The Telefonica tax

Forced to take Telefonica as our (useless) internet service provider (our neighbourhood is the victim of a monopoly) we also suffer from outrageous phone costs. Prior to our trips to Paraty and Rio we made a few calls to landlines in those cities. About 25 minutes in total according to our bill. The cost is R$ 60. That's about £1 a minute for the "luxury" of calling outside the state of Sao Paulo. I could call the same places from the UK for a fraction of the price. I won't even bother to ask why this is allowed in Brazil.

PS: Thanks Telefonica woman for hanging up on us today when we asked why our line wasn't being immediately reauthorised for outgoing calls, now that your extortionate bill has been paid. We must wait several more days. That's the second time someone from Telefonica has slammed the phone down. Where's my friendly, warm Brazilians when I need them ?

Him indoors

Wherever I lay my laptop ...

Most of the time, like most people, I live indoors. And most of the time, while living indoors, I am online. Yet I am supposed to be "living" in a foreign country far across the great wide sea. What would life have been like for me these past six months had I, as was the case in the first week or so, not been able to live in my virtual country ? It would surely have been unimaginably different. Would I have bought a TV and watched endless hours of terrestrial Brazilian television, mind-numbing opium ?

Before the internet, the zombified couch-potato is often what happened, and pathetically it somehow counted towards "life" in a foreign clime. But post-internet there can be no such fakery. Of all the minutes, hours, days, weeks and months I have "lived" in Brazil, I suspect only a small fraction of that was outdoors and offline. Being online does of course allow me to read about  Brazil, to learn its language, to "talk" to Brazilians (who may or may not be in Brazil); it allows me to blog about my thoughts and impressions of what I have "seen" here (both indoors and outdoors).

Between two worlds

Some people ruminate on Dover beach, others on Leblon

Having just lost the entire contents of this post let me try to remember and rewrite:
This is not specifically about Brazil. Have been thinking about polarisation and how it seems to be a dominant theme in the modern world. People rushing to zealous extremes - eg of pro-religion or anti-religion, often in the same families, and the middle ground being squeezed out of existence. Likewise the kind of middle class in which I and other 40-something Brits grew up. It is also under threat as the globalised world creates a new virtual country inhabited by winners and another virtual country full of losers. No longer does the nation state serve as a shortcut to lifestyle expectations. The country I am from is downwardly mobile on the whole, having cruised through much of the twentieth century as a post-empire, a role that has now been taken by the US. But there are many in the UK who still enjoy very comfortable and privileged lives. Increasingly, though, they have more in common with financial "winners" in Brazil or China than with their less fortunate compatriots.

Followers of fashion

Gisele from the block

Brazil's super-model, Gisele Bundchen, is briefly leaving her Californian home to come and pose at the launch of a Gisele-branded line of clothing for retailer C&A. She will appear in the window of a branch in an upmarket area of Sao Paulo. It will be a media event but, unlike the Kate Moss launch for BhS in London several years ago, the unwashed masses will be kept firmly at bay. How very Brazilian to have A) an expat making a fleeting and highly paid appearance, B) a totally derivative idea, slavishly copying what has already been done in Europe or the US and C) the fear and loathing of a Brazilian public which is not fit to breathe the same air as a Brazilian VIP.

Maid in Brazil

An opinion piece in Brazilian newspaper Estadao rightly points out the anachronism of newly built, slickly marketed apartments still having a "maid's room". I saw one such apartment, or rather a showroom in a new tower block in Sao Paulo. Like all yuppie dwellings it was laughably cramped but the "maid's room" was more like a large cupboard.

The article says that Brazilians are used to treating their maids and cleaners like animals but now that the country is changing, this abused sub-class is also starting to demand more respect and pay. But, says the writer, Brazil will only have truly changed once it learns to erase the demeaning prison-room from its newbuilds.

Hear, hear, say I. Cheap labour and expensive products is not an intelligent, let alone moral, way to live in the modern world.

Price mixing

Ah yes, the glorious Vitamix 5000, a culinary gift to the world from the good ol' US of A. Bought one myself in London a few years ago, paid the princely sum of £375, admittedly a small discount to the £450 it went for at normal retail. I see it is available direct from Vitamix UK today for £440 (R$ 1140).

But here in Brazil, with the Real at its strongest ever and the US Dollar at its weakest ever, well an import like that must cost small change, surely ?

Look closely at those price stickers and you will discover, sadly but unsurprisingly, that even with everything in Brazil's favour, this particular product, in a Japanese shop in the Liberdade neighbourhood of Sao Paulo, will set you back ... sit down, pour yourself a stiff Caipirinha smoothie... between R$ 1800 and R$ 1980.

