Yesterday, I told Taipan Insider readers that Argentina’s penion nationalization left much to be desired in the way of transparency. On Monday, a federal judge froze assets here in the U.S. in connection with the pension.

Read my full Taipan Insider article (available to all Taipan Publishing Group members) for all the details.

But that’s not the end of the nationalization trend.

Actually, it’s not the beginning either. The timeline can get a bit confusing, so try and stick with me…

On May 25, 2003, Nestor Kirchner was elected president of Argentina. He was elected by default, however… The main candidate, former President Carlos Menem, withdrew from the race for fear of a run-off election that he felt he could not win.

He was a popular president, though, with one of his notable acheivements being the renegotiation of Argentina’s massive debt from defaulted loans with the IMF. He successfully dropped the payback amount to about one-third of the original amount.

But in the background, President Kirchner was creating state-owned companies and nationalizing a number of industries: energy, railways, water companies, and telecoms.

The Economist wrote about him on August 10, 2006, “By founding state-owned enterprises and re-nationalising privatised ones he has expanded the executive’s power over employment and prices… His biggest triumph came on August 3rd, when Congress gave him authority to reallocate government spending as he sees fit.”

That’s in line with some of Kirchner’s closest allies, like Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, and Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. Even the leftist Lula da Silva, president of Brazil has some nationalization tendencies. (Read my blog post from Nov. 12 for more info.)

So with so much of the countries infrastructure under the State’s belt, what’s left for private investors?

Not much, and dwindling everyday, it would seem.

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Well, it’s Tuesday, and it’s back to business as usual in the streets of Buenos Aires.

Yesterday, the city celebrated its Dia de la Virgen, a national holiday that closed many businesses, including the stock exchange. After the break, the exchange is opening higher today.

The one immediate way you can tell BA is back in business is by listening to the traffic.

My hotel is on a busy street, Sarmiento that runs east to west, parallel to major corridors, like Av. Cordoba and Av. Corrientes. As people make their way down to Puerto Madero, or out to the Palacio del Congresso (where I spent some time this morning), many of them pass right under my “balcony.”

(It’s actually more of the size of a step, but it’s pretty.)

The sidewalks are packed with people on their way to somewhere… It reminds me a bit of New York. I even saw one gentleman get nudged by a car trying to pull into an alley. There was the inevitable fist slamming on the hood, and curses in Spanish, and the flow of people around the problem never stopping.

As far as I can tell, people will only stop to watch a fight at a futbol match…

I popped into a restaurant/cafe for some empanadas de jamon y queso (ham and cheese) on the way back to the hotel. They were scrumptious. It’s fast food, but I stood with the locals at the high tables, and ate with a knife and fork.

It’s a bit overcast today, and muggy. I was sure we were going to get a storm last night. We did see some lightening and a quick shower, but the humidity is sticking around, it would seem.

That means I’ll be sweating through my T-shirt as I make my way to the Palermo neighborhood.

Enjoy your Tuesday, and I’ll chat with you again this evening.

The first night of the Tango Festival was very beautiful…

The streets are lines with white Christmas lights, and four separate stages, each with a mini-orchestra, were playing well into the night. There were seats out in front for the crowds to watch the professional dancers on stage, who were magnificent, but the real view was behind the seats.

Crowds gathered in a large circle, and in the middle, couples - married for ages or complete strangers - danced the sultry tango. Continue Reading »

For the second time this trip, I’ve seen the sunrise in a foreign country.

This time, my over-night bus was passing through Suipacha, an agricutural area about three hours outside of Buenos Aires. There were flowing wheat fields and young corn growing everywhere, and in between these crops were thousands of head of cattle. It was a farmer’s paradise, and companies have flocked to this area for generations: Agrimex, Coincer, and Cargill.

Argentina is, after all one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, and it’s also home to some of the best steaks in the world.

I’ve yet to have one, but I’m sure I’ll be accomodated at dinner tonight.

But I’d like to talk a little bit about Buenos Aires. I knew we were getting close to the city when big stores, like Wal-Mart, and Easy (the BA version of Home Depot) started popping up on the side of the road. And then came the fashion billboards…

And then came the container stacks.

Buenos Aires is - quite literally - the mouth of South America. It’s situated on the Punta Indio Channel, a wide delta of sorts that serves as the main port of all of South America. Imports, exports, agricultural commodities, automobiles…

You name it, it passes through here.

And unlike Santiago, Buenos Aires has retained a bit of its Old World Charm, with European architecture and lovely city parks, it will be a pleasure to walk around the city later.

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