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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 11:43 AM Jun 2014

Rich countries pay zombie fishing boats $5 billion a year to plunder the seas

The industrial fleet that now drags the high seas for fish has a combined engine power 10 times stronger than it did in 1950. Its nets are so huge that they’re sometimes big enough to hold 12 jumbo jets. And it is largely thanks to this all-out assault on high-seas fishing stocks that two-thirds of those stocks (paywall) are at the brink of collapse—or well past the edge.

But instead of discouraging this trend, rich countries are paying those vessels to overfish like there’s no tomorrow. Japan, China, the US, the EU and other countries pay $27 billion to subsidize these vessels, according to a report (pdf) by the Global Ocean Commission, an independent body of international leaders focused on ocean conservation policy. Of that, $5 billion alone goes on fuel subsidies from rich countries to industrial fishing fleets.



Without the subsidies, most of these businesses would fail. So thoroughly have industrial fleets overfished the seas that they couldn’t afford the fuel to travel the ever-increasing distance needed to catch the same amount of fish if their governments didn’t lavish public funds upon them.

In economics, you’d call these zombies—unprofitable companies that would fail if governments didn’t prop them up. There are two big problems with zombies. First, they take resources that could go to support new, productive companies. And by subsidizing zombies, governments allow them to keep prices low, driving productive companies out of business.

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http://qz.com/225432/rich-countries-pay-zombie-fishing-boats-5-billion-a-year-to-plunder-the-seas/

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Rich countries pay zombie fishing boats $5 billion a year to plunder the seas (Original Post) n2doc Jun 2014 OP
Rev Moon controlled the largest stake of the US fishing industry. blm Jun 2014 #1

blm

(112,920 posts)
1. Rev Moon controlled the largest stake of the US fishing industry.
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 12:01 PM
Jun 2014

He couldn't have done it without the protection of his close alliance with the Bushes and the GOP's propaganda media that the Korean cult leader spent 3 decades developing.

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