As usual the Economist has a defining picture:
CAMPAIGNING for a second term as Brazil’s president in an election last October, Dilma Rousseff painted a rosy picture of the world’s seventh-biggest economy. Full employment, rising wages and social benefits were threatened only by the nefarious neoliberal plans of her opponents, she claimed. Just two months into her new term, Brazilians are realising that they were sold a false prospectus.
Brazil’s economy is in a mess, with far bigger problems than the government will admit or investors seem to register. The torpid stagnation into which it fell in 2013 is becoming a full-blown—and probably prolonged—recession, as high inflation squeezes wages and consumers’ debt payments rise (see page 71). Investment, already down by 8% from a year ago, could fall much further. A vast corruption scandal at Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant, has ensnared several of the country’s biggest construction firms and paralysed capital spending in swathes of the economy, at least until the prosecutors and auditors have done their work. The real has fallen by 30% against the dollar since May 2013: a necessary shift, but one that adds to the burden of the $40 billion in foreign debt owed by Brazilian companies that falls due this year.
During her first term, the damage done is well summarized by the chart below. And to reverse those trends will not be an easy matter. If he tries too hard, Mr. Levy risks becoming the “neoliberal scapegoat”!
Not sure if you have seen this. People are just beyond their breaking point. A country truly run by completely incompetent criminals. Hopefully this is the painful transition to a better future. If not, I suggest giving away the north of Brazil to Venezuela.
http://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/guido-mantega-hostilizado-em-hospital-ao-acompanhar-mulher-com-cancer-15431995
Yes, I had. It´s the sort of thing that happens when normally decent people get to the “breaking point”. As the lady said. “I just couldn´t help starting something”.