| tl;dr version - pirate gangs sell stimulants to pirates on 'credit' which they can work off with their piracy. I love the title, it captures basically the whole article. I am also entertained by folks who feel like its newsworthy that economic relationships in crime are the same as they are in non-criminal enterprises. I explained it once that economic relationships are like algebra, they make no judgement on the numbers they represent, they simply exist in form. People were appalled and astonished by giving bonuses to people in the financial industry in firms that were participated in the disasterous policies there. And the argument was that you want qualified people running these things and if we don't pay these sorts of bonuses they won't come work for us. And Bank of America was trying to find a new CEO [1] in Oct 2009 under the imposed rules (because they had bailout money) and made zero headway on filling the position [2][3] even though the salary it was offering was quite high. So pirates are developing their business models through experience, trial, and errors. And the economics prices out the cost of capital, the cost of labor, and the required distribution to keep it all running smoothly. [1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125545433529782763.html [2] http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/17/news/companies/bofa_ceo/inde... [3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870395490457459... |