MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina takes official control of YPF; Rajoy asks: who can trust that country?
The Argentine decision to seize control of 51% of YPF oil and gas giant came into effect on Monday as a decree was published on the Official Gazette. From Spain a new barrage of criticisms in support of Repsol and condemning Argentina started the week. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesI trust Argentina and I am Argentine, who is this european guy to talk trash about Argentina?? it must be envy because unlike Europe Argentina is not bankrupt. Anyone needs a loan???? Lol
May 07th, 2012 - 05:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Repsol are going to sue anyone who gets involved with YPF:
May 07th, 2012 - 06:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/100181/repsol-warns-oil-giants-to-sue-if-they-join-ypf-british-paper
#1 Pirat-Hunter
May 07th, 2012 - 06:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It would seem your nation's two major problems of economics and history reside in you.
You remain technically unable to repay debts therefore your country remains bankrupt and unable to borrow from the world markets hence your president raping private pensions for some liquidity.
@1
May 07th, 2012 - 07:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If Argentina isnt bankrupt (yet) it is only because you have stolen money from everything and anything you can such as pension funds, central bank YPF etc. etc.
Eventually you will have nothing left to steal in your poverty stricken country and then your Govt will have to invade another country to get more assets to steal unfortunately your armed forces are defunct as your paranoid president is too scared of a military coup so you will then be left with the sum total of fuckall.
Happy days.
so you will then be left with the sum total of fuckall
May 07th, 2012 - 07:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@1 And no, fuckall aint a stately home:-)))))
That day isn't far away. They're royally fooked.
May 07th, 2012 - 08:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@1. Argentina has a poor credit rating compared to the UK, Spain, Republic of Ireland & Italy, according to Standard & Poor's update on 20th April 2012.
May 07th, 2012 - 08:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You blinded by the CFK bullshit or you actually brain-dead?
#3 debt?? I don't Know what you are talking about.
May 07th, 2012 - 09:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/
7 BenC30
May 07th, 2012 - 09:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Ah but don't you know? Standard and Poor's is just a corrupt western world organisation working to support the west and suppress the rest (like Argentina).
@1
May 07th, 2012 - 09:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You're clearly a weak troll, but this is how your failed state is seen by the world....
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299154/what-s-wrong-argentina-matthew-shaffer?page=5
Poor Pirat-Hunter!
May 07th, 2012 - 11:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Talk about deluded...well ignorance is bliss..is it not?
The EU is going through a difficult process of re-structuring its debt and balancing the economy WITHOUT defaulting. It may not succeed but it is trying. The Argentinean method is to say, this is way too difficult let's just not pay anything back. If the EU did this, the entire global system would collapse.
Europe may be envious of the growth rate of many develloping countries right now, but Argentina is not one of them.
One of the richest countries in the world is close to implosion. It is a huge shame. Argentina should be helping to feed the world's starving and contributing to global organisations, but it is drowning in its own shit. The UK gave U$1600 million pounds to the world heath org last year. How much did Argentina give? France and Germany give similar amounts and that is just one organisation. Who pays the bills at the UN? Who gives disproportionately more than they should and who gives less?
Even here in SAmerica the EU funds humanitarian projects in several countries and those projects remain committed despite the EU's problems. What does Argentina do? Who does it help? It just wastes it wealth and blames everyone else. It is so obsessed with its own problems that it helps nobody.
Stolen from Usurping Pirate and published here as a public service.)
May 08th, 2012 - 12:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0To : Mrs Cristina Fernadez de Kirchner
President of the Republic of Argentina
C/O Casa Rosada
Plaza De Mayo
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Your Most Exalted Excellency,
I am writing in response to your continued demands for the transfer of sovereignty of the Falkland Islands .
Having consulted with my colleagues, the British readers of the Daily Telegraph and the Falklands Islands legislature, I am afraid your request has been refused.
However, being British, magnanimous and fair , we cannot see you leave the negotiating table empty handed.
HM The Queen has graciously commanded that henceforth, Liverpool and its dependencies, Widnes and Runcorn , will be ceded to Argentina in perpetuity.
The population of Liverpool is very similar to the rest of the Argentine people, so will assimilate very quickly.
