Some Surpringly Rational Thoughts on Bolivia

The sky must be falling...it is really the only explanation for what follows, from the BBC:

A senior European Union official has said Bolivia has the right to nationalise companies as long as they are offered "fair compensation".

Kenneth Bell, the head of the EU delegation to Bolivia, said nationalisation was a sovereign right of the Bolivian government.

Whadda ya think? Bell gets canned within a week? Month? In all seriousness though, this is a pretty surprising statement from Bell, not often do you get rational comments like this on Bolivia. While Bolivia has been criticized for years about the nationalization policy, the fact is the country had the best growth in South American this past year, and has been able to use their natural resource wealth to try and better the lives of the many Bolivians who have long been excluded. So props to Kenneth Bell, who also noticed a key fact that those who have been critical of Bolivia often don't mention:

He also said that despite the recent nationalisations, European firms such as Repsol, Total, and British Gas remained active in Bolivia.

That's right, Evo is not scaring off foreign investment, his policies are sound and rational, and the macroeconomic management of the country has been truly remarkable (even the IMF thinks so)....and oh yeah...he thinks the US is a terrorist state and that capitalism is the " worst enemy of humanity". Suck it haters.



(image from eabolivia.com)