Brazzil

Looks like the writer is unaware that the Brazilian growth rate is BELOW the USA groth rate.
Basic maths should easily demonstrate that a poor country growing slower than a wealthy country will never ever be less poor.......by simple definition.

In fact in view of ALL the developing countries economic growth rate compared to Brazil, Brazil will become less and less wealthy compared to those growing faster.

Therefore China, India and all developing countries having today around 50 % of the Brazilian GDP per capita, could be more wealthy than Brazil in a decade or so.

As to the natural resources....nothing to be proud of. They are in the ground.
Look at Venezuela, the 5th world largest oil producer, and with the 2nd or 3rd reserves. The poors are still the majority....despite such wealth. What did Chavez with all that money ? Worse : despite the coun try has one of the biggest oil reserves, Venezuela is producing LESS oil than just a few years ago. Simply because he is not investing enough in the oil fields. And even worse : it is quite well known that Chavez produces less oil that his official numbers.

As to Brazilian Green oil (ethanol) it also looks like the reporter is unaware that sugar prices are by now 40 % below the February high price.

Amaral doesnt seem to be aware that at the actual sugar price, Brazilian producers are barely profitable....by now !
No doubt that your Green Oil will be just the same as your Yellow Oil (soya). Just re-read the thousands and thousands of articles of just 18 months ago : a true treasure ! And by today......most farmers are LOSING money.

But I have no doubt that you will continue to produce billions and billions of liters of ethanol....even if you have to incur LOSSES......just as your soya farmers. Your government will bail them out anyway through subsidizes. But are you not against
subsidizes when other countries protect their farmers....JUST as you do ?

Mixing a bubble with a long term trend is typically brazilian. Brazil said the same for your Brown Oil (coffee).

Brazil was/is and will remain a BOOM AND BUST ECONOMY.

You missed the 2003/2006 world boom contrary to ALL the other developing nations, no doubt you will be even worse in the next bust that is around the corner.

And the man who will guide you in your next recession is....LULA, the one responsible for having your country missed the last world economic boom.

I think we all lived through the dooms day scenario for the US economy in the 1980’s when it was the Japanese who would doom the USA. Since the 80”s the US GDP has tripled in size because no one predicted the age of the Internet and the growth in productivity and innovation that occurred in the last 10 years. Yes, I think the next decade will be different with china and India, but I really cannot see Brasil being in that mix except for natural resources. Brasil economy is hampered by corruption, a judicial system (constitution) that is holding back the country and a government that is unwilling to untangle the multitude of bureaucracy. We are just coming off one of the largest economic boom, but yet brasil is growing between 3-4% per year, what will happen when things really slow down, how much will it grow then. Finally yes there is many Job that is going overseas both manufacturing and service, but how is brasil benefiting from this. These jobs are going to China and India not brasil. What can brasil offer the world except natural resources? Not much. China has a lower cost for manufacturing; India has a larger educated population in numbers not in percentage, but enough to develop a striving software and service industry. I think brasil will be a middle of the road country just getting by, but not much more. Just can’t wait to go next year and enjoy the sun and the beach in the beautiful northeast. Brasil has the best beaches and weather for a vacation, but unfortunately they cannot even develop a tourist industry so how will they develop a high technology industry for the future.

Sao Paulo I think may be in better shape for automotive industry than Detroit.

India has as much if not more corruption than Brazil not to mention a far worse infastructure and far greater masses in poverty. Brazil indeed will be an economic giant in the future as economist predict. And with China increasing her ties to Brazil economically this will only help that great South American giant.

Brazil already sells advanced technology around the world. She sells advance military aircraft to first world nations such as Britan.

Brazil - advanced technology? WHAAAA HAAAAAAAA . . ..

You are dead wrong, filinho do papai! Read it and weap. LOL.

IBM has launched its sixth "SWAT team"--this time in South America.

The High Performance Software and Services Lab (HiPOD) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, opened on Tuesday.


IBM's HiPODs generally are staffed with 40 to 50 software engineers, developers and niche specialists who deal with issues such as capacity management problems and large customer infrastructures.

