Argentina re-nationalises YPF oil company!

[C. Flower]

And the Argentinians having sold and received money for the drilling rights, just seized the fruits of the exploration, and were unwilling to offer even 10 cents on the dollar. Few will want to do business with the Argentine government after that.

Unless they want some of their oil.

[Count Bobulescu]

WaPo Editorial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

WHEN CRISTINA Fernandez de Kirchner was reelected president of Argentina last October, we posited that she had a choice to make between continuing to pursue the autocratic populism she practiced before the election and leading her country back toward global markets and the democratic world.

This week Ms. Fernandez made her choice clear, by nationalizing the country’s largest oil company. Like her recent renewal of Argentina’s claims to the Falkland Islands, the measure won her cheap domestic applause — and ensured that Argentina’s isolation from the world, and from the economic progress of its neighbors, will continue to grow.

The president’s further lurch toward the left is bad news not only for businessmen. Since the election the government has continued to attack independent media, including the country’s two most important newspapers, Clarin and La Nacion. Economists who dare to report the true rate of inflation — upward of 20 percent — are subject to prosecution, while the official figures are doctored. Ms. Fernandez is said to be guided by a circle of militants led by her son, Maximo, and named after a leftist president of the early 1970s, Hector Campora.

The curse that shadows this once-rich country is the inability of its political class to learn from its blunders — or from its neighbors. While Brazil and Mexico power ahead, integrating with the world economy and consolidating stable democracies, Argentina under Ms. Fernandez is headed inexorably toward another crash. While there is little the rest of the world can do to prevent it, one way to send a wake-up call would be to remove Argentina from the Group of 20, the supposedly elite club of nations that gathers to weigh world economic problems. Neighboring Chile, which has far surpassed Argentina in economic and political development, would be the ideal replacement.

[Dr. FIVE]

Bolivia Seizes Unit of Spanish Power Company Red Electrica

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...electrica.html

Bolivia is nationalizing the local assets of Spain’s Red Electrica Corp. (REE), giving the government control of the Andean nation’s power grid two weeks after neighboring Argentina seized its biggest oil company.

President Evo Morales signed the decree today, saying the Alcobendas, Spain-based company’s local investment was inadequate and energy should be controlled by the government, according to a statement on the presidential website. Bolivia generated 45.7 million euros ($60.4 million) in revenue for Red Electrica in 2011, less than 3 percent of total company sales.

[C. Flower]

Bolivia Seizes Unit of Spanish Power Company Red Electrica

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...electrica.html

A new form of protectionism ? Grab your own assets ?