Skip to main content

Brazil: Beyond "Girl from Ipanema"

Brazil isn't a country which rates much attention in the media. It seems to be lumped together with all those "foreign" and unstable countries down there somewhere in South America - and that's it!

Visiting Brazil where he once lived, op-ed columnist for The New York Times and IHT Roger Cohen reveals some things about the country which are bound to suprise the ignorant amongst us.

"They’re piling in. They want a piece of the action in the big South American nation that posted 7.5 percent growth last year. Oil discoveries, a commodities boom, sound economic management, political stability, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 have combined to produce a Brazil fever that feels a touch heady to me.

In Leblon, the area adjacent to Ipanema where I used to live, apartment prices have quadrupled in a year. Sotheby’s International Realty is expecting a quadrupling of real estate sales this year, according to O Globo newspaper. The big price hikes reflect growing interest among foreigners, especially Europeans and Chinese who see opportunity ahead of the two big sporting events.

Take your pick of the head-turning figures. There were 12 new Brazilian billionaires on this year’s Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people. Foreign direct investment has grown at a compound rate of 26 percent over the past five years and reached close to $48.5 billion in 2010. Consumer credit is taking off. In a land where loans were long hard to get, the net stock of credit increased 21 percent in the past year. Streets are clogged with cars, restaurants full.

A bubble in the making? It’s possible. But Brazilian banks have generally proved prudent, and macroeconomic policies now have a steady track record over three presidencies, one that has contrived to ease the worst extremes of poverty while satisfying international investors eager to put capital behind Brazil’s rapid emergence.

A new buzzword in economic circles is “convergence,” the process by which the developing economies in which five billion people live (194 million of them in Brazil) are closing the gap on developed economies more than 150 years after the Industrial Revolution first opened the gulf. To arrive in Brazil these days from the United States or Europe is to feel the world turned on its head.

Breathless optimism replaces economic gloom. A new $22 billion high-speed train will link Rio and São Paulo. People believe their kids are going to live better than they do. Brazilians talk to the Indians and to the Chinese about investments; they feel the old powers are becoming marginal to the 21st century. China alone has invested $37.1 billion in Brazil since 2003, mainly in mining and oil."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary.   The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the

An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Climate change: Well-organised hoax?

There are still some - all too sadly people with a voice who are listened to - who assert that climate change is a hoax. Try telling that to the people of Colorado who recently experienced horrendous bushfires, or the people of Croatia suffering with endless days of temps of 40 degrees (and not much less than 30 at night time) some 8-10 degrees above the norm. Bill McKibben, take up the issue of whether climate change is a hoax, on The Daily Beast : Please don’t sweat the 2,132 new high temperature marks in June—remember, climate change is a hoax. The first to figure this out was Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who in fact called it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” apparently topping even the staged moon landing. But others have been catching on. Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out that the idea that carbon dioxide is “harmful to the environment is almost comical.” The always cautious Mitt Romney scoffed at any damage too: “Scientists will fig