last man out, please set the timer... thank you.
Posted on 11/29/2006 1:18:33 PM PST by Ben Mugged
Bolivia's Senate approved nationalization contracts with foreign oil companies during a hastily called session that ended early Wednesday morning.
The deals, which were signed last month, were drawn up according to the terms of President Evo Morales' May 1 nationalization of Bolivia's petroleum industry.
The agreements grant Morales' government a majority share of foreign companies' revenues generated in Bolivia as well as control over their operations in the country.
Companies signing contracts include Brazilian state energy giant Petrobras, Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF, the French company Total SA, and British Gas, a unit of BG Group PLC.
Bolivia's natural gas reserves are South America's largest after Venezuela's. ~snip~ Opposition leaders have accused Morales' government of bribing the senators' assistants, a charge the president has denied.
Morales' agrarian reform law grants his government the power to seize unproductive land for redistribution to Bolivia's landless poor.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Share the wealth will become share the scarcity.
The Mexican and Venezuelan business model.
Yeah, it must be practical. Everybody wants to apply it.
Socialists want to make everyone equally poor.
Socialism is usually sold as being a challenge to Oligarchy. But when government is the only game in town, Oligarchy only becomes stronger and more narrow.
Private wealth and private investment creates several and competing power centers. A centralized economy means there is only one.
Everyone except the nomenklatura, that is. Represented in America by John Kerry, et al.
Say goodbye to future investment in Bolivia. Although the Bolivians think they are getting "free stuff" by seizing equipment and resources that some other entity developed, the will mark the end of future investment by foriegn companies.
The Bolivians will also do a poor job of maintaining existing equipment leading to losses in revenue and increased accidents (dead peasants, who cares). There is also a chance that supplier may not sell spares to the Bolivians for fear of not getting paid.
I don't think they siezed the hardware. I think they forced contracts on existing developers to sieze their profits.
"The Mexican and Venezuelan business model."
Hey, it seems to work great for the leaders in Mexico and Venezuela.
Yup, nationalization has worked out so well for Mexico that it is one of the least efficient producers in the world, if not THE least efficient. Nor have the rich in Mexico ceased getting richer, nor the poor, poorer. With all the oil they have, and a free market, Mexico could have become one of the wealthiest countries on earth by now, 70 years after they nationalized. Pero, no es asi. Even the Saudis figured out how to do this, but not Mexico.
last man out, please set the timer... thank you.
It is the same old Communism/Socialism mantra. Sure, it has failed in the past but that was because it was not done by the right people. We are the right people.
Of course, it always only "the right people" who get rich.
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