Privatization only helps the banks
Lets talk about NMFS chief Jim Balsinger's wish to expand the Individual Fishermen Quota system.
Over the years there have been numerous fishing industry stooges who have pushed privatizing of the fishery resources. And it wasn't too difficult; fishermen who were the larger players saw they could "own" a piece of the fish stocks forever, or until they wanted to sell them for inflated prices. A real neat deal for them. Not a neat deal for smaller boats, new fishermen, the U.S. taxpayer, and communities. And now not a neat deal for many of the 'winners' as well.
These privatization shills, by and large, are now sitting pretty with continued consulting fees from the big operators they helped in gaining ownership of swimming fish. The injustice of this was noted way back in America's formative years by an early day Supreme Court decision. Seems a guy had been chasing a fox all over on his horse, but when it ran through the village, a guy popped it with his squirrel gun off his front porch and claimed ownership. Ownership came to mean, in the fisheries, 'pulled onboard.'
The wealthier guys kept at the politicians until in recent decades they attained ownership of the foxes in their dens and moving around anywhere. And now they have hirelings running after them for low wages. Now if a fox is eating your chickens, just fuggetabatit. You'll be thrown in jail for shooting it. And I'll stop here before I slide into how the tanneries cut themselves in on the 'ownership on the hoof' scam. Take a look at these missives from a Kodiak 'fish hireling' on the evolution of IFQs there at ground zero of fish privatization in America.
"Friday there was an ad in the KDM for some Kodiak home area Halibut IFQ's, a breathtaking $5 under the price of the last few years(now $23 asking price for one pound of IFQ). It's the first price fall in a steadily rising price since passage of the law 15 (?) years ago. (I talked again to that guy with the 12,000 lbs for sale. I was the only call on that ad he told me. So we can assume that the real market price is $8 to 10 under last year's $28. Anybody that has bought in the last few years owes more than their shares are worth, and the lender owns their home and boat. But they still have to straggle out and get their fish.)
The drop is one small part of the larger scenario. From the start, IFQ's were a board trading game. You can get State loans easy by pledging your house and boat, so everyone ended up by leveraging themselves to the max. And all the predictions were right about the effect of IFQ's on the fish price, they do raise the price to the fisherman, lockstep with the rising value of the Q shares. Last fall the Halibut price went way over $4, it's $2.80 now.
This would be no problem in a free fishery which regularly weathers price drops. But it's going to sink and ruin just about all the dreams of avarice of a large share of those few who remained after the law put 80% of Halibut fishermen out of business within a year of passage.
My family(that I catch their quota for) has $240k worth of Q's, or had,,,It's $184k now and falling and it's not going to pop right back. I called the guy with the Q's. Sure enough, the poor sod had a big payment due. He said his phone wasn't ringing off the hook(to sell out).
And the good part(that's a joke) hasn't even started yet. The POP(Pacific ocean perch) quotas will double and double and double. My best estimate, after sucking up every single thing I could about POP for more than a decade, is that the stock has at least a sustained yield of 100 thousand metric tons annually; it's 10k mt now. For every added pound of POP there will be added the by-catch of the Black cod and Halibut that we thought we owned with our Q's.
For me it means at least twice as much time on the water this year to make ends meet. Which is great cuz we fished very few days last year for a lavish payout, and it's a blessed relief to get out of town.
Hmmm, this sounds like a letter to the editor. I think I forgot who I was writing to once I got wound up. But isn't it bizarre? We all think Q's have changed the fishery and that's that, but we ain't seen nut'n yet."
The fisherman spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the media, was afraid for his life, was just giving a sketch before full details are revealed, cited office policy and was afraid he might get his bouys cut off. Heck, he'd be shunned by the Untied Fishermen of Alaska, the Pacific Seafood Processors Association and NMFS worse than a car salesman at an Amish picnic.
With that exhausting formality out of the way, here's the precedent, or lack of it, used by other commercial fishermen to justify their 'rights' to public resources:
"The U.S. is a steward of all natural resources---sunfish, ducks deer and stripped bass---all of them. THE CONCEPT THAT A PRIVATE COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE IS NECESSARY TO PROVIDE THE PUBLIC WITH THE ENJOYMENT OF THESE RESOURCES BY SELLING THEM TO CONSUMERS SO THEY CAN EAT THEM WAS REJECTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE WILDLIFE MANAGERS BEFORE 1900. THERE IS NO BASIS IN ANY FEDERAL COMMON LAW, ANY WILDLIFE LAW OR THE CONSTITUTION FOR SUCH A PROPOSITION"
Now I'm really confused. Why is Jim Balsiger promoting IFQs if it's such a lousy deal for America? Maybe he will be retiring to that big office building in Seattle that houses all the other bought and paid for editors and fishery managers. Nevertheless, this is not NMFS policy, Obama's policy or any other public policy, to give common property resources to a few derivatives dealers.
And I'm not just saying that because my forefathers pioneered in fisheries and never handed down private rights to the commons, they never would have thought to demand any. And in the case of a goodly number of ocean fishes, the stocks are going down, down: so much for it being a better fisheries management system as well. Don't look to an IFQ system to slow down the annual 'dumping of two billion lbs of 'the wrong kind' of fish. IFQs don't do that.
The NMFS should be protecting the food chain first, on behalf of the American people, then let a commercial harvest occur in a way that is sustainable. Trawling, whether on the bottom, or midwater, is not sustainable. Where in the world has it ever been sustainable? There may be a way to trawl sustainably, but it hasn't been used yet, and there is no political will to make it happen widely if there was.
Everyone wants to participate in divying up particular fish schools, but when each share is a percent of not much, then it's the fault of the 'regulations.' Everyone needs to get on a little hill and take a look around at the forest health a minute instead of focusing on one tree or two.
