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."'"
Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Funny)
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Also, shipping companies don't lose when their ships are boarded or the goods stolen, as they're all insured. Everyone knows this, even the pirates. The ones who lose are the insurance companies, but they don't really care either coz they just make up for it in higher premiums.
Piracy! It's a win for all!
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Funny)
Besides the pirates would probably not have bought the goods anyway, but may in future after they had a chance to sample them.
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:Explain to me how that economics works, again? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an importer in Ireland and my shipping invoices now have a "Gulf of Aden Surcharge" on them, so I pass this on to my customers and so on so the good news is that we ALL pay of the pirates.
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How many times do we have to go over this? Piracy isn't theft. There is no loss of tangible goods, just making a copy. Ok, suppose I had this replicator, an
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Informative)
Except the private yacht owners who often lose everything they own and who's family is force to pay the ransom by any means.
There's a British couple held hostage in Somalia right now and their boat was found stripped to the hull and floating by a British naval vessel. The ransom is $7million, but they don't think their family can come up with it, so they've been asking the British government to pony up, but that seems unlikely.
Last word is that Islamic militants may try to buy them, or take them by force, to use for political purposes.
Win for all!
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:4, Interesting)
do ports allow you to dock if your ship is armed? (im asking because i heard that generally they wont).
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Well, I have an obvious solution then. Each country should open a weapons check platform on the boundary waters of their major ports. Like a coat check-ships stop at the platform, turn in their weapons and get a claims ticket. Deliver the cargo and pick up their weapons on their way back out into international water.
Countries could make some easy money and shipping companies can stop paying these criminal hacks.
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No need to move the weapons around. All you need is a lockable room/container to store the weapons in. The host port can supply their own lock for the duration of the stay.
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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.
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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 internationa
Several Reasons (Score:5, Informative)
Out of curiosity, does anyone know why these ships aren't arming themselves?
There are precedents in maritime law with regards to what differentiates a merchant ship and a military vessel. Also, having weapons on board presents many difficulties with respect to ships that port in many different countries with different customs and laws that apply to people that come into the country with arms.
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:Several Reasons (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Most of your post is very good, but this is somewhat misleading. Pirates are generally in small (30') open boats with minimal radar profile and difficult to detect. Target vessels are generally intercontinental cargo ships with deck 100 feet off the water. Pirates don't sneak aboard these boats with grappling hooks, they threaten violence and the target crew lowers a boarding ladder for them.
Interestingly, the most effective pirate deterrent is the ship's fire suppression system. If you've never seen one of these in operation, it's quite impressive, and can literally hide the ship behind a curtain of water. It's completely impossible for a small boat to approach a ship with its firehoses running. The point of the pirates' RPGs is to make the captain turn off the firehoses.
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.
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Because insurance is cheap. Probably cheaper than your idea.
Yes, it endangers the people on the ship, but... well, sailors are even cheaper.
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They do. Blackwater offers maritime protection services. And they will use choppers or other boats to load/offload their teams and equipment.
It's a bean counting issue. Risk vs cost.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some insurance companies will not insure ships that have armed personnel aboard. They believe that it gives an incentive to fight, which may increase the damage to the vessel and result in additional (insured) lives being lost, increasing the payouts required if the ship escapes the pirates.
Re:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Informative)
The US had no part in the Somali Civil War, which started in 1991 and marked the end of a functioning government. The US was a part of the United Task Force which entered the country in 1992 to try to prevent famine, but they left in 1993, to be replaced by UN troops.
Somalia became a failed state all on its own, I'm afraid. In fact, the US has been criticised for not doing enough.
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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.
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What makes them cowards is that they attack the weak and defenseless.
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since "passing ships" have destroyed their livelihood.
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?
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)
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:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:4, Interesting)
While you were aware of the current wars in Africa, most of the rest of the students in your class probably weren't and this lady's talk was eyeopening for them. How many African students at the time of WWII knew what was happening in the concentration camps? Most African wars don't make it to Western media; that's no reason to assume the lady didn't care about people in Africa or wouldn't have mentioned the wars if she knew about them. Why are you attacking someone (who had actually lived through) an ethnic slaughter and was trying to raise awareness of it?
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.
Millions of Jews died in the Holocaust. Millions of Africans died and are dying in wars and genocides. How can you say one atrocity is worse than the other, as though it negated the "lesser" atrocity? This lady, after surviving an ethnic slaughter, was going around speaking about her experiences (which can't have been easy) to try to raise awareness and warn people living in a comfortable Western society about the dangers of racism. That took a lot of courage and compassion for others.
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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:Paging Bernie Madoff Clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey Somali Pirates! (Score:5, Funny)
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Just tell them about your extensive experience with RPGs.
Does extensive experience [wikipedia.org] with panzerfausts [wikipedia.org] count the same?
