MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Morales nationalizes control of Bolivia three main airports
Populist Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday nationalized control of the country’s three main airports from Spain’s operator Abertis-Aena, arguing that the company had not fulfilled investments commitments promised for years. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesSpain is getting screwed in SA and the Spanish government does nothing. Bolivia will continue on it's primitive track with actions like this.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, and I wonder how much 'cow pat head' will be investing in them. Nada.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Shades of TMBOA.
“Despite compensation pledges no agreement has been reached yet.”
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0So much for being compensated.
Nationalizing things and controlling the economy to make things more socially equal is probably a noble endeavor. But bureaucracies tend to just make things move forward more slowly.
So, in the quest for egalitarianism on the national level, the nation just becomes less and less economically equal on the international level.
Then that country's people observe how much better things are elsewhere and feel victimized for it. Then that country's politicians start spewing the nationalistic, “poor victim”, “evil capitalists” rhetoric and get elected for their tripe.
Then they nationalize more companies and screw up their country's global economic standing even more. And on, and on, and on.
That assumes evil evo allows the people to know what is actually going on outside. Argentina is proof of how easy it is to brainwash and have your thoughts prearranged.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes to business and investment...
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0No to looting and exploitation...
Fuerza Sr. Morales,
@5 who invests in anything where you can seize it?,
Feb 18th, 2013 - 05:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I believe national enterprises CAN work. But the way they did it they'll need to invest in themselve
No doubt part of the “Kirchner” model. Goodbye Bolivia. Get out the spears and return to the jungle. Much safer.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 06:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0All of these Bolivarian Socialist, Presidents por vida run failed corrupt states. The only people getting ahead are the family of the Dictators and their minions/cronies.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 06:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Sickening
Evo is failing his people and because of expropriations, no business with invest in bolivia, evo sealed that deal. bolivia will remain a primitive tribal country thanks to evo.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 06:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Evo is just another arrogant uneducated stupid socialist,
Feb 18th, 2013 - 06:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Their arrogance of not selling nat gas to Chile has cost their citizens a much better way of life.
So who are their customers Brazil, well not for long once they get their newly discovered fields on line they will drop Bolivia. Argentina, well only the north where nobody lives because no one will invest in the pipelines to get it to BA. At least not until both Evo and CFK are gone.
So in a couple years when Brazil stops buying Bolivia will still have large reserves just no customers.
Stupid arrogant fools.
Bolivia is DIRT poor, super disgusting and no place I will ever go again.
@5 think
Feb 18th, 2013 - 06:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Day 1:
Thank you for setting this up for us. We could not have done this so well ourselves. We appreciate this business investment!
Day 3:
Whoa, hey!! You're looting and exploiting us now and we're going to seize what you put together.
Nice way of looking at things.
#11 now that they've taken over the airports, the skies will never be safe again over sunny bolivia.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 07:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0spain gets another kick in the nether regions from its so called SA friends, wake up and smell the bullshit and treachary from the SA. Stop bullying Gib and take a look southward, idiots they are making fools out of you!!!!!
Feb 18th, 2013 - 07:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Spain has their head up their ass for allowing them to be looted. With the problems Spain has, less tax dollars are not doing Spain any good. One would think they would take an agressively, hard assed approach. How much more will Spain allow SA to steal from them?
Feb 18th, 2013 - 07:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well his heart is in the right place, but it makes no sense economically.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 08:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The western world ought to leave all the Latin American countries to f***k up their countries then we can move in and clean up
Feb 18th, 2013 - 08:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Compensation?
Feb 18th, 2013 - 08:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I don't know if it is real. I suspect not. Certainly the terms will be set by Bolivia.
Spain might be wise to just take whatever pennies on the dollar offered, and bail.
However, make sure they take ALL their expertise with them.
When the inevitable deterioration and cracks occur, maybe a better deal can be brokered with a 'better' government.