You will also be pleased to know that the whole of Ireland is on Liverpool's continental shelf, so you will no doubt be claiming that as well, especially since a great part of the Spanish armada was wrecked off the Irish coast, which automatically makes it Argentine territory.
The owners of Liverpool FC and Everton FC have confirmed they are looking forward to playing in the Belgrano League, though they admit away matches will be a bit of a strain.
It's only fair to warn you that buying the votes of scousers will cost you a little more than votes in Lanus or Avellaneda.
They will expect a council house, £300 pw, a pair of white trainers and a Plasma TV.
As a thank you to your good self in being so patient with us, Her Majesty has graciously presented you with some Harrods gift vouchers, a William & Kate souvenir pack with a mug, tea towel and DVD and a brown envelope containing an unspecified amount of cash in US dollars.
Yours sincerely
The Right Hon William Hague
Foreign secretary.
her Britannic Majesty's Government
London SW1
“The UK gave U$1600 million pounds”
May 08th, 2012 - 01:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0Or should that read “The UK gave U$s 1600 million Japanese euros”
Sorry but that was irresistible.
Argentina is a product of colonialism, conquered by the sword, most of the natives killed and infected by disease, their land taken from them and worked by imported African slaves, oversean by imported European colonials. The African's who made up 50% of the population would themselves completely disapear from Argentina between 1850-1900 in what could have been a chilling fore runner to the disareances of the Dirty War in the 1970's when an estimated 30,000 Argentines were raped, tortured and murdered, many more were held illegally in detention camps and tortured. The true figure for the dead could be as high as 100,000, no one knows because there is little official documentation and most bodies were dumped in the sea.
May 08th, 2012 - 02:42 am - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina took land from its neighbours in numberous wars , civil wars and land grabs - Paraguay, Uraguay, Chile. Today Argentina despite the changed political landscape is still a nation characterised by uber nationalism. The claim to the Falklands was surendered in 1850 but reserected in 1941 by a fascist junta, which inc Peron, they thought their friends the Nazi were going to win the war, the Falklands looked easy picking.
In 1982 Argentina was under the latest succession of a series of fascism military junta's. Their hold on power was looking precarious, in deperation they sort a war, Chile looked like a good victim, they already claimed lots of land and were ignoring the international tribunals that had ruled in Chile's favor. But then they changed their mind and invaded the Falklands. Today the war is romanticized by a nation ruled by a kind of cross between a Neo-Nazi uber nationalist and a Charvesta Revolutionary uber Marxist. The only thing missing is the land reform. Maybe that's for later? But as few natives remain, maybe they'll just ignore their rights... God knows they always have. An entire culture replaced by a European one. Entire languages destroyed.
Timmerman should take time to read about his country's history.
@13 I'm sure nobody minds what the currency is... ok maybe not Argentine pesos :)
May 08th, 2012 - 02:46 am - Link - Report abuse 0Now that was irresistible ;)
Numbers talk by themselves... He is taking Spain everytime to a deeper and deeper crisis. Who can trust HIM? LOL
May 08th, 2012 - 03:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0Everybody knows he is in the Government to defend corporations. Spain has such a rich history and culture... that is the Spain he should defend, the Spain of wonderful architecture, the Spain of the Picassos, of the great writers.
What a pity that Spain has a government that is dedicating its time to defend a company that has not much to do with the Spanish people.
REPSOL has enriched more and more while the production in Argentina was everytime less. They didn't invest that money in Spain or for the good of Spanish people.
If they were making so much profit out of the Argentine resources they should at least invest it in their own country... but we all know big companies have no flag, REPSOL cares nothing about Spanish or Argentine people, why should the Spanish Government defend their claim then??
How is REPSOL gonna demonstrate that the company values all that money they want to get??? ALL LIES.
Pesos would be an excellent trade for the chaos repsol is creating for Argentina in Europe. Viva CFK y que viva la campora!!
May 08th, 2012 - 04:42 am - Link - Report abuse 06 GreekYoghurt
May 08th, 2012 - 06:51 am - Link - Report abuse 0I'm with GreekYoghurt on this one.... “...and when the crash does come the world shall hold it's breath at the finality of it” I think that when that day does come ( and believe me ladies, gentlemen, and Le camping it IS coming ) KFC will go from hero to zero in less time than it takes to say “Is there anything for dinner tonight?”