Over the years there have been numerous fishing industry stooges who have pushed privatizing of the fishery resources. And it wasn't too difficult; fishermen who were the larger players saw they could "own" a piece of the fish stocks forever, or until they wanted to sell them for inflated prices. A real neat deal for them. Not a neat deal for smaller boats, new fishermen, the U.S. taxpayer, and communities. And now not a neat deal for many of the 'winners' as well.
These privatization shills, by and large, are now sitting pretty with continued consulting fees from the big operators they helped in gaining ownership of swimming fish. The injustice of this was noted way back in America's formative years by an early day Supreme Court decision. Seems a guy had been chasing a fox all over on his horse, but when it ran through the village, a guy popped it with his squirrel gun off his front porch and claimed ownership. Ownership came to mean, in the fisheries, 'pulled onboard.'
The wealthier guys kept at the politicians until in recent decades they attained ownership of the foxes in their dens and moving around anywhere. And now they have hirelings running after them for low wages. Now if a fox is eating your chickens, just fuggetabatit. You'll be thrown in jail for shooting it. And I'll stop here before I slide into how the tanneries cut themselves in on the 'ownership on the hoof' scam. Take a look at these missives from a Kodiak 'fish hireling' on the evolution of IFQs there at ground zero of fish privatization in America.
"Friday there was an ad in the KDM for some Kodiak home area Halibut IFQ's, a breathtaking $5 under the price of the last few years(now $23 asking price for one pound of IFQ). It's the first price fall in a steadily rising price since passage of the law 15 (?) years ago. (I talked again to that guy with the 12,000 lbs for sale. I was the only call on that ad he told me. So we can assume that the real market price is $8 to 10 under last year's $28. Anybody that has bought in the last few years owes more than their shares are worth, and the lender owns their home and boat. But they still have to straggle out and get their fish.)
The drop is one small part of the larger scenario. From the start, IFQ's were a board trading game. You can get State loans easy by pledging your house and boat, so everyone ended up by leveraging themselves to the max. And all the predictions were right about the effect of IFQ's on the fish price, they do raise the price to the fisherman, lockstep with the rising value of the Q shares. Last fall the Halibut price went way over $4, it's $2.80 now.
This would be no problem in a free fishery which regularly weathers price drops. But it's going to sink and ruin just about all the dreams of avarice of a large share of those few who remained after the law put 80% of Halibut fishermen out of business within a year of passage.
My family(that I catch their quota for) has $240k worth of Q's, or had,,,It's $184k now and falling and it's not going to pop right back. I called the guy with the Q's. Sure enough, the poor sod had a big payment due. He said his phone wasn't ringing off the hook(to sell out).
And the good part(that's a joke) hasn't even started yet. The POP(Pacific ocean perch) quotas will double and double and double. My best estimate, after sucking up every single thing I could about POP for more than a decade, is that the stock has at least a sustained yield of 100 thousand metric tons annually; it's 10k mt now. For every added pound of POP there will be added the by-catch of the Black cod and Halibut that we thought we owned with our Q's.
For me it means at least twice as much time on the water this year to make ends meet. Which is great cuz we fished very few days last year for a lavish payout, and it's a blessed relief to get out of town.
Hmmm, this sounds like a letter to the editor. I think I forgot who I was writing to once I got wound up. But isn't it bizarre? We all think Q's have changed the fishery and that's that, but we ain't seen nut'n yet."
The fisherman spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the media, was afraid for his life, was just giving a sketch before full details are revealed, cited office policy and was afraid he might get his bouys cut off. Heck, he'd be shunned by the Untied Fishermen of Alaska, the Pacific Seafood Processors Association and NMFS worse than a car salesman at an Amish picnic.
With that exhausting formality out of the way, here's the precedent, or lack of it, used by other commercial fishermen to justify their 'rights' to public resources:
"The U.S. is a steward of all natural resources---sunfish, ducks deer and stripped bass---all of them. THE CONCEPT THAT A PRIVATE COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE IS NECESSARY TO PROVIDE THE PUBLIC WITH THE ENJOYMENT OF THESE RESOURCES BY SELLING THEM TO CONSUMERS SO THEY CAN EAT THEM WAS REJECTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE WILDLIFE MANAGERS BEFORE 1900. THERE IS NO BASIS IN ANY FEDERAL COMMON LAW, ANY WILDLIFE LAW OR THE CONSTITUTION FOR SUCH A PROPOSITION"
Now I'm really confused. Why is Jim Balsiger promoting IFQs if it's such a lousy deal for America? Maybe he will be retiring to that big office building in Seattle that houses all the other bought and paid for editors and fishery managers. Nevertheless, this is not NMFS policy, Obama's policy or any other public policy, to give common property resources to a few derivatives dealers.
And I'm not just saying that because my forefathers pioneered in fisheries and never handed down private rights to the commons, they never would have thought to demand any. And in the case of a goodly number of ocean fishes, the stocks are going down, down: so much for it being a better fisheries management system as well. Don't look to an IFQ system to slow down the annual 'dumping of two billion lbs of 'the wrong kind' of fish. IFQs don't do that.
The NMFS should be protecting the food chain first, on behalf of the American people, then let a commercial harvest occur in a way that is sustainable. Trawling, whether on the bottom, or midwater, is not sustainable. Where in the world has it ever been sustainable? There may be a way to trawl sustainably, but it hasn't been used yet, and there is no political will to make it happen widely if there was.
Everyone wants to participate in divying up particular fish schools, but when each share is a percent of not much, then it's the fault of the 'regulations.' Everyone needs to get on a little hill and take a look around at the forest health a minute instead of focusing on one tree or two.
posted by Alaskacafe at 10:58 AM
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