Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?
Well, it appears that Ayn Rand's novel is playing out in Bolivia
as Petrobras
has told Bolivia to take a
hike over Bolivia's
nationalization of the gas industry.
The problem, as the WSJ
($) reported in August, is that Bolivia ain't got the moolah or the
know-how to actually run the damn thing.
Venezuelan President, Hugh Chav, has been advising the nascent Bolivian
government of Evo Morales to turn back the clock to the 1960s and nationalize
the gas industry. Hugh sees himself as a modern day Simón Bolívar, and in the
spirit of economic self-actualization, Hugh told Evo to send the army over and
camp in Petrobras's offices.
In the Bolívaran tradition, Hugh wishes to decrease Latin America's reliance on the gringos and increase economic ties between the South American nations, including the integration of the region's energy resources. Part of Hugh's plan is to build a pipeline through Brazil.
The problem is that Petrobras, domiciled in Brazil, is the largest investor in the natural gas industry in Bolivia, and Sr. Morales has been taking advice from the new Simón Bolívar. Perhaps Hugh hasn't caught on to the fact that stealing someone's multi-billion dollar investment isn't the best way to endear oneself when proposing one's grand geo-political schemes across said victim's massive territory.
Now I am sympathetic to the argument that there must be a more equitable distribution of resources south of the Rio Grande, but we ain't living in the 19th century anymore.
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