@ 16 - Fermin.
May 08th, 2012 - 07:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0It's patently obvious you don't understand how modern business works. When you mention REPSOL investment in Spain, what you really mean to say is it has invested a great deal in Spain in terms of job creation, public schemes and paying its taxes.
You know what is most shameful for Argentine people is stealing the Spanish company YPF in their time of need and turning your back on your oldest ally. Have the Argentine people no decency, loyalty or integrity? Spain has supported Argentina when it was obviously damaging to its own relations to do so and stood by Argentina in its time of need and now when it needs support Argentina steals from it slanders its government and people.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand why Argentina has done this. It has no credit is running very low on funds, inflation at over 30% (from the latest reports) and is in itself a terrible position, so there is some sense in stealing the largest company in Argentina.
Shameful, truly shameful.
@19 During the Falklands conflict when the Argtards were trying to bomb british targets in Spain and Gibraltar, the Spanish Police arrested the bombers, then when they found out who they were and what they were doing they then released them took them out to dinner with their families and photos, then put them back on a plane to Argtardia with their equipment.
May 08th, 2012 - 10:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0That's the sort of support Spain gives Argtardia.
And the answer is:
May 08th, 2012 - 12:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Nobody in his/her right mind.
Philippe
@19
May 08th, 2012 - 12:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0No one stood by Argentina during its time of need. Not that we ended up needing it anyway. Unlike all countries in the era since Bretton-woods (including the UK which was granted a 2.8 billion pound bailout in '75, about 30 billion of today's U$D), Argentina got out of its economic depression completely alone.
Perhaps now people may understand why Argentina and argentines feel they really can get by without what are veiled enemies in the nations of Europe, North America, Asia, Mercosur, etc. We survived 2001-2002, and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
@22 Israel stood by you in 1982, one of your hours of need. After 2001 you didn't pay your debts, so no one wanted to lend you any more. Your government statistics are all lies, so no one trusts you.
May 08th, 2012 - 01:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#22
May 08th, 2012 - 01:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“Argentina got out of its economic depression completely alone”
Only by defaulting on all its debts. Which makes you lying thieves.
@22
May 08th, 2012 - 01:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well it is in times of need that you find out who your friends are. If you steal from everyone and help no one you can't expect any more than that.
The difference between the UK bail out in '75 and Argentina's position is that the UK is a net contributor to the IMF where as Argentina defaulted on over U$100 billion.
Is Argentina stronger today? I would like to hear some of the reasons for that.
If you can make a success of YPF and balance the budget you might be right, otherwise it doesn't look good.
I have worked on joint Chilean-Argentinean projects where everything gets held up on the Argentine side: corruption, incompetence no spare parts and so on. In the end we have to send more Chileans to work in the Argentina side and run everything from here, sending spares from here to Argentina and paying off customs officials. Even the supermarkets are empty in the western provinces. This of course is my limited experience but the country looks to be in a complete mess.
Argentina needs a leader to come in and talk some home truths and fix the institutions. I don’t see how you can advance with the level of corruption. I have seen better police forces in Africa, that’s no joke.
@16
That is all well and good, but companies belong to many people and pension funds. When you steal, you steal from them. How would you like your pension stolen? Nationalise, ok, but pay what is due.
@24
May 08th, 2012 - 02:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0All other countries that were in crisis did not default on their debts because they were bailed out, otherwise they would have gone under. Nothing special or criminal about Argentina's case.
Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Philipines, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, have all been bailed out in the last decades by the IMF. Before that several mainland Euro nations including the UK. Recently Greece, Ireland, Iceland, and Portugal (first world countries, some of the “nordic” with the implications of low-corruption, and yet still fell to crisis).The USA bailed itself out via China otherwise its banking system would have totally collapsed.
When any of your countries recovers from a crisis without being bailed out (Marshall plans or IMF), come to any argentine and brag about it. Until then, we were stronger than you, end of story.
