YPF Nationalized

[LostinBA]

After months of speculation, Cristina finally pulled the trigger and nationalized YPF.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1465449-expropiacion-de-ypf

Seems to me this will further isolate Argentina from foreign investment opportunities, not to mention the impact it will have with their relationship with Spain.

Here's an interesting article giving some long-forgotten background info showing just how dirty this deal is...I don't agree with everything this writer puts to paper because, some of it is just friggin nuts but he makes some good points.

http://rt.com/news/ypf-privatize-nationalize-question-477/

"The Kirchners agreed to approve the predatory privatization of YPF if the Menem government paid Santa Cruz Province $654 million in back-logged YPF oil royalties. Part of Argentine public opinion has been pressing for a full-scale investigation into what the Kirchner’s did with those hundreds of millions dollars in YPF monies but – alas! – to no avail: the Argentine courts, local NGO’s, the local Ombudsman, Anti-Corruption Agency and mainstream media won’t go near the subject!"

 

[nicoenarg]

Even though I like what RT is saying about the Kirchners lining their pockets, is that verifiable from a trustworthy source?

The RT article looks like it was written by a mentally unstable kid who pretended to be a journalist.

 

[LostinBA]

Even though I like what RT is saying about the Kirchners lining their pockets, is that verifiable from a trustworthy source?

The RT article looks like it was written by a mentally unstable kid who pretended to be a journalist.

Yes, I checked out his site and he's pretty far out without a paddle. I wouldn't discount everything he says though. This stuff about the Kirchners sending yet unaccounted for state money to Switzerland is well known and yet, noone talks about it.

 

[citygirl]

600 million is unaccounted for in Santa Cruz from a sale of YPF shares when Kirchner was governer when the monies were sent outside the country for "safekeeping". No one knows what happened to it nor has anyone ever confirmed if the monies were spent (if so, where and how).

From the Economist: Mr Kirchner’s governorship is remembered for something else too: the mystery surrounding some $600m in financial assets belonging to the province. (A former official in a previous national government who has investigated the matter thinks the true figure was closer to $1 billion.) In 1999 the province sold, at a big profit, shares in YPF, the privatised national oil company, which it had received in 1993 in lieu of unpaid royalties. It held the proceeds abroad. The provincial government said that the interest was invested in public works. Opponents of the Kirchners in Santa Cruz accept that some of this money has returned to the province. Mr Kirchner has never explained what happened to the rest.

Full article here: http://www.economist.com/node/15580245

The Kirchners were investigated by the anti-corruption task force and the report came back and stated basically there was NO legal way that their personal wealth increased the amount it did.

From wiki: Following charges of embezzlement filed by a local attorney, Enrique Piragini, on October 29, Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide ordered an accounting expert to investigate the origin of the Kirchners’ wealth. Public records show that since their arrival to power in 2003, the declared assets of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner have increased by 572%. A preliminary report on the investigation by the Argentine Anti Corruption Office (OA) established that the official figures provided by the Kirchners "don't stack up".[41] The investigation was suspended by Judge Oyarbide on December 30, though a week later, Piragini appealed the ruling.[42]

Article in Spanish here: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1197064-avanza-la-causa-por-la-fortuna-de-los-kirchner (footnoted in the wiki article)

Wikipedia info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Cristina_Fernández_de_Kirchner#cite_note-40

So basically, yes, they are shadier than shady, it's documented and no one has ever been willing to touch it or do a formal investigation.

 

[LostinBA]

600 million is unaccounted for in Santa Cruz from a sale of YPF shares when Kirchner was governer when the monies were sent outside the country for "safekeeping". No one knows what happened to it nor has anyone ever confirmed if the monies were spent (if so, where and how).

From the Economist: Mr Kirchner’s governorship is remembered for something else too: the mystery surrounding some $600m in financial assets belonging to the province. (A former official in a previous national government who has investigated the matter thinks the true figure was closer to $1 billion.) In 1999 the province sold, at a big profit, shares in YPF, the privatised national oil company, which it had received in 1993 in lieu of unpaid royalties. It held the proceeds abroad. The provincial government said that the interest was invested in public works. Opponents of the Kirchners in Santa Cruz accept that some of this money has returned to the province. Mr Kirchner has never explained what happened to the rest.

Full article here: http://www.economist.com/node/15580245

The Kirchners were investigated by the anti-corruption task force and the report came back and stated basically there was NO legal way that their personal wealth increased the amount it did.