That's a minimum of £700 ($1150) and a maximum of £770 ($1270), depending on voltage (yes, Brazil has different voltages in different parts of the country, just another logical and convenient side of life here). That is 67% more than the UK and 220% more than the US, where it can be bought for about $550 (R$ 860).

Dear Brazilian reader, please tell me who is the real culprit here ? Who is the real profiteer in all this consumer goods pricing madness ?

The Japanese shop, which was stocked and designed in a delightful, Japanesey way, charged other nose-bleed prices. But on the streets outside, I once again struggled to push my baby's buggy on the nightmare sidewalks. So, again, I ask you, dear Brazilians, where does all this money in your economy actually go ?

Expensive mosquitoes

Sao Paulo, the most expensive city in the whole of the Americas, is keeping me / us up at night with a barrage of evil mosquitoes (hopefully not carrying dengue). It's supposed to be autumn so how come the number of these evil b$£%^rds is greater now than during summer ? People say the climate in Brazil is one of it's main attractions but, after humidity, thunder, lightning and torrential rain in summer, we now have this insect blood bath to deal with (a great way to decorate your walls). Apparently winter here can get very cold, aided by a lack of central heating. Can't wait.

PS: Did I mention the ants ?

Teething troubles

Today is Tiradentes Day. This Brazilian national hero, a formerly 'umble tooth-puller (ie dentist, hence his name, tira-dentes) began the eighteenth-century rebellion against the Portuguese. Official history has him being killed by the mother country but popular legend sees him being whisked away to France by the Masons. Either way, the day named in his honour (along with our local metro station) marks the beginning of the end of Portuguese rule.

I recently read an article talking about the current dire straits in which Brazil's colonial parent now finds itself. It is  hard to think of another former empire that has so successfully disappeared into the shadows of history. Portuguese as a language is more formal than other Neo-Latin tongues like Spanish - just think of an everyday word like "obrigado", an ornate four-syllable "thank-you" that suggests a level of contractual obligation unusual in our abbreviated and informal age.

Massive apologies

... for the delay in publishing your comments (which as we all know are often more interesting than the blog post or newspaper article itself). Have just had the bitter-sweet pleasure of finding a tonne of them that for some reason Blogger failed to notify me about. Not sure how that gremlin got in the system but have changed it now so that any comments can appear without first being approved. Hope spammers don't ruin the show.

You wait hours for a bus ticket and then ten come at once

Saw this ad on the tube yesterday. It's advertising bus tickets, available via ten interest-free monthly instalments. Unreal. This form of credit has become an epidemic here. Yes, I'm happy to see that the payments are interest-free, but what about the the actual ticket price, is it higher than it otherwise would be ? And what about financial planning ? How on earth can people keep track of so many different monthly payments ?

We took the metro during rush hour, never a pleasant experience. Unable to get on a train we finally went to the "special needs" part of the platform - supposedly reserved for pregnant women, the less able-bodied and those of us with pushchairs - but still found packed carriages. Since most of the people on board looked perfectly able rather than requiring assistance, we asked the uniformed but not very active platform guy why this was ? He said there are only three stations which have this "special needs" area, and that even in those ones it refers to only one of the two carriage doors ! So the same carriages are both restricted and unrestricted depending on which tube station and which few feet of the platform you stand on. Again, unreal. But he said it with such calm friendliness, as so often in this country, that I found myself unable to get more worked up about it. After almost six months here I remain a stranger in a strange land.

New Labour, New Lula, same old Champagne socialism

Sorry FHC, but socialism is more
lucrative these days.

Interesting interview in Brazilian newspaper Estadao with Brazil's ex-President "FHC" (Fernando Henrique Cardoso). His government carried out a number of high-profile privatisations between 1995 and 2003 and many credit his economic reforms as the basis for Brazil's subsequent boom, obviously aided by the global thirst for this country's raw materials. His left-wing successor Lula, for all his socialist swagger, managed not to upset FHC's apple cart too much, hence the reason why the boom didn't turn to bust, as so often before in this stop-start economy.

FHC tells Estadao (in a rough translation and paraphrasing) that Lula, who had been so critical of the privatisation programme, now jet-sets around the world speaking to companies like Telefonica in London for $100,000 a throw. He adds that Lula's son is the director of another telecoms company. FHC is annoyed that Lula has had it both ways - indulging in revolutionary socialist rhetoric that condemns the private sector while in reality benefiting from his predecessor's reforms and economic initiatives. Lula's newfound corporate cheerleading is insult to injury.