@26
May 08th, 2012 - 02:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0So by your logic, Chile is stronger than Argentina because it has never been bailed out nor defaulted on loans. I would agree with you.
Re the UK, you seem to ignore the point that the UK is a net contributor to the IMF, i.e. it takes out less than it puts in to the pot. Argentina is a serial defaulter, puts nothing in the pot and refuses to repay what it has borrowed.
With your extreme isolationist views, North Korea must be the ideal state.
#26
May 08th, 2012 - 02:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Very strange logic: “we stole from our creditors, instread of getting a bail out and paying everyone back in the end, so we are strong”. Sounds a bit like the sort of comment you get from school playground bullies.
By defaulting on your loans you STEAL from your creditors. Far better to be bailed out - which means that you end up paying everyone back.
So why did Argentina not choose the bail out route? Because the IMF would have imposed an economic regime which would quickly have shattered argentinian delusions as to their reputed power and strength.
Fact is, Argentina is 27th by GDP, 57th by GDP per capita, 100th in the TI corruption index, and rated B by S&P. All in all, that's nothing to be proud of, given the country's natural resources and the position it occupied in the 1920's.
So, you are a bunch of lying thieves, and far far poorer and weaker than the UK - or Spain for that matter. End of story.
Chile was bailed out by the half a million Chileans that escaped the economic disaster that was Chile from the late 60s to the late 80s. Remember the Allende years? The start of the Pinochet dictatorship? Remember Chile's economy from 1980 to 1983? My formed maid did, and told me about it.
May 08th, 2012 - 02:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Chile in 1982 was completely destroyed, worse than Argentina in 2002.
@28
Yes, yes, yes. Going bankrupt is theft, that is why it is enshrined in the laws of of almost all nations as a legitimate way of surviving a credit crunch or exceptional circumstance.
I wonder who do you think you are trying to convince with your arrantly incoherent adult fibs.
I'd rather trust Cristina, a fighter against fascism from her youth, than the Franco-nostalgic Rajoy
May 08th, 2012 - 02:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@ tobias
May 08th, 2012 - 03:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I agree that Chile was ruined in 1982 but we are talking about 2012.
You don’t need to tell me about the damage done by the populist, nationalising, protectionist Allende government or the early days of Pinochet.
Chile was weak then, but it is stronger now. Argentina is weak now.
Chile is almost unrecognisable from the country it was in ’82. Argentina is the same, lurching from crisis to crisis, still obsessed with the Falklands.
Economic migration is not a bail out, but it is a good measure of a country’s weakness. People fled Chile in the 70s/80s to escape poverty and political persecution. Today there is massive immigration to Chile, especially from Argentina. Do you live in Argentina? Have you seen the poverty in the provinces. To brag about proudly self-destructing shows no care for the Argentine people. People struggling to survive. The mining towns of Chile are swamped with Argentinean girls selling themselves – that is the cruel reality of your proud implosion. Do you not care for these compatriots?
Spain, in the form of the government and then Repsol, sowed the wind by supporting Argentina against the British AND now it is reaping the whirlwind.
May 08th, 2012 - 04:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Tough.
31 Condorito (#)
May 08th, 2012 - 04:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0May 08th, 2012 - 03:35 pm
I'm afraid that tobias is in the sad position of being a lonely Argentine trying to justify the unjustifiable on his own.
Under such circumstances his answer will not be totally “sane”. He'll be forced to try to answer from within his nationalism, not from a sense of patriotism.
As a patriot he would be horrified at what his “compartiotas” are going through to survive the Kirchner plague, but as a nationalist he will be forced to say “I don't care, the country comes first.”
Sad.
@31
May 08th, 2012 - 04:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You may convice non-South Americans condorito, but we both know the truth.
There is no massive argie immigration to Chile. There is no massive exudus from Argentina to Europe like in 2001, where are the lines of the embassies in Argentina? Answer, there are none. So you know and I know you are making that up.
Also, Argentina receives far more South american immigrants than Chile does. Remember, Chile still has mines on the Bolivian/Peruvian borders. Does that sound like a progressive country?
The poverty in the provinces? I live in a province called Mendoza, and most people pro or anti can't really say anything but that is a clean, relatively prosperous place. Sorry.
