|
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for "more boldness" to help the country's economy expand at an annual 5% beginning 2007, in spite of recent forecasts from government offices indicating this can only be possible in ten years time.
"The President said we must be bolder; he does not want to run the risk of having the country expand at a rate which is not in line with the vitality he would like to see in coming years," said Brazilian Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, following a meeting between Lula and economic authorities. The meeting was held the day after the Ministry of Planning's Applied Economic Research Institute, IPEA, revealed that Brazil would only be expanding 5% a year, beginning in 2017. This would be caused because of the insufficient generation of electricity and the weak level of investment in infrastructure insisted the Planning Ministry office. According to IPEA the Brazilian economy will expand 4 to 4.5% in the coming four years and for a 5% rate the investment as percentage of GDP must be 26% compared to the current 20%. The diagnosis coincides with the National Confederation of Industry estimate which favors a drastic cut in government expenditure and taxes, which are equivalent to 38% of GDP. Mr. Mantega, Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo and the Cabinet Chief Dilma Rousseff have plans to cut spending both capping government salaries and reducing privileges in different administration offices. "This does not necessarily mean we're cutting expenditure but rather re-defining the expansion criteria, which can't grow faster than GDP", said Minister Mantega. Savings could then be readdressed to capital expenditure and infrastructure. "We know that improving infrastructure is essential to materialize growth and this consequently needs of greater government spending", added Mantega "We need to increase infrastructure supply as well as increasing the energy supply." Lula da Silva was re-elected for the 2007/2010 period on promises of sustained growth. However his first mandate concentrated in orthodox policies keeping inflation under control and growth was below average for developing countries: 0.5% in 2003; 4.9% in 2004; 2.3% in 2005 with prospects of 2.7% in 2006. President Lula must also be careful since some of the more fundamentalists among his team of advisors and supporters hailed the ousting of Finance Minister Antonio Palocci (2003/06) saying it was the end of a period signaled by "neurotic concern with inflation". Left wing groups from the ruling coalition also question Brazil's Central Bank high interest rates policy to contain inflation.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj).
He maintained his estimates at 4 % just before and even after.... the recent election !
This guy should go back to the first grade learning the basis of economic estimates !
And if he is effectively well trained...he should resign or be fired...because more wrong there is not ! Or be accountable for his total failures !
Unless he voluntarily lied....to get more votes for his chief Lula !
As to the promises for 2007 and beyond, it is again all over the same promises...never delivered by Lula and his gang....since day 1 of his first mandate !
Every year Lula promised 5 % + for the following year ! Always !
Promises never delivered...just as the promises for the infrastructure investments needed.
Why should anyone trust that 2007 and beyond shouléd finally bear the 5 % ?
Just read the IPEA estimates, themselves on the rosy side, since the World Bank and the economists, included the Brazilian economists, have for the time being an estimate of 3,5 for 2007 AND 2007 !
the Funny thing is that since 2005 revisions have always been DOWN not UP !
The only ones keeping high estimates are the government people...on purpose ! Guess
why ! Strange that the Brazilian population still swallow all these lies !
Finally the reality is that 2006 will be a repeat of 2005 : Brazil will have the worst economic growth of ALL the LATAM and Caribean nations...after Haïti !
But read what Lula said at the end of last year concerning 2006 : HE guaranteed
an exceptional vintage (his own words) for 2006 of 5 % + !
Reality will be around 2,6 % of 50 % less than guaranteed !
Impressive !
Yesss, Lula promises and guarantees are really not worth more than his previous promises and guarantees...never delivered anyway !