Look who's been learning from the world's great captains of industry:
"HARADHEERE, Somalia -- In Somalia's main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate.
"Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.
"The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore.
"It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations -- and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments."
Thursday, December 3, 2009
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18 comments:
How likely is it the most heavily armed pirates will be deemed too big to fail and be bailed out by the financiers?
And if you dig deeply into that Somali diaspora that is financing that exchange,Chances are better than good that Robert Rubin will have a hand in it.Or maybe he'd made money betting the highjackings would ultimately fail while selling equity in those same highjackings.
I hadn't thought of that "too big to fail" meme, Oso. Good point.
I await the pirate derivatives market, and I wonder how Goldman Sachs will wedge its way into that action.
North American pirates wear suits and foreclose on mortgages.
To be serious a moment,I was't able to pile on when my co-workers were giggling like schoolgirls about the Seals killing the Somali pirates.
Europeans overfished Somali waters and since Somalia pretty much can't enforce anything the Europeans also dump their toxic waste into the water, ruining the fishing industry.Or so I've read from a number of sources.
It doesn't mean that the pirates are nobly fighting back,some or maybe most might be opportunistic assholes, I don't know.
But I knew just enough not to be joining the lovestruck giggling schoolgirl teabaggers love-a-thon with the Navy Seals.
Yeah, but you will never get the high priests of capitalism on CNBC and Fox Business to admit their precious religion of financal investments and free enterprise didn't bite them on the ass this time.
Oso, you're probably thinking of a Mr. Hari's article in The Independent. I intended to quote from it, but realized it would subtract from the lighthearted funny that I was aiming for in this post.
I was following Somalia a few years ago at a point where so-called "Islamic fundamentalists" had isolated the "Interim" government and restricted its writ to the capital. Throughout Somalia localities were governed de-centrally by Islamic Courts. Peace had arrive. Free-enterprized Commerce flourished. In some localities even football (soccer) was played in the streets. Then the West got nervous. 'Fundamentalism' equaled 'extremism'. The Euros and Condi Rice got the UN to sponsor/promote the Ethiopian invasion. They told Ethiopia that pre-emptive war was a good thing. So this recess from war only lasted 4 1/2 months.
Yeah Vigil sounds right.I remember the Islamic Courts deal and thought why the hell did we even care how the run things there?
Thanks Stimpson that's exactly the link to the story I'd read.
Good thing these Somali pirates haven't joined up with the pirates on Wall Street - YET. But I suppose it's only a matter of time...
A little off topic, Guys... I have a question. Last weekend I looked at this site:
[url=http://www.rivalspot.com]Rivalspot.com - Xbox tournaments for money[/url]
They say you can play online NHL game tournaments on any console for cash... had anyone tried that before? Looks like a cool idea...
Are there any other sites where you can play sports games for real moneys? I Googled and found only Bringit.com and Worldgaming.com but it looks these guys don't specialize in sport gamez. Any suggestions?
Dump the spammer, Stim?
Google needs to get back to work and figure out a way to stop these spammers. They were successful for a while.
On topic, I, of course, am with the Navy Seals for doing a great job, but was surprised when Oso reminded us of the Europeans overfishing te coastal waters. Now I have to rethink my original pirate position.
The GOP should love this free enmterprise.
I suppose the GOP should look at this as a hopeful sign. After all, anyone who would set up a stock exchange can't be half-bad, right?
In fact, I picture a video montage of pirates, bankers, action on the pirate stock exchange, action at the NYSE and the music of McCartney and Wonder: "We all know / People are the same wherever we go / There is good and bad in everyone ... Ebony and Ivory ..."
Oh, man. It's almost 9 on a Saturday night. What am I doing on the Net?
This reminds me of the banksters and Congress.
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