The company considers these "elite IT specialists" to be the "SWAT teams" or "Navy Seals" within IBM, said Mike Azzi, a spokesman for IBM Emerging Technologies & Global Communications.

"You need this mission accomplished; you call them in...Even IBM Global Services kicks things over to these labs. They focus on a lot of first-of-a-kind work, solving problems that have never been solved in terms of both size and complexity," Azzi said.

The overall stupidity of this article makes responding to it in a rational manner ridiculous. The facts speak for themselves. The American economy is the most stable and diversified in the world, and continues to enjoy healthy growth (even higher growth than brazil, a "developing" economy). No other country can even remotely compare to the productivity of the US, certainly not Brazil. Please keep the reckless brazilian propaganda off this website.

He says "It took 30 years for Brazil to develop a very innovative, very profitable, and efficient Ethanol industry that replaced the old system and Brazil's dependence on foreign oil." It wasn't ethanol that replaced Brazil's dependence on foreign oil! It was discovering more crude oil than Brazil consumed.

If the author really thinks the way he writes, why does he live in New Jersey? Why not move to Brazil since that is your original country?

Incidentally, it is "Czech Republic" not "Check Republic".

- Since when Brazil is selling advanced military aircrafts to Britain ???? You seem to forget than a year ago the USA blocked Brazil aircrafts sale to Chavez, because aircrafts have US technology !!!!!!
- The only Brazilian aircraft maker is Embraer. The commercial division is doing fine. The company has US$ 4 billions in annual revenue. A drop in the bucket. As to military aircrafts, the Brazilian government reduced sharply their orders.....while buying more OLD foreign aircrafts. Guess why !
- How can Brazil become an IT force, knowing that you have a 100 % import taxes for PCs ande software? Funny, you have to buy your IT at over 2 x the price we are paying when on average your average annual income is US$ 4000.- ?
- As to India and China, sorry, but these countries HAVE NOT the natural resources of Brazil. In fact you sell them basic iron ore and they transform it and resell value added products to you. Same for Cotton. But as you are so uncompetitive......then you block some textiles imports.
- If developed nations delocalize their industries, it is not because you are better or smarter. Delocalization involves training too. And if we do so.....it is simply to make MORE profits....NOT LESS ! The sad reality is that through barriers and imports taxes.
- Concerning your car industry : what a joke ! Did you know that the selling price of your cars in Brazil is usually higher than the same cars sold in UK ??????? And if you dont believe it.....just scroll the News of this same site. There was an article on that subject only a few weeks ago !
- By the way...... please spell the name of just 1 Brazilian.......car manufacturer !!!!!
You can see that even with cars, your technology is quite limited, and even more by definition in aircrafts......as the not so smart guy is referrring to !!!!!
- As to IBM going in Brazil.....it is the same. To make more profits because they can then pay better their US employees.
- And from all the globalization going around, sorry buddy, but the technology, the know how and even the investments needed are ALWAYS going from developed nations to developing nations.......AND NOT the other way around !

This simply demonstrates that your theory has no basis at all. Even your local companies are counting on foreign investments.....simply because you are unable to fund them by yourselves. And Brazilian industries except Petrobras are investing very little outside your country.


Brazil will remain the least developing nation. You will continue to export meat/chicken/grains/iron ore.The food being the human energy needed to the others to produce value added goods.
In fact you are stupid because you prefer to export US$ 45 billions in food.....rather than feeding your society First. Your country has tens of millions of under nourrished people and even hunger. Nothing to be proud of....with Lula at the helm.
- Simple and basic maths should be enough to show that a country like Brazil growing at a far lower rate than the other developing nations....will end up with the other nations becoming wealthier than Brazil in 1 or 2 decades. And that the gap you have with the developed nations will not be filled during the next century.....if you dont grow faster than them.

Really simple to figure that out if you only got your first degree in basic education.
It looks like you did not even pass successfully your first degree....like Lula.

one should just read the latest report of.....Doing Business.....published by the World Bank.

Your ranking ? 121 out of 175.
Worse than Brazil is Venezuela....your friends. Otherwise most countries having a lower ranking are African countries. Yessssss....Brazil is in the club of the LDC countries economy as to the ease of doing business.
One more ranking that Lula should be proud of since he is proud of his failures.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/Default.aspx?direction=asc&sort=1

What a joke is Brazil ! No doubt than Brazil will never ever be developed. That is not in the ideology of your politicians. The least you get education, the least you develop.......the more they can steal and govern with all their corruptions and dirty and stinky practices.

