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I'm a little confused by the current business about the fishing quotas.

According to the news bulletins I've heard today:

(a) fish populations are falling like mad, thus there must be limits on the number of fish caught to prevent extinction
(b) fisherman are up in arms about the quota cuts, saying it will destroy their livelihood

Now, I can see their point in (b). However, (a) suggests to me that if the fishing isn't limited now, their livelihood is going to be pretty stuffed anyway.

But:

None of the interviewers I heard today asked any kind of questions about this of the fisherman they were interviewing.

Now, I'm assuming that the people who work trawlers can draw this kind of logical conclusion for themselves, and, if it were this simple, would be able to see past the cuts this year. Am I missing something ?

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From:

ieyasu.livejournal.com

A few points:

a) Fishermen aren't stupid--any explanation that rests upon merely writing off the intelligence of someone you oppose is almost certainly wrong (and potentially offensive)
b) Scientists aren't ridiculously lacking in self-interest
c) To truly screw things up this badly requires the long arm of government
d) Blaming this on the free market (as some above did) shows a lamentable lack of knowledge of the facts--the fishing industry is hardly a 'free' market
e) I will bet $1000 to anyone here that in the next ten years, whether governmenst take action or no, none of the fish under debate for legislation now will be fished to extinction. (This, by the way, is a sucker bet--don't anyone take it unless they're just secretly trying to finance my education.)

What's going on with fish populations is a bit misunderstood--they are falling, but whether they'll fall below a level where it's no longer viable to fish them is a big question. (E.g. as number of fish fall, price of those same fish go up, scarcity forces some fishermen out of the market, etc.)

The question is about government quotas and government subsidies--fishing is a highly subsidized industry in many EU countries. This means that a) your taxes are higher than they 'should' be, b) the price of fish in the supermarket is less than it 'should' be, c) more fish are caught than 'should' be, and d) there are more fishermen in a declining industry than there 'should' be.

So what people are really debating is a 'beggar thy neighbor' debate: everyone agrees that fewer fish probably ought to be caught. But if you're Spanish, you'd prefer the British caught fewer fish, and vice versa. :)

Now, if you actually wanted to get rid of the problem, get rid of the subsidies, let the price of fish in the supermarket rise, and all of a sudden some of these fishermen find it less viable to continue their work (and some of them start to look at fish-farming, which becomes a bit more economically viable). But none of these happen while fish is artificially cheap.

From:

onebyone.livejournal.com

I think it shows a touching faith to assume, against all available evidence, that a truly free market would result in fish stocks being conserved. The measures you suggest wouldn't "get rid of the problem", because as far as the EU is concerned, the problem is "we want to have a fishing industry", not "we have a bunch of disgruntled fishermen on our hands".

You point out that fishing is a declining industry - but why? Demand for fish hasn't fallen, and fishing hasn't become more expensive to the fisherman. The main reason it's a declining industry is that we've been taking too many fish for too long. In an unregulated market, why would we stop taking too many fish?

And of course you're right that none of the species will become extinct, but that's not the point. The issue isn't whether the fish will be extinct. It isn't even whether they'll be completely wiped out of the fishing areas in question. The issue is whether, as in several other important fishing areas in the world, they will fall to such low populations that a lot less fishing will be possible than currently.

It seems unlikely to me that fishermen would look much at fish-farming, by the way. It requires very different skills and, perhaps more importantly, very different resources. I don't even know whether cod (for example) can be farmed.

From:

ieyasu.livejournal.com

I think it shows a touching faith to assume, against all available evidence, that a truly free market would result in fish stocks being conserved.

Care to tell me what this 'available evidence' is? Rising costs of production lowering quantity consumed is a pretty standard economic rule. Furthermore, problems with overfishing only exist in areas fished by subsidized fishermen--care to show me otherwise?

Remove the subsidies from fishing, and supply will fall as it becomes more expensive to catch fish; price for fish will rise, lowering the quantity consumed. This isn't just a matter of economic theory: if that doesn't happen, then we can safely assume that the EU has been wasting a ton of money for several decades, but not even the EU can manage that kind of cack-handedness.

Fishing is a declining, or at best a mature, industry for the same reason that most primary-sector industries are declining in advanced societies--other sectors are advancing and more profitable. This is why we both work in software.

And Onebyone, if you'd like me to rephrase the bet above to 'will not be completely wiped out of the fishing areas in question' I'll be happy to rephrase it. It's still a trick question that has to do with the marginal cost of catching the last few hundred fish. I'll still win, so don't take it. (Natural resources are rarely completely exhausted, though they may be usefully exhausted. But useful exhaustion is just part of Schumpterian creative-destruction, i.e. part of the market.)

As for cod farming, a brief bit of research indicates it's scientifically viable, if still controversial:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2440779.stm

...and a bit more research proves the point I was making:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/102102/fis_102102.shtml

'Unlike farmed salmon, Forster believes cod is unlikely to wreak havoc with the wild industry. "The wild fisheries are very substantial and tend to be pretty much year-round, so there's a constant flow of available product," Forster said. "With the prices the wild fishery is getting now, it's more than able to compete with anything that cod farmers are likely to do. The challenge will be whether the farmers can get their costs down low enough to compete."'

In other words, cut the subsidies, let costs rise for wild fishermen, and all of a sudden farmed cod becomes particularly viable. Sort of like what happened with salmon.

All of which, you're correct, is irrelevant if the sole purpose of all this mess is to maintain a fishing industry, largely run as it is, at any cost. But if that's the case, it's not fishermen who are foolish.

From:

onebyone.livejournal.com

price for fish will rise, lowering the quantity consumed.

But why would consumption reduce sufficiently to conserve fish stocks? As you say, there's nothing fundamental to economic theory which says that a resource can't be exhausted. And there's no checks that I can see in this specific case which would obviously make it special. So what have I missed?

Furthermore, problems with overfishing only exist in areas fished by subsidized fishermen - care to show me otherwise?

Are there are any major fisheries which have no subsidized fishing at all? If not, that's a bit of a trick question. However, there is a fishery off west Africa somewhere which was on its way out largely due to unregulated local fishing, and is now conserved with quotas. I don't think the locals were subsidized. Can't find my reference to it, unfortunately, it was a long time ago that I read about it.

It's not really that important though. I'm asking you to justify your claims. I'm not saying I can prove the opposite. It would take the combined efforts of an economist and a marine biologist to study the implications of a completely free market, so I can't prove anything of the sort.

Rephrase the bet above to 'will not be completely wiped out of the fishing areas in question'

I already mentioned that - it won't happen either. The issue, as I said, is whether there will be fishable stocks (where we can probably agree that "100 cod somewhere in the Atlantic with a small trawler looking for them" doesn't contitute "fishable". Unless you try for some extremist view that anything that someone could theoretically do at some exorbitant cost is part of the market, so it doesn't matter whether or not they actually do it).

maintain a fishing industry, largely run as it is, at any cost.

Obviously not "at any cost". The EU bodies responsible make a judgement as to what cost is acceptable. As you're not an EU citizen, the fact that you consider the cost unacceptable will not sway their opinion ;-)