Posted on 05/02/2012 2:08:27 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Bolivian President Evo Morales ordered his military to seize the local assets of Spanish energy company Red Electrica, in the latest example of muscle-flexing by a South American leader.
Mr Morales said the expropriation of Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE), which runs most of Bolivia's power grid, was "in honour of all Bolivian people who have struggled to recuperate our natural resources and basic services". He timed the seizure for May Day.
TDE is 99.94pc owned by Spain's Red Electrica and, according to El Pais, accounts for about 1.5pc of the company's business. Accusing Red Electrica of underinvestment in TDE, Mr Morales said: "We do this... for the benefit of the Bolivian people."
The nationalisation comes just two weeks after Argentine President Cristina de Kirchner announced the expropriation of Spanish company Repsol's stake in oil group YPF, also citing underinvestment.
Mr Morales's move could further spook European investors already wary of resource nationalism in left-wing regimes in South
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Coming soon, to a SOON TO BE 3rd world country NEAR you.
What typically happens next is that you offer cut-rate discounts on power consumers of all sizes and types (even companies). The amount of money that flowed into the electrical company to pay for infrastructure, major repairs and life-cycle? Gone. It usually takes about two years for management to admit there’s a problem and then ask for funding out of thin air. They get refused, and then about a year later....you start to have brown-outs regularly and complete black-outs that last twelve hours or more. The gov’t typically would blame the management team, who usually packs up and quits. Then a bunch of junior folks are promoted up as managers....based mostly on politics instead of abilities. Things go downhill at that point.
There are ways that a government can monitor costs and profits, and insist on reasonable charges. A gov’t taking over a company, in ninety-nine percent of cases....brings the company down to marginal status.
Ha!....the equivalent of Australian aborigines seizing control of the world wide web.......
I don’t give a crap about gov takeovers....they will kill themselves and ask us to bail them out—and then the hell with them.
While I agree with the last part of your post, I DO care about governments “nationalizing” businesses. If you are invested in any global mutual funds (and most people with 401k plans are), they are stealing DIRECTLY FROM YOU.
Investors with any brains are selling off any Bolivian assets right now. Nice work Mr. “leader”...your country was already a toilet, but now it’s about to transform into a sewer.
This communist POS looks like he got hit in the face with a shovel.
If not, he should be.
Evo is a dictator in league with Hugo and other dictators to bring fascism back to South America. They support Iran and North Korea.
My point was the same as yours..it is theft, period. I worked for a company that developed all of the oil fields of Libya, and then quadaffi stole them. At great risk, our guys took drill bits and turned them upside down and dropped them in the wells. The quack had to redrill all most of the wells. So I had a direct investment that was stolen.
Nice work, sir. :)
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