Only the poor can afford credit

Tonight at a lovely Seder in Higienopolis I heard a remarkable comment from the interesting chap opposite me. He is a legal executive at a major media company in Brazil and earns a commensurate salary. When I discussed my doubts about Brazil's economy with him, he replied that the high prices were going to get even higher because this country has so many new gas, oil and other projects coming on stream and there are just so many foreigners who want a piece of the action.

But when I pushed him on the absurdity of the prices relative to average salaries, he suddenly admitted: "Even with my salary I can't afford to buy many items here, such as clothes or electronics. This shirt I'm wearing is Marks & Spencer - I either buy this stuff when I am abroad or I am always asking friends and family to buy it for me when they are in the UK or US. It's a crazy situation but it's just not affordable to buy things here. It's the same with the cost of food. There is no middle class in Brazil."

Blame it on Rio

Take a deep breath. Then another. Then another.

Our booking for this bl^%$^dy hotel in Rio required jumping over hurdles previously described. But now it seems that the dim-as-hell woman we were liaising with has once again not managed to open the attached scan of our proof of pre-payment. Thus we and my jetlagged brother from Britain are in danger of not having a room available when we arrive, even though we have paid for it.

My Brazilian partner is ready to explode with frustration. She's already on the brink because she's been trying, and failing, to fill in endless, moronic forms for job agencies here in Sao Paulo. While in London she can write a brief summary of what she did, when and for whom, here everything must be written in endless triplicate and impossible questions must be answered, such as: what are the number of employees at each company you worked for and what are the companies' stated profits ?

It's insane. And deeply depressing. Deliver us from Brazilian bondage.

Deliver us from bondage

A few observations on the eve of Passover and Easter:

- A Brazilian acquaintance said: "It is incredibly hard to start your own company here but it is impossible to close a company." This made me think of a meeting recently with an elderly Brazilian couple - he an Egyptian-Jewish immigrant from the early 1960s - who were once wealthy, having owned a large textile company. But their business was decimated by Chinese competition and now they rely on handouts from a Jewish charity. The wife obsessively shows you her photo albums, brimming with former glory, and she clutters up their cramped apartment with objects from a lost past.

Agony, ecstasy, agony

Fresh tofu, quail's eggs, sushi

Went for a second gastronomic extravaganza at Cachoeira Tropical Restaurante Natural. It is truly a diamond in the rough, offering delicious, fresh, high quality food, mainly vegetarian but also including some fish and chicken, in unlimited quantities for an absurdly good price (R$ 23 per head including natural fruit drinks and herbal tea and coffee. That's about £9 or $14.50). It's a sensual pleasure dome, heaving with tropical fruits and vegetables, beautifully displayed and full of taste. Unlike another vegetarian restaurant we visited, this one is good for the conscience and the soul. Thanks again to our full of good taste dining companion Luiz for alerting us to this place. It even has a nappy changing room which came in handy.

I can hardly believe I just wrote with such unqualified enthusiasm about something in Sao Paulo. But credit where credit is due. This gem of a restaurant will probably only ever be known to me as a Sunday buffet but to eat this well and in such pleasant surroundings even once a week is a rare pleasure.

Would you credit it ?

Efigie da Republica goes to the dentist

So Brazil has been on a credit feeding frenzy these past few years. Everyone's at it, buying on the never-never. As I have said before I can't see it ending well. But while the party continues, you would at least expect the participants to offer the basic courtesy of payment by credit or debit card.

Well, it's hit and miss, but too often miss when you really need it, ie more expensive purchases.

When I went to a hygenist recently, it cost me the same as an expensive one in London, about £65. The woman seemed fairly competent despite some lacklustre equipment but there were the usual telltale signs of Brazilian weirdness. I won't bore you with them now. OK, I will.

Afternoon fruit seller in Bom Retiro

A prettier, and cheaper, side of life in Sao Paulo

Welcome to Clownsville, Brazil

s

There's the Brazilian politician that actually was a clown, and allegedly an illiterate one at that. He's in good company, for today we learn that the Mayor of Mineira de Dom Cavati has admitted he is illiterate and bought a fake degree. He dropped out of formal education when he was, well, he never learned dates so let's just say it was a loooong time ago. But guess what, it's no problem ! Because as he told a local crowd, "I know how to work !" Nothing like a bit of elbow grease, is there ?

Just sign here, here and here Mister Mayor.

New cell phone operators to offer 30% price cuts ! Only one snag ...

