Could piracy put us back to work? [View All]

[angrycarpenter]

There has been much said in the last few weeks about the Somalian pirates. How a bunch of out of work fishermen have turned to international crime for a living. Right now there are millions of fishermen around the world watching that and getting ideas.

What if this only the tip of the iceberg? With fish stocks declining worldwide there are thousands of fishing boats with millions of desperate people to man them. Will the coastal peoples of the world get in their idle boats and go raiding? I can see a future where a cargo raiding organization develops worldwide that would make shipping much more risky and expensive.

America depends on goods manufactured overseas. We no longer have the ability to make anything in large enough numbers to supply ourselves. As piracy Becomes a problem everywhere we may be forced to make our own stuff here. Our factories may slowly grind back to life because the cost of protecting and insuring cargo ships would make our products competitive again.

We are one of the few countries with a navy large enough to protect ships. If it becomes dangerous enough American flagged ships will be relatively safe on the high seas where one registered to a small country would be at risk.

This was just an stray thought and I am sure that there is something I have not thought of but wide spread organized piracy could be a boost to our manufacturing sector.