarily romanticized are pirates from European countries. Since the people doing the romanticization are Westerners this makes them more appealing since they potentially share more (geographicaly, culturally, ethnically etc.) Notice how Americans don't romanticize the Barbary pirates. Second, Somalia in particular has a history of problems interacting with the United States (remember the battle of Mogadishu?) and so the attitude their carries over directly to anything Americans hear anything connected to Somalia. Third, the current piracy more directly impacts our society's well-being. It is much harder to romanticize people when they are taking your goods and capturing people who are alive and have family to tell their stories and hardships to the media. This is directly related to the fourth point, romanticization is much easier when it is something that happened a long time ago. In that regard it is similar to humor (joking about the Inquisition, ok but potentially tasteless. Joking about the Holocaust. You need to be careful. Joking about 9/11? Yeah, that's going to be hard to pull off).
All of that said, I don't think people really romanticize historical pirates that much. Most of it is deliberately silly. Look at all the Ninja v. Pirate junk. The closest one has to genuine romaniticization are the Pirates of the Caribbean movies but those were a) Disney movies and b) utterly ridiculous (heck, the so called pirates did very little actual pirating unless they were clearly the bad guys).
Re:Anarcho-capitalism? (Score:3, Insightful)
As another person pointed out, its not free market capitalism at work, since the people the pirates are preying upon are not free to spend a few million on some guns themselves.
Its a breakdown in the UN sure enough.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:1, Insightful)
Out of curiosity, does anyone know why these ships aren't arming themselves?
The only reason piracy is profitable is because freighters don't fight back. If all the ships worth hijacking moving through the area had a single M2 Browning, piracy would pretty much end. It's got a range beyond any RPG, it fires fast enough that anybody could hit a target with it and even if they miss, the sound will deafen the Somalis.
Am I missing something?
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:3, Insightful)
They are taking control of their own destiny's. They aren't choosing the option you would like them to take but so what? Why would they want to try and revolt against powerful warlords when they have the much safer and more lucrative option of raiding ships?
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:1, Insightful)
Most governments refuse to allow armed men on ships flying their flag (or without other requirements on such ships) and many governments do not permit armed, foreign flagged ships into their ports. Frankly, I think paying extra fees for the right to be armed would be worth it, but it appears most shipping lines have not reached that conclusion.
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, those cargo and tanker ships are a real threat to the fishing...
If their gripe is with foreign ships fishing in their waters they should be going after the frakking fishing ships, not the merchant ships well outside their territorial waters.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't they turn all of those AK-47s and RPGs on the warlords?
Would you turn them on yourself?!?
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2, Insightful)
Blindly throwing arms into an armed conflict rarelly solves it.
Arming commercial shipping is not blindly doing anything. Arming the "good guys" is a good tactic against the armed "bad guys". It seems the few ships in the area were able to repel pirate attacks. The only successful pirate attacks were on unarmed vessels. It would seem that, despite your claim, arming commercial shipping does solve the problem.
What color is the sky in your world?
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, "research" as in "wired to the fucking gills with observing devices" to spy on our nation's owner -- the Chinese. No wonder the Yellow Peril would deny us.
Re:Several Reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Because insurance is cheap. Probably cheaper than your idea.
Yes, it endangers the people on the ship, but... well, sailors are even cheaper.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2, Insightful)
Arming the "good guys" is a good tactic against the armed "bad guys" ... What color is the sky in your world?
Good guys/Bad guys thinking is *exactly* the kind of thing that fuels conflicts in this world. Everyone is just convinced to belong to the good guys ... that includes you too!
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad guys are the ones that *initiate* the use of force in getting what they want.
Cowardly scumbags on the other hand, is a label I save for moral relativists.
Re:just bomb them (Score:3, Insightful)
Certain cargoes could be worse than others. Imagine pirates sinking a super-tanker carrying two million barrels of crude. Not only would it be an ecological disaster that might be impossible to clean, but it would also spike the world oil markets because they'd get jittery. Remember that two million barrels is a tenth of the US daily consumption, and about 2.5% of the world daily consumption. It's not a lot over a year, but the threat that it could happen to other super-tankers would send some panic through the markets.
Re:Similar to the origin of corporate structures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is the world so soft on pirates? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why isn't this done?"
Maybe Panama doesn't have an aircraft carrier? If you want to go with a flag of convenience, looks like you have to put up with a navy of convenience.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:1, Insightful)
This is unregulated laissez faire capitalism at its finest.