Re:Hey Somali Pirates! (Score:5, Funny)
Mein Herr, if you have extensive experience with a Panzerfaust, you might be too old for the job...
Re:Hey Somali Pirates! (Score:5, Funny)
They should first get themselves a good domain name [piratebay.com].
Stock Tip (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider it an investment with the intent to sell short.
Yesss!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yesss!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Perhaps (Score:4, Funny)
Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a brief read of the article about the Dutch East India Company [wikipedia.org] makes me wonder just how different the two really are.
Legitimacy as a company seems to be determined by how well you succeed and how long you've been around, more than your morals or ethics.
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:Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Somalia has no official government, therefore no police, no coast guards, no naval force. What exactly is a "Spanish tuna fishing vessel" doing off Somalian coast ? I'll tell you : it is fishing illegally there. Well, illegally is a theoretic term because there are no functioning law system to prevent them doing so. So what happens ? Some Somalian fishermen gather, put money in common, arm a vessel and try to bring some order.
Illegal fishing is a minor offense. But you have to know that illegal dumping of nuclear waste also occurred in Somalia waters. I must say that I consider it a good news that they form cooperatives instead of lord-vassal structure.
There is also a basic fact I like to remind concerning these "pirates" : they have not killed any hostage yet. The only hostage to die was killed by a (French) military in a recovery mission.
Tomorrow: Somali pirate SEC. (Score:4, Insightful)
To crack down on insider trading and other white collar crime.
Similar to the origin of corporate structures (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, this is a slightly distorted echo of how the notion of corporate structures and shared equity originated.
In the 1600's there was a bunch of money to be made in buying ships, equipping them and sending them to the East Indies to buy spices to bring back and sell.
But ships and equipment were so expensive that it was hard for anyone to rake together the capital to put forth an expedition, even though there would be a huge payoff at the end. So the idea of a 'joint stock company' was borne so people could club together to buy the ship and the necessaries. The Dutch East India Trading company effectively became the first public company in the world and paid an 18% dividend for over two centuries. Dutch law was made to allow pieces of the company to be bought and sold on a 'bourse' (house). Other people realised you could use the same idea for purposes other than buying ships. And here we are today, turned full circle albeit with more nefarious intent.
But interesting that modern equity-based capitalism was invented by the Dutch.
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you miss the point. They're not rogues; it's a lucrative business that is the most profitable job out there.
They've been doing this for a while, and by now there has to be an infrastructure supporting this. The pirates have to have ports, ships, backers.
It's just come out into the open.
Understand Africa; a couple of US$ will buy a Kalashnikov. A $75,000 payday is a fortune that is more than most Somalis will see in a lifetime.
You can bet this will succeed, until something better (more profitable) comes along.
Remember that archelogists pay the going exchange in gold to their workers if they find any artifacts. Same thing; shipping companies will pay this as long as it's cheaper than the alternatives. As long as the Somalis charge 95% of the other routes, it will prosper.
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Yeah, these guys aren't so much as pirates as privateers.
Not true ... privateers are essentially government sponsored pirates, but not all pirates are privateers. In this case, there is no government to sanction them, so they're pirates.
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Informative)
Historically, pirates (in the 1600s US/Caribbean/Europe trade route sense) observed a fairly strict code of conduct which included reimbursing investors their fair share; widows/orphans got their ex-father's share, and generally they did a lot less killing than their reputation suggested.
It sounds like modern pirates appear to follow fairly similar rules, which makes for some interesting cognitive dissonance in those who romanticize the old-school version but demonize the Somali version.
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).
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...those were a) Disney movies and b) utterly ridiculous
don't be reduntant.
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Funny)
So pirates are more honest than bankers/stock investers/politicians?
That i can believe in!
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:4, Funny)
Banker: For what?
Pirate: I'm planning a bank robbery. The return on your investment will be considerable.
Banker: That sounds reasonable...
It's no different from any other raiding culture. (Score:5, Informative)
They're freaking pirates! This woman is an idiot if she expects any money from this. It's not like she's seeding a movie!
One man's pirate is another's Robin Hood of the High Seas.
It's not necessarily true that you should expect a person who commits some crimes against some people (even violent crimes) to commit any crime against any person. Cultures across human history have survived off of raiding fat, rich neighbors and have not collapsed due to infighting and lack of ability to trust your neighbor. These "stock exchanges" were people contribute weapons for money are not necessarily any less reliable than a Scythian making a family member a good saddle before they rode off to sack the Romans, hoping for a cut of the pillage. People can be utterly trustworthy to their neighbors while being utter bastards to outsiders. It's really the historical norm.
Now, if these people were criminals that attacked their own people, then it would be pretty strange to expect fair dealing, but as long as "investors" and "entrepreneurs" see themselves as part of the same group, then there's no reason for an "investor" to expect to be treated as poorly as the pirates' victims. After all, they aren't "criminals" within their community.
