Posted on 02/18/2002 2:59:11 AM PST by semper_libertas
I find the farm-raised Atlantic Salmon to be a most delicious and affordable standard. Our local market had a sale last week on Salmon fillet of $2.99/lb. We bought extra for the freezer. It's tasty and very healthy.
Modern fish farming has created opportunity, profitability, and lessened prices for catfish, shrimp. and salmon. I'm sure other species will be added to the list.
Sounds like the same polititions made our American immigration laws that severely limited the European quotas and flooded our country with Asian, African, and Arab hordes.
Shame. The "everyday you take another bite" possibilities are endless.
You'd be right if the high prices were caused by increased demand. But not if the high prices are caused by lower supply. In the case of low supply, the cost of finding and catching the rare fish should offset the profit to be had by selling them.
That's how it should happen anyway. As others on this thread have pointed out, there are pecularities with this resource that make it harder to predict.
We were there with another aprox 35 boats, looking for a strike from a King Mackeral, maybe two strikse, if it was a good day. Suddenly, along came a comercial boat. It pulled in a thousand Kings, right in front of us, with a comercial cable.One after the other.
You Sir, are a fool, for believing everything you hear on the radio!
Regards, Bogie
Hmm…. You have no idea what I heard, but you have a little public temper tantrum and call me a "fool" for believing "everything" I hear. No wonder you're here alone on the Internet rather than out with "all your friends".
Don't talk to me.
You are assuming most systems start from stable equilibrium in the first place. This is what I was disagreeing with. Assuming of course it is really relevent to compare manmade fishing to natural cycles anyway.
I don't see what's wrong with regulating fishing according to wildlife models. They are the basis for instance for every wildlife conservation department in the country - you limit hunting, fishing etc. to replacement.
Let's assume that that's the case. While an equilibrium may eventually be achieved that prevents the fish from being hunted to extinction, it will still stabilize at fish population that is very much smaller than it is today, with no prospect of it coming back.
I think we can do better. In fact, I believe that the ocean fisheries can one day be more abundant than they were in the wild state.
Buffalo used to taste pretty darn good too. A veritable staple of the midwest. Had to eat something else though, folks ran out. Lately, however, there've been more buffalo available and about 10 years ago I started eating buffalo burgers occasionally. Heavy promotions to eat buffalo so as to boost the industry. I do prefer it to ostrich.
As far as objectivism is concerned, I am a fan. But it forms only a small segment of an overall worldview because it avoids much about economics and life in general. (fun to discuss at another time).
As for morality, I have no moral obligation to protect fish per se. I do accept a moral obligation to prevent extinction of fish provided human lives need not be sacrificed. But I don't think that is at all the issue here.
I have a moral obligation to defend individual liberties, so that they may help me defend my own liberty, and perhaps that is more to the point.
When fish populations begin to truly impact large ecomomies I have no doubt that the industry itself will seek alliances, cooperatives, compacts and self-management arrangements (involving government of necessity)such as may be necessary to protect their industry, and their profitability.
Look, if the fish dry up nobody will suffer more than the industry themselves. They will not eat at all, we at least will have the money to buy chicken.
So if we keep the cash flowing so that the most significant impact is to the very people who are doing the fishing, then it will balance itself. But if we monkey around with the cash flow by synthetic diversions by the government then who knows how screwed up things can become.
It's all a matter of trust as far as initial arguments are concerned. There will no doubt be regulation, but it must be driven by the needs of the industry itself, not by the outrageously unprincipled, and corrupt ecodoctrinarians.
The fisherman gain $$ by maintaining a viable industry, the ecodoctrinarians gain $$ by proclaiming an industry in crisis.
I know where to put my faith. (I don't necessarily have the answer, but then again I'm not a commercial fisherman)
Prices rise in response to the cost of business. The margins initially will become even tighter, until only the big boys remain because they can live off of smaller margins for longer periods, fish more efficiently (higher relative margins), or buy out smaller guys and consolidate the industry.
After the initial shake-up of the industry prices may again rise in order to increase profit margins and take advantage of lesser competition.
By the time those margins start to improve the start-up costs for new guys to put back in may be prohibitive.
The biggest problems will come from competitive governments however attempting to subsidize their respective industries.
It may be possible to experience a fishy cold-war in the future.
Like with Dom Perignon, Cadillacs, Rolex watches. . .???parsy
This, to me, is a true environmental issue. It doesn't really mean jack squat whether the snail darter or the spotted owl becomes extinct, or whether prairie dogs are exposed to PCBs. These things shouldn't be wished for, and should be avoided if unnecessary, but human beings don't depend on them. Human beings do, however, depend on ocean fishing.
A good environment is one that supports man. Killing off the dire wolves was good environmental policy. Plowing under the Great Plains and planting wheat was good environmental policy. Allowing (or worse, subsidizing) overfishing is bad environmental policy. We really do need those fish.
Well… you may have just assumed that yourself. I assume the aggregate fish population was relatively stable since the last ice age. Perhaps not, there may have been other catastrophes, but I'm not aware of them. So now in the industrial/information age the fish/predator equilibrium is going to have to adjust.
I really don’t care it people want to ban together to preserve species for sport or economics. I only have a problem when people think we're going to drive them all into extinction without drastic new action.
Buffalo is an excellent example. (I tasted some for the first time this past summer, and loved it. Bison: The Other Red Meat!)
When buffalo freely roamed the plains, they were hunted almost to extinction. It was touch-and-go for awhile. We very nearly lost the species.
Nowadays, people are raising buffalo, and the population is on the rise. Someday, I expect that there will be more buffalo than there ever were before. The more we eat, the more there will be.
The entire difference is attributable to the fact that nobody owned the buffalo of the plains, while the buffalo of today are almost all private property. Until the fish of the sea can--somehow--become the private property of profit-driven individuals, they are at risk of severe depletion or extinction. The limitless rapacity of the human animal that now threatens them is exactly what will save them, but only if ownership can be established.
You may not like my suggested method of establishing ownership. That's fair. Perhaps it is unworkable. Perhaps there's a better method. But I still maintain that private ownership must be established somehow before capitalism can rescue the fisheries.
I guess.
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