Reply #16: There's everything wrong with it.

[baldguy]

This week, they'll want $1 mill to free a fully loaded ship. They'll buy newer, better & more powerful weapons with that money, then they'll take two ships & demand $2 mill each for them. And on, and on. Only a few shipping companies would be left, and prices for imports would skyrocket all over the world.

Imagine $1000 for a barrel of oil, a $100,000 surcharge for each Hyundai unloaded in San Diego. The next laptop you buy would be ten times more than it would've been today - all because of piracy. Any expected global economic recovery would be killed is people started paying them off.

The free market doesn't work on Wall St any more. It certainly won't work with the shippers needing to arm themselves.