Argentina to nationalize private pension funds
Oct 21, 2008
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner moved Tuesday to nationalize 30 billion dollars in private pension funds, saying it was necessary to protect retirees in the global financial crisis.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6evsfTuYtN0gWlilNg2Y6DZD50A
I can’t post the pic of her at this site.. Boy has she ever changed or the pic with O’Bummer was photo shopped...
Read the article below. O’Bummer is following her plan!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57415544/argentinas-oil-takeover-riles-investors/
Argentina’s oil takeover riles investors... April 17, 2012
President Cristina Fernandez made Spain furious by decreeing that her government will recover YPF by expropriating Repsol’s majority stake in the company.
Fernandez, who already nationalized Argentina’s flagship airline and private pension funds, said her aim is nothing less than to recover her country’s sovereignty. She accused Repsol of provoking an energy crisis by exporting too much of Argentina’s oil and failing to invest locally even as it paid huge dividends abroad.
Re-nationalizing YPF is a gamble that could boost her popularity ratings, which dropped from 70 percent in January to 50 percent in April, according to the Poliarquia tracking poll, following a scandal involving her vice president, soaring inflation, a cooling economy, reductions in utility and transportation subsidies and a deadly train crash.
Crowds turned out Tuesday to cheer the move, including a group that briefly invaded a YPF plant in La Plata and replaced a Repsol flag with Argentina’s
“Argentina’s reputation is going to suffer a lot and many investments will be lost,” Berensztein predicted. “I don’t think Argentina has a socialist ideology like Chavez’s Venezuela but it is evidently becoming more radicalized and in both cases the state will continue to intervene in companies.”
The takeover comes after months of pressure on YPF to increase its Argentine oil and gas production. Provincial governments have rescinded YPF licenses in major oil fields, alleging the company broke its contracts by failing to invest more. Repsol denies this, saying it has invested billions in the fields over the years, and planned to ramp up production even more.
Energy-rich Argentina has gone from being a major exporter of natural gas and oil to a major buyer of expensive energy imports that erode its trade surplus, which has helped sustain Argentina’s high economic growth over the past nine years.
Repsol President Antonio Brufau dismissed the criticism and accused Fernandez of trying to cover up Argentina’s economic and social ills with the “unlawful” expropriation, which caused the group’s shares to plunge more than 7 percent on Tuesday. He said the company aims for compensation of at least $10.5 billion.
....reminds me of the old Vietnam War chestnut: "We had to destroy the village, to save it."