Chavez has just taken over most of the concrete industry in Venezuela, in particular two European firms-LaFarge SA and Holcim Ltd.- though claiming to pay a "fair market" price in these "friendly" arrangements, and allowing for a small percentage of private ownership.
In the meantime, the amount of money he has spent, from the country's oil revenues, is detracting from the amount earlier promised for investment in social programs.
He also promised to invest the windfall oil profits in overseas drilling, but that too has gone by the wayside, it seems. Or, perhaps he was just being ironic.
He is now in arbitration with two American companies-Exxon Mobile and Conlico Phillips-who are demanding more for their own expropriated property than Chavez evidently was willing to pay. Hugo should have got the hint when they declined to attend the May Day ceremony to which they were invited to join in the "celebration" of the "deal".
In the meantime, we are left to ask-what happens in the future? Who now will invest in Venezuela? The companies recently nationalized have already seen a marked decline in their stock value.
Who wants to be the last investor to invest in a mistake?
Is it any wonder gas prices are off the charts?
2 comments:
I am glad you are finally starting to criticize Chavez.
Sonia-
I never really liked him, but I never saw a valid reason to criticize him before. I generally don't criticize the internal affairs of sovereign nations or their leaders, unless there is a larger point to it.
The point here is that Chavez is taking control of companies owned by foreign investors who invested in his country in good faith.
Plus, a lot of the past criticism of him was over the top and counter-productive, for example, urging boycotts of CITGO, which would have hurt American workers more than it would him. I excused a lot of his own rhetoric against US policies as tit-for-tat.
His Socialist Union of South America dreams should crash and burn every bit as fast as the EU and NATO. If he refuses to sell us oil for a reasonable price, I'm all for removing him. If he does cooperate, then I say leave him alone, within the context of his own sovereign state, while containing him otherwise.
I'm also just becoming a bit more impatient with these people. He might be one of the few national leaders of the world who could teach John Edwards a thing or two about narcissism.
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