The New Pirates of the Seven Seas

The googling I did on the earlier post on Carnival Cruise Lines has got me more interested in the whole cruise business. Of course, front page NYTimes stories on Ted Stevens and Don Young, also helped pique my curiosity. So here's a book of interest to Alaskans whose legislature has been tinkering with an cruise line initiative Alaskans passed last fall at the behest of the cruise industry. Of course, this is a good time to raise issues about campaign contributions in Alaska.

The book's called Cruise Ship Squeeze The New Pirates of the Seven Seas by Ross A. Klein published by a Canadian company, New Society Publishers. USD$ 17.95

I don't normally feature books here that I haven't read, but they do have a 5 1/2 page overview of the book available as a pdf file. And I'll offer some quotes here along with my comments. And Klein, a college professor, has published numerous articles and books on the topic, and even testified before Congress as an expert witness. He's not without credentials and expertise And he runs www.cruisejunkie.com, with information on environmental issues, health issues, crew issues, etc. It also says on the New Society website that he's been on 300 cruises. So if he's writing about cruise lines, I bet they're all tax deductible.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MODERN PIRATES— the ones who sail huge cruise ships from one port to another and offload thousands of day-visitors at a time.

OK, the Pirate title is kind of provocative and certainly tells us what the author thinks before we even open the book. So we know we have to read this book critically and skeptically. But at least I'm hoping it will give us some good leads and facts to check up on. And it can't be any more biased than the cruise industries ads all over Alaska last summer and fall trying to defeat the cruise regulation initiative. And I recognize the marketing value of a catchy title, so I've used it for this post.

Passengers buy tours ashore provided by local folks in the ports they visit, but the cruise ship keeps more money from the sale than is given to the person providing the tour.On top of this,the stores where passengers shop kick back substantial sums for the privilege of having cruise passengers in their place of business,ports often provide incentives for cruise ships to stop,and governments look the other way regarding cruise industry environmental practices.

So Alaskans seem to be a little ahead of the curve. Of course, Alaska is a general destination. While the cruises can play one Southeast port against another, as they do in the Caribbean, it would be hard to just drop out of Alaska altogether...I think. Anyway, the initiative has language to tell passengers what kind of cut the ships take on the tours booked on board and from the stores they send them to. Hmmm, our cruises often start in Vancouver (where this book was published.) I wonder if the initiative writers read the book, or even know the author. He teaches way on the other side of Canada. I'll have to check to find out who was behind the initiative and how they came up with the language.

The North American cruise industry earned more than $2.5 billion
in net profit in 2004.It pays virtually no corporate income tax and is exempt from
most laws in the countries that the ships visit.

I got the money in the previous post, but not the tax deductions.

Princess Cruises,Norwegian Cruise Line,and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
all began operations in the mid to late 1960s.Carnival Cruise Lines was a latecomer,
starting in 1972.

Carnival was the leader in takeovers and mergers. It was smaller than Princess
and Royal Caribbean in 1988,but by 1990 it eclipsed both.It was unsuccessful in its
1988 attempt to take over Royal Caribbean, but succeeded in acquiring Princess
Cruises in 2003.

Didn't know the timing of taking over Princess. What about Holland-America? Maybe the train station at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was worked out before Carnival took over.

Chapter 3 looks at how the industry avoids taxes and how it uses
lobbyists, campaign contributions, and contributions from industry-controlled
foundations to influence political decision-making.In stark contrast to the Boston
Tea Party’s cry in the 1770s against taxation without representation, the cruise
industry enjoys representation without taxation. The industry exercises its influence in national politics as well as state,provincial,and local decision-making.

I found www.newsmeat.com before I found New Society Publishers. I was trying to see what kind of contributions Carnival made to Stevens or Sheffield. The Alaska Public Offices Commission doesn't seem to have its records on-line. But newsmeat popped up a long list of contributions by Micky Arison, 67, Chairman of Carnival Cruiselines and owner of the Miami Heat. According to newsmeat Arison gave $181,150 to Republicans, $115,650 to Democrats, and $101,500 to special interests for a total of $398,300 from April 11, 1986 to March 3, 2007. Don Young's first contributions from Arison are listed as November 11, 1980. Not sure what the date means (date of contribution or of report of contribution?) because Young got $1000 on that date for the primary and another $1000 for the general. And, of course, the election was over by November 11. Frank Murkowski shows up first in December 1991 for $1000 primary contribution. Theodore Stevens gets his first $1000 in primary money in July 1993. I can see I'm going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to go through the campaign contribution websites more efficiently. On this one I don't seem to be able to sort so I can look at what Arison gave specifically to Stevens, to Young, to Murkowski, etc. Then, there is Mrs. Arison, but she doesn't seem to have given to Alaskans. But this is only Arison's money, not Carnival money, or money from other Carnival owned companies or employees.

Chapter 4 focuses on a strongly held perception that cruise ships are “cash cows.”The cruise industry, its lobbyists,and its various regional trade organizations promote this view. It is based in part on consistent claims by the cruise industry,and adopted by many ports,that the average cruise passenger spends more than $100 in each port a ship calls upon.

Too bad I didn't save those ads that helped keep the Anchorage Daily News profitable last summer touting how much money each passenger brought to the State of Alaska.

A passenger today can have a cruise for a fraction of the cost 10, 20, or even 30 years ago, but additional onboard costs today are exponentially higher than in those
earlier days. And as passengers spend more money onboard, they have less to spend onshore. Unbundling helps the cruise line with its income, but undermines the potential income for ports on which cruise lines depend.

I've been wondering why some of the cruise prices in the newspapers seemed so cheap. Unbundling. And it seems, based on a few letters to the editors, that the cruises are specifically identifying Alaska's new passenger tax for passengers instead of bundling them invisibly in the whole price. Well, if they can do that, it shouldn't be so hard to unbundle the commissions they get from Alaska shops and tours required by the new initiative.

OK, enough for now.