... It's in Israel. Previous posts have highlighted some striking similarities between Israel and Brazil  (even though the former doesn't seem much bigger than Greater Sao Paulo, has almost no natural resources and has been around for only a fraction of Brazil's history, most of it spent fighting wars while trying to grow it's economy !).

Both countries suffer from insufficient competition and state monopolies, and both have experienced "booming" economies that have benefited relatively few of their citizens.

But my teasing headline refers to news today that, thanks to Israel's Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, that country will soon start to break its telecoms oligopoly and give consumers more affordable prices. Hopefully the impact of the new entrants will shake things up in more than just the cell phone market.

Now, where is Brazil's equivalent to MK Kahlon ? Yes, it's a rhetorical question but I wish it weren't.

It's not me, it's you

My Brazilian partner had worked for a year in Brazilian investment banking before moving to London. As a result she did not find it too hard to get similar work in the UK. But now, having worked a further 2.5 years in that field and once more back in Brazil, she has had a nightmare trying to find similar employment.

Investment banking here is part of the pervasive snobbery problem: it is an "elite" area not for the riff raff - even when those riff raff come with a CV (resume) packed with big international banking names from one of the world's still pre-eminent financial centres. I've discussed this on a previous post and returning to this subject might look like special pleading or sour grapes. However, there's been a notable development.

Here's a headline you won't see in Brazil

Supermarkets drive surprise fall in inflation.

Make love (to despots) not war (except in your own country) !

BBC Radio 4 presenter Robin Lustig has written an interesting blog post on his recent trip to Rio for a politically-themed conference on Brazil's emerging place in the world.

I have written my own reaction in the comments section. But to elaborate, I think that Brazil as a country is uneducated in the ways of the world and about the sometimes necessary evil of war (having only fought one, not very tough war in its history). Former President Lula displayed this naivety and lack of moral compass when he tried to cosy up to the evil Iranian regime, but in doing so he was exhibiting a widespread Latin American weakness: equating anti-Americanism and failed revolutionary socialism with Islamic and Arab despotism.

Brazil may have been blessed with few external enemies but, internally, it remains a society very much at war. Why else do the rich live in fortress-like ghettos ?

PS: The other thing about wars is they tend to help define you as a nation - what you stand for and against, which hard-won principles and values you will defend to the death. What does Brazil stand for ? Laid-back, colour blind multiculturalism ? A myth. Friendliness ? Fine, except it's a nebulous quality that could be partly ascribed to other traits, such as docility or non-confrontationalism, neither of which are good on a societal level. Football ? No question that here, at least, Brazil has excelled. But sport is the icing, not the cake.

Our man (on the beach ?) in Rio

A British embassy staff meeting ?

Just tried calling the British embassy in Rio (0055 61 3329 2300), which apparently no longer processes British citizenship applications but tells you to do so via the British embassy in Washington ... very helpful and logical. But I wanted to talk to them anyway. So I call, am given the usual recorded voice options that clearly want to avoid all direct human contact at any cost, hoping you will sod off and leave them in peace, and why would you even think of talking to a live human being when everything is answered on their website ? Or not. So I pressed 5 for the "emergency" line, intended for those dealing with things like life endangerment and Brazilian prisons (pretty much the same thing).

I waited while it rang and rang (at 12.35pm), no-one picked up, so eventually gave up. I have done this at least twice before. God help any Brit in need of urgent help from the British embassy in Rio. Too busy organising preprandial cocktails are we ?

A land of milk and .. funny !

Fresh milk ? Be careful what you wish for.

As noted the other day, making functional milk cartons in Brazil is a challenge. But finding fresh milk, as opposed to the ubiquitous UHT cr&p is nigh on impossible. I finally managed to track some down in the local neighbourhood: from a specialist (Jewish) shop rather than a supermarket (whose employees look as if they are talking in their sleep when you ask them if they have fresh milk; you might as well ask if they provide daily trips to the moon).

Of course for this rare privilege we had to pay an extra-extortionate amount rather than the regular-extortionate. Still, the excitement was palpable as we hastily brought our prized possession home, opened it (always easier said than done here) and sipped the liquid gold ... YUCK !! What the hell ... ?! Sour, sour, sour. Disgusting !

Do they know about refrigeration in Brazil ? It's a relatively new concept that allows you to transport and store goods without having to salt or pickle them, or have them turn into natural emetics... So depressing. Can there be anything worse to someone used to buying decent food at decent prices than grocery shopping in Brazil ?

China in your hand ?

