An Intimation in Argentina

For weeks now, since Argentina's oil and gas-rich provinces, at the behest of the central government, started revoking concessions to the likes of YPF and Petrobras, nationalization was on people's lips.

Posters plastered on streetlights in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, declare, “Sovereignty is taking back what’s ours,” with YPF, Argentina's erstwhile national energy concern, sold to Spanish Repsol S.A. in the 1990s, written in bold. The tension culminated in a flurry of press reports today, quoting from a proposal allegedly submitted to Congress that would increase the government's stake in YPF from 17 percent to 50.01 percent. The president would make an announcement at 7 p.m., the newspaper Clarin reported early in the day.

And the president, dressed in her signature all-black widow's garb, did. It wasn't about oil and gas, however, but rather about los vaquitos and a tax break for the meat industry. Read more in the NYT: Argentina Has Oil Firm in its Sights.