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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:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Funny)
That's how it works, right?
Re:That's funny, expecting her share? (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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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?
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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, Interesting)
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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. ("H
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.
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Those are for unemployment benefits. Most of these so-called pirates are just fisherman out of a job, you know.
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, considering that unlike anywhere else along trade routes there is no fine for cleaning the cargo bays and tanks from all the (often poisonous) stuff, yes, they are. So you've been transporting 5000 tons of mazut. Now you've got a contract for half a million ton of high-quality gasoline. Except mazut is sticky and there's about 80 tons of mazut residue on walls of your tanks, that will pollute the fuel. You have a choice to stop for a few days at a port, pay several thousands dollars for cleaning and disposal, or just get your crew to flush the junk to the sea with hi-pressure hoses, while traveling full ahead to where the fuel awaits. No delay, no extra cost (included in salary), no waste disposal fees - and several square miles of sea life getting killed is none of your business.
Re:Imagine being a young Somalian, and choose (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, once you've repurposed a bunch of fishing vessels and out-of-work fishermen into combat vessels and heavily armed privateers, what do you do with them when the fishing waters are finally cleared? OF COURSE they're going to start ranging farther and farther out, and grabbing more and more vessels. This is a historically commonplace progression, with both navies and armies.
Anyway, if there was a Somali government, there'd be less fuss made about them. We'd complain to the Somali government, they'd make
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Sorry but the available data does not support your post.
The data I found about the position of the Alakrana [toolserver.org] shows that it was far away from Somali coast (way more than 200 mi). If it was Economic Zone of any country, it had to be of the Seychelles.
Of course I don't know if they were going to unload fish from Somalia coast, but you'd need some additonal data to back that statement.
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Re:there's one born every minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:there's one born every minute (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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
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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 anyo
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:4, Interesting)
A Saudi super-tanker was released a little while back for about $2 million. It carried 2 million barrels of oil. The market value at the time was around $100 million. Replacing the cargo and the vessel would have cost a quarter-billion dollars.
Which is more cost effective?
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For vessels that do not dock at US ports? Nothing at all of course, that would be piracy...
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There's laissez-faire capitalism on the government level, too, I guess, as nobody stands above governments to regulate them. And since there exists bad governments, and since every government oppresses its citizenry on some level, clearly the entire endeavor is a failure and we need god to regulate government, and then something to regulate god.
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I read it as an implied attack on anarcho-capitalism, which is not the United States' economic model.
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:5, Interesting)
This has always puzzled me about lie-bertarians. To a dispassionate eye, the line appears to be so random and convenient only for the small-medium capitalists who incidentally provide the basis for this ideology to begin with. Why is it government function to protect only property, and human rights (which conveniently exclude the rights to basic food, shelter, job, and health care) ? And why the property is so sacred, of all the things a human being needs, such as "true" freedom (not just freedom to die from hunger), good health, or a family?
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lie-bertarians
Tell us how you really feel.
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....
Re:Behold, a free market evangelists dream takes f (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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: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.
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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 h
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Yes I am sure the mafia can make the pirates listen to Reason.
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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:Anarcho-capitalism? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure that's the main thing stopping them. The cost of arming merchant ships would be far higher than just losing/ransoming a few of them--- piracy rates are extremely low as a percentage of total shipping, so small as to be more or less in the noise on companies' balance sheets. Arming ships has other risks, also; for example, one reason ships are typically kept unarmed is that there's a risk that armed crew would hijack their own ship for random/profit.
Re:just bomb them (Score:4, Interesting)
The shippers aren't there to achieve foreign policy objectives, satisfy Law and Order enthusiasts, or even coddle bleeding hearts. They are there to make money by shipping stuff. The reason that they aren't bothering to do all that much about piracy is that, at least at present, it is cheaper to just suck it up, pay the occasional ransom, and carry on with business than it would be to do anything terribly aggressive.
A plan that involves blowing up entire ships(not cheap to replace) and their cargoes(also not cheap, and you'd better believe that whoever paid the shipper to have that stuff shipped would be pissed if it got lost) would be, from the shippers' perspective, vastly more expensive than just ignoring the problem.
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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 thr
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"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.
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Lex Gabinia (Score:3, Informative)
Ho ho, all together.
Hoist the colors high!
Heave ho, thieves and beggers
Never shall we die!
The pirates of the Mediterranean probably sang a similar tune in 67BC, even as the Lex Gabinia was being passed in Rome. After all, their power had grown unopposed for centuries and they looted trading ships at will and plundered coastal cities with impunity. Piracy was a large, profitable, and enduring enterprise which was endemic over the entire Mediterranean, with ships attacked and ports raided even close to Rome itself.
The Lex Gabinia gave Pompey adequate forces and authority for 2 years to tackle t
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