A BBC news story today seems to confirm my worst fears about Brazil's future prospects as more than just China's b...., a source of commodities for China. This unbalanced new relationship is wreaking havoc on Brazil's other, non-commodity exports. Given Brazil's deep structural weaknesses, it doesn't bode well for the future. Key quotes:

"There's a clear processes [sic] of deindustrialisation happening in Brazil ... It's expected that in developed economies the services sector takes space from the industries, as it has happened in Europe, but here in Brazil we are at an early stage of our development for this to happen ... We have deficient infra-structure, an inefficient tax-system and high labour costs. Independently from what China is doing, producing in Brazil is very expensive."

Fire !

... all your digital marketing agencies because today sees the official launch of the new kid in town, Queensberry Rules Media. If you wish to bring international talent and perspective to your Brazilian online marketing, or if you are a Brazilian company looking to expand abroad, and if value for money means as much to you as it does to us, then please walk this way ...

Mass-market, mass-obesity & mass-murderers

New "obese chairs" on Brazil's subway

An article in FT Magazine discusses the shocking rise of obesity in Brazil. I noticed immediately upon arrival in Sao Paulo how out of shape most people were.

Pretty soon after, having experienced the horrors of shopping in local supermarkets (see blog posts passim), I realised that the poor consumer diet was largely to blame, notably an appalling excess of salt and sugar in almost all processed foods. I also saw the suspicious prominence of a certain company called  Nestlé among the few ubiquitous brand names that kept cropping up. The FT's article makes depressing reading (key extracts at the end of this post). I blame, first and foremost, the Brazilian Government (which perhaps means that really I blame the Brazilian people themselves since in the long run you get what you deserve) but, more specifically, I blame the terrible lack of education here.

Tea-break, Brazilian style

Video.

Things that impress me in Sao Paulo

Hello Stranger !

- Some lovely new friends, including Luiz, Gabriel, Hiroe and Janosch, all exuding a certain warmth and easiness that we might partly credit to the "climate" here.

- The weekend rodizio (fixed-price buffet) at Cachoeira Tropical and Bovinus.

- The new fishpond in my local park, Parque da Luz. Unlike the nearby train station, it wasn't built 100-plus years ago by the British. It's a small sign that this still slightly sleazy area is finally benefiting from some public investment.

- Did I mention my family ties ?

- And on that note, the way that strangers coo and fuss over my little prince in his buggy. The only strangers who did likewise on our recent, admittedly short, visit to Buenos Aires turned out to be Brazilian tourists ! In which other countries would a builder on a tea break alert you to the possible danger of your bebezinho not being properly protected from the sun or rain ? Certainly not in the UK.

- I must also quote my friend Luiz, a Sao Paulo native who returned here after living many years in New York. He says: "I hear your complaints from many people who come from abroad and other parts of Brazil. They hate it in the first year. But as they get to know this Pandora's Box better and to acquire more real friends they end up loving SP."

Things that depress me in Sao Paulo

A night on the tiles ? Perhaps not.

- The high prices.
- The rain.
- The univited wildlife: cockroaches, rats, lizzards and, most of all, the mosquitoes which keep me up at night and now carry the extra threat of Dengue.

- The dearth of vistas, aided by the fact that all planning considerations went out the window when this town began growing.

- The raw, brutal, unvarnished concrete everywhere: ugly buildings (some feebly camouflaged by a bit of childish paint), park benches, sculptures ...which politician got the backhander for this architectural abomination ?

- The gigantic aerial antennae on the roof of downtown buildings, giving the impression of an army camp rather than the "New York City of South America" and reminding you that nothing here is done for the public good, only for the sake of selfish, private interests. How many other key cities in the world have such monstrous carbuncles blighting the landscape ? "Only in Brazil", the land that aesthetics forgot. If they were at least used for decent broadband or WiMAX that might slightly mitigate the ocular offence.

What is a Carre-four in gridlocked Sao Paulo ?

Out of town shopping arose in the 1980s in the UK. The deal was: retailer buys cheaper land and can offer cheaper prices on a greater range of products. Consumer must invest in a car in order to benefit but as a result can also make fewer shopping trips per month.

As city centres were renewed, revitalised and rebranded in the 1990s, the big supermarkets saw an opportunity to reinvent the traditional high street. Thus was born the likes of Tesco Metro and Sainsbury's Local. The city dweller could now benefit from the economies of scale and efficiencies of the big grocery retailers even though the actual store size of these urban outlets was not so large. You paid more than an out of town hypermarket but no car was required.

Booming Brazil revisited

This article is an important counterbalance to my blog's prevailing (downbeat) tone.