FAce it......SA is FUBAR.....and at this point, any business that invests anywhere in SA gets what they deserve. I suspect countries are well on there way to regressing to a good 100 years ago....or worse, become like rgentina.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 08:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0golfcronie, Captain P, can you please be more discerning. Chile and Peru are growing at a splendid rate. In the case of Peru this in a new thing, in the case of Chile it is a 20+ year trend.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 08:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Chile 2012:
GDP growth: 5.9%
Unemployment: 7.8%
Inflation: 2.5%
Salaries increase: 6.3%
Minimum wage increase: 25%
Life expectancy increase (2002 - 2012): 10 years!
Chilean GDP/head will break through $20k this year...Bolivia is at $2.5k
We are not f**king up and we are not regressing.
Troy:
“make sure they take ALL their expertise with them” - problem is that Spanish expertise is just desperate for a job. They are all over here begging for work at the moment.
My apologise for grouping every country in SA that category.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 09:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@ Condorito.
Feb 18th, 2013 - 09:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Unfortunately some of these Brit posters are nearly as bad as the Argentine ones.
What I would like to say though is that Bolivia sits on untold riches and all they have to do is get them out. Sadly they have a living standard bellow that of Guyana and it looks like it will remain like that for the foreseeable future. Anti business and FDI policies will doom a poverty stricken, resource rich nation that has little or no capital. A perfect example is their Lithium reserves. NO Morales doesn't want to lease out a mining concession to EVIL foreign companies, he wants the state to extract the metal and value add by making batteries and electric cars, I gotta tell you I pissed myself laughing when I read this. With rulers like these who needs enemies.
Could his electric car project be even more of a joke than Chavez's one?
Feb 18th, 2013 - 10:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0...
The magnitude of Bolivia's backwardness is best illustrated by the fact that most of us feel sorry for them. I mean if you relentlessly demand a piece of your neighbors national territory and your neighbor doesn't even lose any sleep over it, how serious a country are you?
And those poor soldiers this week. 3 armed Bolivian captured in our territory and Evo is complaining to the UN. Could you imagine this the other way round...we start demanding a chunk of Bolivia and our soldiers turn up in their country...holy crap it would be a declaration of war!
@ 22 Condorito
Feb 18th, 2013 - 11:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You're right we do feel sorry for them. We import more than 4 billion M3 of natural gas mainly from Trinidad and Tobago every year, you think they would wanto get in on the action, they could take the whole lot if they wanted and that would make a big difference to their living standards. Pity.
@22 and @23:
Feb 18th, 2013 - 11:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Do you guys think that maybe this is why some SA countries are so keen to back Argentina over the Falklands, in that it could open a pandora's box regarding re-drawing national borders?
South Americans are nationalizing Spanish investments, because they see Spain as a weak geopolitical power with nothing to offer in return. The US, China, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Brazil have plenty of clout in the region, they can offer something in return for protection of their investments. }
Feb 19th, 2013 - 03:44 am - Link - Report abuse 0South America populist politicians are like vultures smelling a dead man walking in every Spanish enterprise in the region. Traditional Spanish arrogant behavior never helped them. Mexico´s investments in the region are normally factories producing different goods, consumer-goods, soft-drinks, cement, cable, bread, telecom and television, nothing related to highly-exposed sectors such as gas, oil, banking or other similar sectors. If Spain does not have a military or economic influence in the region, as it is the case with Mexico, then they should have never invested in important sectors of high national value to those countries.
@19 isall kinds of right.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 05:21 am - Link - Report abuse 0And on.a separate note, that profit margin seems outrageously gargantuan, if he's being anywhere accurate. Competitive bidding works.in countries with lower nepotism and greater transparency.
Its not quite as clear cut as Morales would like the world to believe.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 11:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0“SABSA invested 3.7 million dollars and made a profit of 20 million dollars” claimed Morales”
http://www.abertis.com/press-room/abertis-defends-its-management-in-bolivia-and-expects-to-reach-a-compensation/var/lang/en/idm/487/idc/4351
24 screenname
Feb 19th, 2013 - 02:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have assumed that a major reason they support the Argentine case is simply because if they don't nothing else gets done. It costs them little political capital to agree (the UK doesn't really care) but immense earache if they don't. Argentina is a big fish in the little pond of South America - the rest just want to get by.