Don't be absurd. In laissez faire capitalism the shipping companies would be free to arm their vessels and hire guards to protect themselves from predation. Due to current international treaties, they cannot do this, thus creating an extremely uneven playing field. What this is instead, is A) Yet another example of the fallacy of unilateral disarmament. B) Yet another example of the fallacy of entrusting the defense of your life, liberty and property to the state. Think of it as a school that will suspend you for fighting should you choose to defend yourself against the bully who wants your lunch money.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a brief read of the article about the Dutch East India Company makes me wonder just how different the two really are.
Somalia doesn't really have a functional government.
Somali pirates are operating in a power vaccuum and will go away once it gets filled.
OTOH, the Dutch East India Company was effectively a legally recognized government.
They had the power to raise armies, sign treaties, invade & depose governments, etc.
It's not just a matter of "how long you've been around".
If you don't see the difference then you're being willfully blind.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be that it is cheaper just to wear the occasional losses.
Of course it is cheaper. The shipping companies take out insurance for this situation, and the pirates are careful to keep their demands high enough to make a profit, but low enough that they don't scare the ships away, or force the ships to take a different route or escalate the situation into an armed conflict with the west. It is a straight business decision.
NPR's Planet Money blog did a good podcast a while ago about how the pirating business operates.
--
Simon
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:3, Insightful)
...those were a) Disney movies and b) utterly ridiculous
don't be reduntant.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:3, Insightful)
lie-bertarians
Tell us how you really feel.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't the warlords who destroyed their country and turned it into a failed state deserve some (most?) of the blame for that? If they still had a functioning state they would have a Coast Guard and the ability to regulate their waters. Why don't they turn all of those AK-47s and RPGs on the warlords?
It's a matter of willingness to kill. Sure, to well-fed, comfortable, hypocritical activists, us westerners might look like the evil scourge of the planet in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, factory-ship fishing, and industrial waste. But to some poor 18-year-old Somali guy with an AK-47, we're a much friendlier, nicer target than the local warlord. If he shoots at us, we'll try and talk it through with him and he may even get some cash out of the deal. The aforementioned warlord will just have some 9-year-old kid shoot him in the face the moment it looks like he's even thinking about stepping out of line.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a New York minute. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees and all that. If freedom isn't worth fighting for, what is?
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:3, Insightful)
The country gets richer, so I'd say it is good for the country
No it doesn't. A select few get richer while the rest starve. Get the warlords out of power and you might actually see some investment and the building of an economy that would benefit everyone.
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:3, Insightful)
The real problem is that they are showing that piracy pays, even in the face of significant Western naval support. It's not generally recognized that the sea lanes are lawless places. and there's nothing stopping anyone from doing what the Somalis are doing. Even words like "defending sea lanes" cause giggles in otherwise educated people.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason L-libertarians support the government in fighting physical tyranny is because it is the only weapon that the "peasants" have to fight their desired L-libertarian economic tyranny.
Out of curiosity, where do the attempts to correct "economic tyranny" end? I'm paying close to 50% of my income in taxes if you account for federal income taxes, FICA taxes, property taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, fees from DMV, fees from DEC, excise taxes, tariffs on the imported goods I buy, etc, etc, etc. Would you not consider losing half of your labor to be a form of "economic tyranny"?
I don't object to a basic safety net. I object to people who abuse that safety net. I object to losing half of my labor. I object to the fact that nearly half of this country pays no income tax while 5% of it pays half. I object to the seemingly unending growth of government, particularly on the Federal level where it's the least representative and most vulnerable to corruption. I object to losing my civil liberties, whether it's under the guise of "public safety" (gun control), "family values" (censorship) or "national security" (1st, 4th and 5th amendments).
I really don't think I'm being unreasonable here.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
They do? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Civil_War [wikipedia.org]
400,000 dead sounds like they are making an effort.... Gotta love how informed people are when it comes to black people dying compared to other people dying.
Reminds me of rememberance day when I was in middle school. A jewish ex POW or somesuch came to my school to talk about the horrors in assembly. She said remembrance day was to make sure we never had such ethnic slaughters again, to remember never forget. I asked her why she hadn't even mentioned the millions of people currently dieing in Africa in similar or worse conditions than her own people. She seemed quite unaware that there was even a war occurring in Africa at the time... several in fact. And _I_ got a trip to the principals office for that. People suck.
Re:I'm pro-Somalian pirate (Score:2, Insightful)
Away with the lies (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article: "The district gets a percentage of every ransom from ships that have been released, and that goes on public infrastructure, including our hospital and our public schools."
