To the good members of the Conservative Coalition and any others in the audience today, I am Felix Anzaldua. I am a businessman, and several members of our national community have asked me to address your party today on an issue of key importance. The previous governing parties ignored this issue; I hope that you all do not.
In EUtopia, and indeed the rest of the North Atlantic countries, we can see the continuing decline of an industry that once gave us our discoveries of new continents and the means to support our populations. I am speaking about commercial fishing, which over the past two centuries has so vigorously prosecuted their trade that little is left in the banks of the Atlantic for them to harvest. These fishermen are victims of their own shortsightedness in an economic race to the bottom, paying ill-heed to the consequences of their actions. According to American estimates, only an estimate 5% of pre-modern fish populations is left.
Those men and women who have spent careers and their entire lives laboring on the vast ocean will soon find themselves in an economically unviable position. There are fewer fish, but there is more competition from French and other fishermen who don’t know restraint and can’t see the clear economic future.
Our options are few. We can outright ban commercial fishing in any significant levels, and therefore destroy the livelihoods of thousands of our citizens. We could fail to act, and condemn many of these men and their descendants to a life of labor with little reward.
I am here to tell you that a third option exists. The National Assembly can act, and have immediate effect, to boost the nation’s wealth, jumpstart a profitable sector of our economy, and incidentally end some of the environmental damage in the North Atlantic.
Private citizens, such as Renard Rouge, a self-made entrepreneur and a personal success story, are already offering investments on generous terms to create indigenous shipping concerns. We as a nation can follow their lead and try to give our fishermen a hand up, not a hand out, so they can escape their future economic ruin.
I intend to petition the National Assembly to do what the United States has done and offer to buy the boats of commercial fishermen who are willing to give up their trade and can see the financial future of their present industry. This would be a one-time charge on the part of the National Assembly and would provide those fishermen with an exit from their deep capital investments in their trade, freeing them to entertain such offers as I previously mentioned.
Secondly, I ask that the National Assembly provide some form of matching funds, whether as discounted loans or outright grants, to give seed capital to these budding areas of maritime entrepreneurship so that the entry costs of purchasing or leasing merchant vessels can be surmounted by these citizens and their newly-formed corporations.
By providing initial seed money to overcome entry and exit barriers in commercial shipping and fishing, respectively, we can help these fishermen overcome economic barriers, move away from a dying industry, and create a more efficient and vibrant sector of our economy by helping them avoid normally insurmountable fixed costs.
Together, ladies and gentlemen, we can work together for a better future through clear economic thinking.
) in the LPE welcomes your offer for a coalition with the nexy elections approaching. U share your idea of us having rather simular political platforms, even more alike then they were when I led the CRE.