From wiki: Following charges of embezzlement filed by a local attorney, Enrique Piragini, on October 29, Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide ordered an accounting expert to investigate the origin of the Kirchners’ wealth. Public records show that since their arrival to power in 2003, the declared assets of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner have increased by 572%. A preliminary report on the investigation by the Argentine Anti Corruption Office (OA) established that the official figures provided by the Kirchners "don't stack up".[41] The investigation was suspended by Judge Oyarbide on December 30, though a week later, Piragini appealed the ruling.[42]

Article in Spanish here: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1197064-avanza-la-causa-por-la-fortuna-de-los-kirchner (footnoted in the wiki article)

Wikipedia info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Cristina_Fernández_de_Kirchner#cite_note-40

So basically, yes, they are shadier than shady, it's documented and no one has ever been willing to touch it or do a formal investigation.

I don't know who is more disgusting, the Kirchners and their cronies for stealing the money or the Swiss bankers for taking it.

 

[toongeorges]

I really hope you're wrong about Cristina wanting to destroy the country.

I hope too that the government wants the best for the country.

If the events in the recent months would not be so bad, one might laugh about the statement "The peronists love the poor so much they want to make every Argentine poor."

However, I do not think there is a reason to laugh, because I feel the country is being destroyed. The bad it sounds, I am becoming suspicious that there might be some truth in the statement.

When I stayed with an Argentine family last year, they were complaining that the Kirchners were destroying the middle class in Argentina, but that Kristina would be reelected, because of her subsidies to the poor.

It are the poor that give political power to the Peronists. If the Peronists want to stay in power, they may not want to help the poor. They only want the poor to believe that the Peronists help them. They can do that by attacking everyone who is not poor one by one, blaming them to exploit the poor. By blaming non poor people peronists win three times: they weaken political opposition, they have a reason to steal money and they can pretend to help the poor.

The more things I see happening, the less I think they are a mistake and the more I think they form a pattern, were the government will continuously look for its next target to steal from, until there is nothing left to steal and the country has been totally destroyed.

Again, I hope that is not true and the government does whatever it does, because it wants the best for the country.

 

[ElQueso]

Speaking of shady - I was remembering an article I'd read a couple of years ago (but couldn't find it again for reference here) related to their dealings in Calafate, to the hotel ownerships they had there. As I remember, one of the luxury hotels they own a good percentage in was something like 17 kilometers from the airport in Calafate. Because Aerolineas is government-run, they were able to twist the contract that Aerolineas had for the flight crews flying in and out of Calafate to stay in that hotel, when the previous contract was with a hotel very close to the airport.

These people are crooks with hyper-inflated egos. The only thing they have in mind is steal as much as they can and secure a power base for as long as they can.

I somewhat believe that Cristina even thinks she can rule like Chavez, in Argentina, for as far ahead as she can think (which I don't think is really very far ahead). Part of her plan, in my opinion, is to destabilize the country, as she has already started to do with some of the total idiotic policies she's instated recently, and be ready to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart, a harder fall than it had to be had she not made matters much worse.

In the last year or so I was watching things in an attempt to have an idea when Argentina was going to crash again, thinking that I would see if riding out the coming crisis would make sense, and thinking that it probably would if 2001 was a good comparison.

Unfortunately, I'm now starting to think I should be watching to see when a good time would be to leave before she manages to become the head of a renewed authoritarian party of Peronismo, under her control.

I don't think it would be good to be here under those conditions.

 

[ElQueso]

It are the poor that give political power to the Peronists. If the Peronists want to stay in power, they may not want to help the poor. They only want the poor to believe that the Peronists help them. They can do that by attacking everyone who is not poor one by one, blaming them to exploit the poor. By blaming non poor people peronists win three times: they weaken political opposition, they have a reason to steal money and they can pretend to help the poor.

I think you are absolutely right about that. Every policy that they make that fails, they can always find someone to blame as to why they were unsuccessful with their policies. Everything they do benefits themselves and their cronies, and nothing they do benefits the people who are not cronies.

Including the poor, who unfortunately, are ignorant of the reality and only hear "Cristina is for the poor."

It's funny you wrote the other comment about her destroying the country - I think the quote was from Nicoenarg commenting on an earlier post where I'd mentioned that I think Cristina is really bent on destroying the country on purpose - with a purpose. I was just re-iterating that in my previous post when you posted that

 

[ElQueso]

I don't know who is more disgusting, the Kirchners and their cronies for stealing the money or the Swiss bankers for taking it.

Yeah, particularly considering how places like Switzerland, that used to be a place where one could hide money, now makes it more difficult for Americans to deposit anything there due to the wonderful USA's policy on requiring foreign banks who want to participate in the international banking system, in a large part run under US auspices, to fully disclose on request deposits made by US citizens.

Some people just want to hide tax dollars from the US government maybe - while huge thieves like the Kirchners can get away with hiding their own money with impunity, stolen straight from the people, in the same places.

 

[dennisr]

Argentina gives new meaning to "force majeure." You cannot make this stuff up.

http://www.minutouno.com.ar/minutouno/nota/164124-repsoltomara-el-paquete-de-eskenazi/

http://translate.google.com/transla...a/164124-repsoltomara-el-paquete-de-eskenazi/