So let me get this straight: a group of armed somalis are using force to obtain property from passing ships, and then use the loot to fund public infrastructure and reward investors.
And that's supposed to be shocking? It's just the birth of a state. Replace "ransom" with "tax", "pirates" with "tax collectors", "somali gangs" with "somali government", "investors" with "lobbies" or "activists" or "unions", and you'll see reality a bit more clearly. The same is going on in every country in the world, except that in this case the lies are gone and you get to see a glimpse of reality. Embrace it.
Explain to me how that economics works, again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so...
The shipping companies don't lose money because they're insured, and the insurers don't lose money because they up the premiums, yet the premium increases don't come out of the shipping companies' pockets?
Sir, I think you have described a perpetuum monetare, a perpetual money machine. While Madoff would be proud, the second law of thermoeconomics says it can't exist.
Think of it this way: if a set of goods is on one set of hands instead of another, the other set of hands is (duh) not having those goods. It lost the equivalent to the amount of money those hands value the goods at. It can spread the loss around (some to itself, some to the insurance company, some to their customers, for instance), but there is a loss.
Otherwise, contemplate the world where I steal everything from everybody, own all the land, and won't trade with anyone; you can all shuffle dollar bills back and forth between insurance companies and the insured, but that won't get you your cars, computers or factories back.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:2, Insightful)
So somalis are imposing a 2% tax on marchandise passing through. How much are US taxes in such scenarios?
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that you're the idiot. For all we know, she did get her share.
And I'd be surprised if not. Criminal societies generally adhere more strongly to their codes of ethic than civil society. Because there are fewer other forces that bind them, and trust is more important.
And, of course, for the simple practical reason that if the guys want to get future investors for their next trips, they'd better build a reputation of actually paying them.
Re:Several Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a commonly noted reason, but another major reason is that contrary to the Call of Duty playing internet crowd's belief, engaging in a firefight with multiple decade battle hardened militants isn't actually that safe or easy an idea.
People sailing the boats are civilians, they do not have military training, they have never been in combat, by putting them up there against the pirates you're risking far more people getting shot, whilst being hijacked sucks, it's better than having the crew killed.
I'd imagine many people have this vision of the crews being able to see the pirates coming and just gunning them down with a chaingun, but the reality is the pirates often manage to sneak up on vessels either using bad weather, blind spots or the cover of night, so many firefights would involve close quarter combat on the decks of the ship itself. That's really not something you want civilians to be doing against people who have been in a country where they have been shooting at each other for near 20 years now. This is especially important to note also when you realise that against crews of 15 you're sometimes seeing as many as 80 pirates- even if you catch them before they board the ship do you really want to put yourself in the line of fire of even 50+ pirates and start trying to pick them off under fire of 80 or so AK-47s and the odd RPG being returned at you?
The mentality of many people online of "just shoot them" as a solution to many problems is rather ignorant to the difficulties of the reality of the situation. If it was as simple as many online commenters seem to believe, then they would have simply done it by now. The legal barriers are the least of problems, because if it was a real solution to just arm crews then as this is a problem that basically has unilateral agreement from the world's major nations including the 5 permanent security council members then an exception for ships passing through Somali waters would be no big deal. Perhaps the closest solution to arming the crew that would not be as likely to involve the death of half the crew of each ship that encounters pirates would be for security companies like Blackwater (now Xe services) to keep a supply of trained security professionals both north and south of the troubled areas such that ships could pick up a squad of security personnel at one end and drop them off when safely at the other, but of course, whether shipping companies would be willing to foot the bill is a different story and it's questionable how much use even trained personnel would be when outnumbered, and even they're still not immune to hails of gun and RPG fire in return either.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the group of individuals known as a government can't protect your "right" to health-care, basic food, shelter or a job without taking those things from other individuals under threat of imprisonment if they don't cough up. So a "right" to food means someone else has to grow it on their land and hand it over, either being paid with money that been taken from *other* productive members of the village or point blank stolen and handed over to the person asserting their "right". Some right ey?
The right to "basic food" means the right to take something that someone else has put a lot of effort in, what or who gives *you* that right just by virtue of being born? And what if ther people growing their food stop growing it and demand their rights too? Property rights are the core of all rights, without being "allowed" to own any singular item or piece of land how can one be at all free? Given the track record of societies that don't recognise property rights but *do* recognise the "right" to strike, housing, healthcare and food *cough*Eastern Bloc*cough* there's an extremely strong historical argument for the basis of what the libertarians are saying.
