Will Somalian Pirates Cancel Christmas For Little Bobby?

Could the Somalian pirates ruin Christmas? Maybe, according to PC World, who notes that shipping company's in Mombai are so frustrated with Somalian piracy shooting up their ships heading through the Suez that they are contemplating moving materials around the Cape of Good Hope instead. What does that mean? Well, higher prices for one, delayed shipments for another. From the perspective of PC World, well... you can't make this up.

"Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven't got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas," Dawson told Reuters.

"Nintendo gifts"? I don't think he means Nintendo literally, but more in the catch-all sense a lot of non-gaming baby boomers do. As in: "Are you playing Nintendo again?" By which they're really referring to anything that slots under the rubric of "video game."

As the world markets begin to trend downward, the video game market in Europe will take a hit. Actually, the bigger problem comes about when it isn't just video games. I don't really know where to go with this, and I doubt the video game crowd in Europe has considerable political clout to influence policy anymore than what the EU is already doing, but it is interesting the shipping market is using the Santa Claus will be late this year angle to emphasize how frustrating piracy has become for them moving near the coast of Somalia.

How bad is it off Somalia, really? How effective is SNMG-2, or the US Navy for that matter? We don't really good any good reporting, so it is very unclear. Almost all of the Somalia piracy reporting right now is filtered through IMB or 5th Fleet in Bahrain. Where are the reporters on the scene? I watch the news, if they are there, they don't write English language stories.

Luckily, David Axe is heading that way and intends to meet up with SNMG-2 and get the scoop. He needs help though, he can't afford to do it without donations from people like us, the reader who is actually interested in this stuff. Maritime shipping agencies should think clearly about this, not to mention mariner unions, if you want the story told your only avenue right now is folks like David Axe. It is clearly in their best interest to support him, unless you think long term the continued rising insurance rates are cheaper, or if you think EU RoE will win out in the end. Hmm...

Check out David Axe's blog and help him out if you can, he could use your donations and I know readers here are interested in the work he is doing.