Fishermen are getting dramatically higher prices for Gulf of Alaska rockfish.
In 2011, one major processor, Trident, paid 12 cents per pound for northern rockfish delivered to its Kodiak plant, and 10 cents per pound for pelagic shelf rockfish and Pacific Ocean perch.
This year, Trident is paying 27 cents for all three species of rockfish.
And what accounts for this huge rise in prices?
It isn't higher demand for rockfish.
The reason is that the forced linkage between vessels and specific processors went away this year.
Now vessels are free to deliver their catches to any processor in Kodiak.
As a result, processors this year are bidding up the price.
Deckboss takes his information from this declaration by Trident's chief legal officer, Joe Plesha.
The declaration was filed in the federal lawsuit Trident and three other processors — North Pacific, Ocean Beauty and Westward — are pressing against federal fishery regulators to try to reinstate the old system of tying boats to particular plants.
The processors say that without these linkages, ensuring a steady share of rockfish to each plant, the companies inevitably will bid against each other to such a degree that all of the value of the fish will go to the fishermen.
All the value of the fish going to the fishermen. What a pity. Ya gotta keep the n-----s down, ya know? fisherman being the animals that they are will forever be the stooges. Yes, we have shining examples of individuals that have have (temporarily) broken the bonds but generally, in the end, the Trident's prevail. What a pity.
ReplyDeleteThe processors are buying up trawlers and their history so fast this won't be a problem for long.
ReplyDeleteGood luck getting fair value/tax then.
That's why they use the term "rents". It almost hurts (not!) to hear the cries about the effects of competition, especially when the price dockside is a fraction of what's possible. The judge - just like you - will never get a look at the full global books nor get accurate testimony from global tax evader advisors, etc. Heck, there's not even a US Customs house in Kodiak as a majority of seafood leaves here unchecked at to quality, value, weight, etc. And Trident is a kitten compared to the tigers of Asia and their global resource exploitation.
ReplyDeleteThey keep acting like fleets are partners or something. That's like a cotton picker being a partner with the plantation owner since the picker's daughter was sent into the master's house as a special servant.
Get it straight, fishermen: these are not your family, not your friends, not your partners. Business is war. Resource business is flat out economic war. And any lie will be told to ensure the win... as corporations don't go to jail.
We trust that the judge will see through all this propaganda. He should order them to deliver their entire global financial records to the courthouse to ensure he isn't being lied to. Never end a sentence in a preposition, or a mere supposition, either.
ReplyDeleteTexan: Where are you from?
Yale student: I come from a place where we don't end our sentences with prepositions.
Texan: Okay. Where are you from, jackass?
Here is an example, that in several ways, shows how fkdup things in "FishWorld" can get. Proccessor shares that supress ex-vessel prices so much that 'prices soar' when they are removed can only indicated that someone is diddling someone else. And it ain't the fishermen that are doing the diddling! Cry a river Plesha, I'm certain that empire will fall if you don't get enough Yellow Eye. How do these guys sleep at night? To J. P. it's a crime that "all the value of the fish will go to the fishermen"! Maybe it's time to destroy the village in order to save the village. Rock fish is the perfect specie for the fishers to band together over and give the boot to empire. Sadly, it will never happen.
ReplyDeletePlesha is dead wrong.
ReplyDeleteProcessors will over time only bid what they can afford and make an acceptable profit.
This is no different than farmers who have choices and the vegetable processors all seem to still be in business.
In the end processors profits will be impacted by the number of competing processors, so like in places like Sand Point, Where Trident has a monopoly, they will be able to extract excess profits.
In the end competition does cause some processors to go our of business, but understand two things about this. One, it is the inefficient processors that go out of business. Two, when competing processors go out of business, the processors left enjoy higher profit margins.
Some large processor may raise fishermens prices high to help drive other processors out of business.
Trident has moaned about how it has low margins, but if their margins were so low and competing for fish were so unfair; How did they get so big?
Logic tells us that Trident cannot be suffering under low margins and get so big at the same time.
Someone is not telling the truth.
"Every shark has its remora."
ReplyDeleteGroundswell
One of the best Far Side 'toons ever;
ReplyDeleteA shark, horrified, looking at her (his) reflection from a mirror tiltled: "The heart break of remora's"
This is where we're headed as a state if Trident's & NPFMC's philosophy prevails:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_state
"...all the rents will go to the fishermen..."? (Plesha testimony)
ReplyDeleteHey Joe, do you mean you and all your cronies won't be pulling your fat ass salaries, benefits, retirements, medical ins...etc?
But your honor...we can only buy vacation properties, set up multi-million dollar retirements, eat ourselves into arteriolsclerosis, if we steal the seafood products from the dumb little fishermen. They wouldn't know what to do with profits if they had any. Really, it is for their own good that we force them to sell to us and WE get all the profits. Stupid smelly fishermen. Who do they think they are?
Actually, Plesha did not say "...all the rents will go to the fishermen..." as you quoted him.
ReplyDeletePlesha declaration said "Virtually all the rents generated from the fishery will not longer be shared by on-shore processors, but instead, will be transferred exclusively to the VESSEL OWNERS who receive rockfish quota."
"Fishermen" — those people who work on the boats — get nothing out of the new rockfish plan. Its the corporations that own the boats who take it all.
Well then, everyone onboard will be employees of the company and get benefits, retirements, insurance and bonuses, right?
ReplyDelete