"Brazil's economy is comparable to a small company with a great potential for growth in the future" just demonstrates how stupid Amaral is-

Is Brazil a small economy with a small population ? Not to my knowledge.
Is a growth rate of BELOW 3 % during the last 4 years ....showing a great potential ? Not to my knowledge.

Curiously the growth rate of the BRIC is inversely proportionate to the letters. Funny but so it is.

To a certain extend Amaral is right for the developing countries......IF HE DID NOT INCLUDE Brazil.
Brazil was and his at the queue of the ranking for economic growth, namely :
- a growth rate below the average World Growth rate.
- the lowest growth rate of all developing nations.
- a lower growth rate than the USA
- the second lowest growth rate (after Haïti) in Latam/Caribean region
- a lower growth rate than most of the poorest nations on this planet.
- a growth rate of much less than half the growth rate of the other BRIC countries.


Thus Brazil growth rate is in fact penalizing and reducing all the averages wherever you look at.

Concerning the Foreign Direct Investments, Amaral as an economist is totally illiterate In 2005 there was a total of US$ 800 billions . Brazil got around 15 billions or 2 % which in fact represent Brazil share of the World Economy. NOT MORE contrary to what Amaral may suggest.
The country who got the most FDI is.........the UK !!!! Yessssssss......and not China, not Russia or India or a developing nation or region as Amaral implies. Sorry !

The reality is that out of the $ 800 billions of FDI, the UK got 300 billions, or 40 % of the cake. The USA got around 120 billions, China and Russia far less.

As you can therefore realize what Amaral is writing is in fact DEAD WRONG ! Of the total FDI, the developing countries dont get that much.

His theories and rosy numbers are simply not factual at all. Most FDI going in fact to developed and NOT to developing countries.

Finally, including Brazil in the club of developing countries is quite misleading....since you lagg them all ! By now your growth rate is even below the rate of the Least Developed Countries. That is quite factual ! Sorry. And the reality is that you are loosing your advanced share of wealth to the other countries....since ALL OF THEM are growing much much much FASTER. Quite factual too.

Amaral arguments however is not that wrong....provided he DID NOT include Brazil.

At the end your competitors are NOT the developed nations since they are the buyers and you are the sellers of goods (to simplify) . Your real competitors are the other developing nations who also want to sell us goods.

And there is nothing wrong in outsourcing....since it lowers the costs and increase the profits. Everyone should be clever enough to realize who will benefit the most : the shareholders of companies.But has I said, lowering costs, is by definition paying LESS........YOUR workers compared to workers/retirees of the developed nations !

It is like having a local maid (expensive) or a foreign maid (cheaper). The positive side is that a foreign maid will earn far more in a developed country than in her own country.

Conclusion : everyone should be satisified, since outsourcing creates better paid jobs than you would have without the outsourcing and we also get cheaper products with greater profits with our investments.

A WIN WIN SITUATION......IF EVERYONE PARTICIPATE FAIRLY IN THE GAME !!!!!

Lot of stupid yanks babbling a lot of nonsense on this site. The fact is that the US population is getting poorer each year while a tiny minority is getting richer. Most americans are forced to have 2 jobs to make ends meet, and this includes the middle class. No other developed country allows their workers so few rights as the US, i.e. virtually no holidays, and they have no rights when facing unfair dismissal. So maybe the US economy is booming, but the riches it creates lines very few but deep pockets.

This Steve guy must be reading something from some other country, not the USA.

Get a grip and post something that is True instead of False.

BtW, the American economy is well and fine. Will be for quite some time. We are innovaters.

Lots of crime in Brazil by the way. Why would anyone want to live there?

I think the writer had some points which were genuine and US should look out for the trap of oil its falling into.

ch.c. focuses on the relatively low brazilian growth rate and concludes from there to the backwardness of the brazilian economy. On the first look the brazilian growth rate of around 4 % is not impressive compared with the chinese or indian numbers. But one has to take a look behind the figures.

