Last night NBC Rock Center with Brian Williams aired a special on Carnival CEO Micky Arison who has a net worth reportedly of around $5,700,000,000.

One of the secrets to Arison’s wealth is that his cruise line, Carnival, according to NBC News, paid around 0.6% in taxes at the federal, state, local and international levels

I have always wondered how the cruise industry PR people do it.  

They face non-stop bad cruise news. The Splendor fire. The Concordia deaths. The Allegra fire.  The Triumph fire.  Plus another 10 cruise ship fires, 50 norovirus outbreaks and more shipboard rapes than you can count in just 3 years.

Yet, the cruise

The Associated Press reports that cruise giant Royal Caribbean lost $392.8 million in the fourth quarter because of losses associated with its Spanish cruise line, Pullmantur.

The AP states that Royal Caribbean wrote down $413,900,000 due to a substantial drop in bookings and prices in Spain following the Spanish government’s austerity measures. Royal Caribbean also

The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) announced today that eight cruise line groups have agreed to be merged with CLIA in order to operate under a common organization.    

The associations are the European Cruise Council (ECC), Asia Cruise Association (ACA), Passenger Shipping Association (PSA/ACE), France’s AFCC, Brazil’s ABREMAR, Northwest and Canada Cruise Association