The north of Argentina was always poor. It was poor in 1912, it is poor now.
Pratt-Junta @1
May 08th, 2012 - 06:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“I trust Argentina and I am Argentine”.
So, Pratt-Junta, as you despise us Brits (and everyone else by the look of your post) WTF do you live in Canada.
A former British Colony? What a hypocrit.
Well I find myself having to defend Tobias and I think you all know my views.
May 08th, 2012 - 08:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I live in Chicureo (Near Santiago) and I travel to Mendoza, on a regular basis. As he describes it, clean, prosperous and an enjoyable place to visit. Plenty of good paying jobs for those seeking employment.
Very good restaurants and excellent wineries. In general, very good people as well, much friendlier than residents of BA.
Condorito is correct also: “Chile is almost unrecognisable from the country it was in ’82” I was near the Costanera Center yesterday and still can't fathom the massive 67 story tower that they're finishing there.
Two things I can't stand about Argentina*: The corruption and the politicians
(*There are about 20 I hate about Chile.)
(Cheap shot about the mines Tobias. There's a good reason for them. I also understand there are land mines still in the Falklands...)
@36 People don't defacate in their own garden, that's why the Argtards threw all the landmines over the Falklands, because they know it's someone else's. It's also why they dropped all the nuns into the South Atlantic, because they know they don't own that either.
May 08th, 2012 - 08:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's just how they roll.
#29
May 08th, 2012 - 09:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Bankruptcy is for INDIVIDUALS, you moron.
But do you know what happens if you go bankrupt? A committee of creditors is appointed and takes over control of ALL your assets, with a few minor exemptions (like your clothes, bedding and tools), and these pass to your CREDITORS.
Argentina did not go bankrupt - there is no provision for this in international law, which is a shame because your assets would have been passed to your creditors.
What happened was that Argentina simply threw a tantrum and decided to stop paying. And before you start on about rich banks being able to afford the resulting losses, just remember that in developed countries the largest shareholders are the pension funds. And that's why you are all a bunch of lying thieves.
http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/columns/biotech-showcase-2012/1175/doug-casey-on-argentina-and-todays-evita-1175.html
May 08th, 2012 - 10:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina's politicians have been just terminally stupid ever since Juan Perón. Even though he was a criminal personality, an overt admirer of Mussolini, and openly sympathetic to Hitler, Perón has become such a cultural icon that you can't do anything in Argentina today without at least calling yourself a Perónist. It's rather like in the US, where, if you don't think that FDR was a hero for getting the US out of the Great Depression, you're persona non grata. Perón is Argentina's Roosevelt.
More recently, former president Nestor Kirchner – late husband of Cristina, the current president – was a total disaster. All of his policies were completely wrong-headed and destructive, but he had the good luck to get elected just as the commodities boom got under way, and demand for Argentine agricultural and mineral products soared. That paid for a lot of social spending and made him look like a hero, even though everything he did was the exact opposite of what needed doing.
This is true of Cristina too, but she's actually outdone her husband in implementing economically suicidal policies. Every single week, her government does something that's bizarre, counterproductive, or absurd. The most recent and serious blunder, of course, was the nationalization of YPF – but just a few weeks ago, her government tried to ban the importation of books. It wasn't because they cared what was in the books, it was part of the effort to limit imports in general.
@38
May 09th, 2012 - 02:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0Please provide the statute that states that sovereign defaults are illegal.
Rajoy is pointing forward with his finger in this photo, someone please tell him to moderate his authoritarian impulses. What he says in words is contradicted by his manners and gestures.
May 09th, 2012 - 07:01 am - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina didn't go against the Spanish Government when IBERIA left Aerolineas Argentinas in a terrific situation, as an almost dead company, Argentina didn't go against the Canadian Government when ScotiaBank left the country without giving Argentina media classes their money back...
A Spanish Governor shouldn't stand by Repsol if it was really dedicated to spanish media/workers classes.
In fact Spain was little by little in its way to crisis while REPSOL was making astronomic profit during the last decade. What has REPSOL done for the good of Spain???
#39 Just read some of that article; what a load of ill infored pig headed garbage
May 09th, 2012 - 01:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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