I'm sure there is a multitude of reasons that could be given but I believe that is the crux of the geopolitical one.
@24. I think it is just part of the Nationalist mind-set they need to rule. They need an enemy and a cause to unite people. Venezuela “the evil USA”, Argentina “the evil British pirates”, Bolivia, “The evil land-grabbing Chileans” etc.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 02:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0When you have a significant poor population with hopeless lives, you just need to give them half a hope (albeit false) and blame all their ills on an outside enemy to keep them onside. Then you improve their lives by a fraction to show you are working for them but never allow them to progress out of poverty (then you lose your voting base) or educate them (so they can see the lie) and rob the country blind.
Bolivia is the poorest SoAm country. Morales says it is because they don't have access to the sea. (I offer you Switzerland?!?) No, it is ignorance, incompetence and deliberately keeping people poor that is the problem.
I wouldn't call the place ugly. Parts are ugly and parts are stunningly beautiful.
27 agent999
Feb 19th, 2013 - 03:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I assume the statement “The expropriation of Sabsa has no impact on the accounts of abertis” - means they had already written it off as a bad debt?
You are absolutley correct Elaine, it's that Nationalist fervor. I see it a lot down there. There is a distinct difference in national pride and nationalism. They are untied in that they feel taken advantage of and the leaders seem to motivate their flocks with anti-ism. Anti-Europe, Anti-USA......whatever works to shake the hornets nest. The only thing that they truly are accomplishing is locking themselves out of the international markets with that anti-ism. They also feel re-enforced in the believe that China is they solution to tossing away the west. hey are in for a ruder awakening.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 03:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In Latin America, the “West” is merely reaping what it has been sowing for the last 600 years.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 05:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Minas Gerais, Salvador Allende, Guantanamo, the Panama channel, Tenochtitlan, the oil in Maracaibo, plan Condor, Che Guevara, Oscar Romero, the blockade of Cuba, the slaves, the Mayan, Tupac Amaru, Victor Jara... the list is long...
32. Latin America is a very big place, The West as you like to call it is doing very well with every country EXCEPT the Bolivarian Socialists and nobody wants to do business with them anyway. Every single one of those countries is dying from corruption and isolation. It is fine with (us) The West there are plenty of other places to do business where you don't have to worry about your property getting nationalized FOR THE PEOPLE.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 08:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Gads what awful places
and Elaine, I was mostly talking about La Paz most horrible capital city I have ever seen. Dirty Dirty Dirty, disgusting food, no nightlife, no decent hotels I will never ever go back.
33
Feb 19th, 2013 - 08:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Poppy was calling it “the West”, I just used his definition.
And I can assure you that Latin America has plenty of places to do business with as well. Matter of fact, I think of the two, “the West” will be the one that loosesthe most. It's not like Latin America was the one getting cheap resources out of “the West”, now was it?
34. Can you please back up these outlandish statements with any facts? As far as I know the Bolivarian Socialist Axis is desperate for FDI and has some of the lowest 5 of gdp investment in the world.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 09:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If I am wrong please post the links to show me differently.
Nostradamus is asking me to come with facts with links backing it up... Hilarious!
Feb 19th, 2013 - 09:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Latin America can trade with the emerging economies in Asia, matter of fact, they are. China alone has outgrown almost all “western” countries in quite many LA nations.
Besides, I needn't back anything up, as my statement says “I think”, and I assure you I do.
I think.. doesn't look that way to me.
Feb 19th, 2013 - 11:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Back up your fantastical lies or hang your head in shame.
“Matter of fact, I think of the two, “the West” will be the one that loosesthe most.”
Feb 22nd, 2013 - 05:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Is it a matter of fact that you think, or a matter of fact the “the west” will lose? Personally I don't feel you think so it must be a matter of fact the the west will lose. Either way, what is the basis for your opinion.....a feeling, like a full colon?
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