I have resisted posting any "I told you so's" about the Brazilian economy. I will continue to resist .. apart from this one. Today I read: "But stagnant growth is now hitting Brazilians in their pockets. After successive wage rises, this year’s pay deals barely outpace inflation. Already indebted, households are reining in their spending. Consumer confidence is falling and more people say rising prices are their biggest economic worry."
Two and a quarter years ago, in my first blog post, I wrote: "On a related note, all the excited chatter about Brazil's swelling middle class must be taken with a big pinch of salt. There's no way that the average salary allows for the kind of disposable income which economists and sociologists generally assume when they talk about the middle classes in developed countries. In fact a good chunk of the Brazilian middle class has been hit hardest by Lula's Robin Hood politics, seeing their wages stagnate while the cost of living rockets."
Two and a quarter years ago, in my first blog post, I wrote: "On a related note, all the excited chatter about Brazil's swelling middle class must be taken with a big pinch of salt. There's no way that the average salary allows for the kind of disposable income which economists and sociologists generally assume when they talk about the middle classes in developed countries. In fact a good chunk of the Brazilian middle class has been hit hardest by Lula's Robin Hood politics, seeing their wages stagnate while the cost of living rockets."
Incisive comments and your sound observations are really worth listening to-a pity some of our leaders or Brazil's didn't see this-they probably blame it on subsequent world events.
ReplyDeletewell done on being such a visionary-the art of a good journalist
I note that the "best rated" reader's comment after the Economist article today says some very damning things about Brazil. I won't reproduce them here because I don't want to get into all that stuff again. But it reminded me of all my blog's "negativity" when I lived there. Now that I am safely far away I can afford to be like every other non-Brazilian or Brazilian expat, just remembering the good points about the country and people. But that won't help the country change, as it desperately needs to.
ReplyDeletePS. Make that "the best rated readers' comments", in the plural. Perhaps now that Brazil is not quite so booming people are less afraid to be party-poopers ?
DeleteThanks to my Brazilian-Canadian friend Mila for sending this link: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-988431
ReplyDeleteIt suggests, especially in the last line and the comments that follow, that the long-dormant Brazilian middle class (what there is of it) is finally waking up to the host of deeply-rooted problems in the country. Some of the readers' comments ask for international help but as at least one of them observed, ultimately it is up to the inhabitants of a country to sort things out for themselves.
Without tackling the fundamental infrastructure problems including institutional sclerosis such as in the legal system, it is difficult to foresee real sustainable progress, especially given the levels of corruption there. Still it is encouraging to at least see people demonstrating.
ReplyDeleteFrom a Sky News report today:
ReplyDelete"We're massacred by the government's taxes, yet when we leave home in the morning to go to work, we don't know if we'll make it home alive because of the violence.
"We don't have good schools for our kids. Our hospitals are in awful shape. Corruption is rife. These protests will make history and wake our politicians up to the fact that we're not taking it anymore."
http://news.sky.com/story/1104993/brazil-protests-clashes-over-world-cup-costs