More On Piracy

Piracy is a high risk, high return economic venture.  Raise the risk, lower the return, and it makes piracy less attractive.  Skew the variables far enough, and pirates don't need to be arrested or killed; they will be forced to seek other employment.

Sadly, Somalia offers little other employment opportunity.  This would mean the desperate young men would either turn to other forms of crime, or move away.

Recent headlines seem to show present anti-piracy efforts are having just that effect.  Somali criminals are kidnapping high profile international targets outside Somalia then returning to pirate havens to hold them for ransom.

This doesn't seem to be a good development, but appearances are deceptive.  Somali authorities, what few exist, were happy to ignore piracy as long as the victims did not involve Somalia.  High profile victims from neighboring countries will bring far more attention and pressure to the criminals.

At this point locals will be forced to face and deal with their own situation.  It might cause towns to fail, local economies to crash, local tribes to lose everything, but anything being supported by piracy, kidnap, and murder must face consequenses.

The good news is such disaster need not strike.  Remove criminals from power and foreign aid received would be used in a constructive way, aid organizations able to once again operate locally, neighboring countries feel better about helping.

My guess?  It'll be the best thing to happen for Somalia in decades.

Guardians of Peace and Knowledge

To gush some more, the time I recently spent in the Navy's MMOWGLI 'game' was rewarding.  I got to absorb how other folks, some quite knowledgable, percieve the modern problems of pirates, terrorism, and profiteering.  Here's a 'for instance.'

A new problem the US military faces in the new kind of war they fight today is a lack of local support.  Local politicians, holy men, even neighborhood citizens don't want to call attention to themselves by dealing with Americans unless it can benefit them or their community.  Even if they take the risk, the soldier they work with will be gone in a few months and the new guy will be clueless.

Solution: A new program designed to create and maintain long term relations with local contacts.   Build an elite unit from career-oriented volunteer servicemembers, require long-term commitment.  They would work in 5-man teams, assigned to exclusively cover an important area of operations.  They would learn everything possible about local leaders, criminals, land ownership, all the details warfighters can't take the time to learn. 

At need, one team member would be detailed to liason duties for units operating in their area.  The agent accompanies important patrols, dealing with locals, making new contacts, gathering information. 

Another team member would be attached to local military intelligence as the handler for the agent in the field.  This handler agent processes the field agent's reports and schedules, allowing the field agent remain focused.  He would also insure that information from both directions was handed off to who needs it. 

Every three months the agent in the field rotates back to the States for R&R, the handler rotates to the field, and another team member takes over as handler.  This keeps local contacts and awareness intact, and keeps the agents fresh and motivated - six months overseas, then six months at home.

The three agents not in the field use the incoming intelligence from the agents in the field to update databases, remaining abreast of changes.  They also pursue a continued academic education program of language, psychology, history, economics, and business administration.

To highlight this focus on education, units would be based at military academies.  This presents several advantages:  1) agents would be an educational resource, even act as instructors, 2) continued education would not remove agents from assignment, 3) academy cadets could intern with the unit, perhaps OJT for a dedicated training program.

Personal qualifications would focus not just on warfighting skills, but also on tact, finesse, and ability to mediate high intensity social conflict.  The program would need to recruit and operate across military branches.  Recruitment should also come from post-graduate schools to reach people who know how to plan and reach for future goals.

The immediate result should be fewer surprise roadside bombs.  In the future these agents could make organized terrorism extremely difficult, quell modern piracy, and defuse problems before the rest of us know there are any.

Too bad I didn't get this written in the time I spent in MMOWGLI.  8)

Have you noted a lack of Occupy America in the media lately?  Apparently letting the protesters suffer bad weather in silence is the new policy.  Well, I won't forget them, and I hope you won't, either.  Any non-violent change takes a lot of time and dedication, but this change needs to come.

What change?

In theory a free market economy follows some basic, natural rules.  Should sole vendor Al sell rutabagas for $10 a pound, consumers must pay it or do without their rutabagas.  A high demand and limited supply of rutabagas let's Al sell them for as much as people will pay.  When vendor Bill sees how much Al is making on rutabagas, he finds a supplier and starts selling rutabagas for $10 a pound, too.

Poor Bill sees people still buying rutabagas from Al; consumers have habits.  Al is, in fact, getting more traffic and sales on all his products thanks to that reliable consumer habit.  Bill is stuck with rutabagas he can't sell that will soon rot and turn into a loss!

To avoid a disaster, Bill must sell those rutabagas, so he puts up a big sign announcing his $5/lb sale on rutabagas.  He quickly sells out of rutabagas, and makes additional sales for supplies to make rutabaga pies.  Now Al has Bill's problem, too many rutabagas.  With the big profits from previous rutabaga sales, Al feels he can drop his price even lower, bringing back customers.  Eventually both Al and Bill reach a price point that still earns them enough profit to continue offering rutabagas.

This basic scenario of market competition illustrates how a free market works to keep prices and supplies at a consumer-driven equilibrium.  If Al and Bill got together and agreed to fix the price of rutabagas at $10/lb, it would change the whole dynamic.

If Al and Bill were CEOs of American corporations, they would make a secret deal to both sell rutabagas at $100/lb, force farmers to supply the rutabagas for $1/lb, and force competitors into bankruptcy with infringement suits.

And now we understand why Occupy America is so ignored.

Hang in there 8)

Back From the Navy

Quite an interesting time it was, too.  They called it a Massive Multiplayer Online War Game, though it was really a big online sticky-note-and-bulletin-board brainstorm.  What made it a game was points were awarded for attracting discussion on your idea, with a bit more for participating in other folk's discussion chains.

Surprisingly, of the thousand or so who participated this week, a writer from Oklahoma finished 4th in the leader boards - me!

What I had to say generated a lot of interest, which was cool, but the best part of doing so well is I will likely be invited to the next stage of the event.  Woot!

But now, back to writing!

Navy Time

I apologize to anyone looking for new posts recently, but my excuse is that the Navy wanted me.

No, don't laugh - really.

Crowd sourcing is all the rage these days.  It works by asking LOTS of people to express their opinions and ideas about a problem they are interested in, then correlating the data in several ways.  With luck all those minds will hit on an optimum solution, but at least the data will reveal a lot on what people already know and believe about the subject.

The technique has been around a while, but only with computer advancements has it become useful.  Nowadays pervasive internet availability means that, in theory, a truly massive crowd source is possible.

I was invited to participate in a Naval crowd source exercise about future piracy this week.  I was pretty excited; I'm still excited, but sleepy 8)

Have a look: MMOWGLI

More later.

Occupy America!

Teddy should be leading Occupy America!

Even dead, he couldn't do any worse.

Earn it or give it up!








Like that'll ever happen.

Oh, yeah, it's all the fault of the 99%!






Just ask Cain.








How Congress operates -

      - Dud and run!

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