I'm not even nearly a "lie-bertarian" and even I understand that....
Oh please, drop the strawman bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Libertarians do not deny the right to shelter or food. They never have. Your welcome to obtain those as you see fit as long as you don't deprive another of their life, property, or rights.
The key is that you have no right to demand the property and rights of others to satisfy your desires. This includes not having others act as proxy in taking from others. This is not the same as denying you your "right" to shelter or food. Though it amazes me as to what constitutes a right. We have people claiming rights to cell phones, internet, and other such garbage too. Who is correct?
I think the best summary of the Libertarian outlook is, don't expect others to do it for you unless you first try to do it yourself.
when you just hand people other people's stuff without requirement of effort you simply encourage more of the behavior that led to creating people of the first group. We have examples of this in every society. People who have figured out that if they lower their standards enough they can exist on the welfare of others. Yes there are cases anyone can cite showing someone who is trying but not getting ahead, but those are not the focus of the problem.
I have far more respect for someone working at Wal-Mart/McDonalds/Etc than the person collecting unemployment and not working there because "its beneath them" or not cool. The real adults of this world will work any legal job to provide food and shelter for their families, even if it means more than one. Been there, done that. The rest are just selfish jerks too wrapped up in themselves.
Re:Oh please, drop the strawman bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a strawman. You've cultivated an exceptionally convenient ideology. If you don't see how that's morally precarious, that's a problem.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is an even more obvious solution: bomb Somalia, or at least the coast that lays next to the shipping lines, and burn it down to the bedrock.
If no other solution can be found, then that's what it will eventually come to. Sooner or later the pirates are going to hijack someone with sufficiently powerful friends that they'll be able to implement that solution; and Somalia, being a failed state, can't really fight back efficiently.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:3, Insightful)
For vessels that do not dock at US ports? Nothing at all of course, that would be piracy...
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to remember the Somalians in Mogadishu being able to take down our choppers and engage our forces using tactics that were taught to them by Mujaheddin which they picked up fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. That's not to say there's not a lot of cannon fodder or that they're all trained and skilled fighters but the single largest mistake anyone can make in entering combat is to dismiss or underestimate your opponent. The country does not have a complete lack experienced fighters and with paydays we're talking about here it's going to draw the talent.
And as an employer, if these shipping companies put weapons in the hands of their sailors and tell them to resist rather than evade, hide, and lay low, then they are legally taking responsibility for their ability to fight. You don't hand someone a gun and say good luck. You give them that weapon and tell them to defend themselves you have to TEACH them how to defend themselves, give them tactics and training. That's a large investment in both time and money. A lot of people want the sailors armed because they want the pirates dead, but the shipping company's first priority is to not have ANY of their sailors killed, 2nd is to have the ships not hijacked, third is to have the ships not delayed on route, and the pirates being dead a distant fourth. They don't want to have to go into combat as a company, that's not their business. That's what the Navy's of the world should be taking care of.
Lastly, if you don't agree with what I've said about needing training, what makes in untrained maritime sailor with small arms a better combatant then a supposedly untrained pirate? Is the untrained sailor supposedly better at close quarter combat because he's white or has some level of education, high school or further? I don't remember any CQB training at my High School. I'm interested in what makes the untrained merchant sailor a better fighter then your theory of untrained pirates that have just experienced "random violence" which, by the way, does a lot of good during a firefight if it's not your first time seeing a buddies head get a hole blown through it.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:1, Insightful)
It seems self-evident that a free person would stand up and die well before someone accustomed to the shackle.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is an even more obvious solution: bomb Somalia, or at least the coast that lays next to the shipping lines, and burn it down to the bedrock.
Normally I would find this unthinkable, but as more and more of the countries revenue comes from theft and murder the more complicit the citizens become. Unfortunately however there will always be some people in Somalia though who are opposed to piracy.
At what point does it become acceptable to punish the entire population for the crimes of a few pirates? Also, would this apply equally to other countries? There is a lots of debate in my country about whether the invasion of Iraq was legal under international law, should some random country who are effected by this (ie - Iran, Syria) be entitled to kill me if this is found to be illegal?
This is always the question: Can you punish innocent people for the crimes of their neighbours just because it is the only way to stop the criminal of the two getting away with it?
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh please, drop the strawman bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Libertarians do not deny the right to shelter or food. They never have. Your welcome to obtain those as you see fit as long as you don't deprive another of their life, property, or rights
Sure they do. Libertarians recognize the right to legally obtain shelter and food. They deny that food and shelter itself is a right. There is a big difference.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)