The current inflation in Brazil at the moment is more or less like in the US (around 4 %). The central bank rate (SELIC) is 14.25 compared to the FED rate of 5.25. That results in a true interest rate of 10 % for Brazil compared to 1 % in the US. For the consumer or a lending company the true interest rate is even higher. A hint of Bernanke to raise the FED rate for a quarter already makes Walls street tumble. What would be the state of the US economy with a FED rate of 14.25 ? Surely not a growth rate of 4 %.

One might say that this high true interest rate is the price Brazil has to pay for its hyper inflation in the past. Well, but the encouraging fact is, that Brazil is willing to pay this and keep inflation under control even on the cost of the lower growth rate. In the long run this austerity policy with the acceptance lower growth rates might be just the rigth thing for the brazilian economy, rather than the irresponsible lavishly spending policy of the US government.

Maybe some people do not want to hear from a brazilian economist some bad news or facts about the US economy. OK, here is a link to the Goldman Sachs (certainly not Anti American) website with some comments about the US economic policy:

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our_firm/our_culture/corporate_citizenship/gmi/images/GMI_Panels/Bergsten_paper.pdf

This article reads like some 1950s Soviet propaganda. It's one thing to suggest that the US economy is facing some challenges as the global economic landscape shifts, but it's not a zero-sum game. The US will likely benefit from the growth of Brazil's economy. He also makes these ridiculous assertions about private equity firms stripping the US economy of value- the real data suggests otherwise: Private equity investment creates value and jobs over the long term and don't have some huge impact on the greater economy. Lula must have paid this guy off. The US has plenty of laws and regulations to protect workers, and the majority do not need to work two jobs etc. to get by. That's more propaganda from the media. The reality is that Americans are willing to work hard for a living instead of feeling that some government subsidised job is a right for life. As a result, the US will continue to be one of the most efficient, innovative countries for the forseeable future. China and India will surge well ahead of anything we'll see from Brazil. But there's always soccer.

Loud-mouthed yanks,
everything Steve wrote it is true, USA have a very poor labor laws, USA lost the middle class. If you want to find a nice face of poorer americans, You just need to cruise by the skid road if you ever visited Los Angeles. Santa Monica it is toattally full of homeless, Gangs control many parts of big cities, If you turn you local TV everyday, or educated yourselfs more about USA, million of jobs outsorcing. Sorry to say that, but America it is a broken dream today. One family, two jobs, 2 kids, house payment,health insurance, car, etccc.....large amount of the population in USA living from pay check to pay check, the others amounts welfare, Gangs, and minority are the riches, USA like to show their riches and famous.To all yanks, you need to watched Bill Mahaer (HBO friday night). I lived in Rio, travel to the world (my job). Americans have one the mostly stress lifes I ever saw, go go go...eat fat food, get obese, unhealty, impolite,no manners. If yours yanks think America -USA it is the most wonderful country in this earth, well you need to educated yourself better. If my english it is not perfect please forgive me, but how about your president BUSH, went to Yale, ha ha ha . To all your Yanks, you need to clean your house before open you big ignorant mounth and talked bad about any otners nation. I will have to go, get my sun tan, live a free life and witness some gringos act like a foul in the beach, Oh one more thing, if you decide to visit my country, please at least dress yourself little better, get a sun tan, when use a open sandals do not use knee high white socks, big shorts. Not to all yanks, but the one who criticize my country. You are not welcome here.

Agree with Fabi, USA should try to help people in DARFUR, but they don't have Oil, they need help. Thank you Mrs& Mr Gates, Warren Buffet, the one with money and willing to help the poor.Before made any comments about others countries, why don't expend your time and help your goverment find a solution to clean up, after Katrina, take a good looking on your country, before make any comments about the others, get your fat asses and voluntered to help the katrina people. Gringos came to Brazil desperate to find a good woman, doens't matter if she is a prostitute, she looks much better that the 2x large american woman, ugly, fat, american is dying, drowned in their own fat, 66% the people in USA are obese 300 . Reality hurt.

.
Ricardo C. Amaral: Reply to “Laughable”

You must work for a private equity firms by your reaction.
You said on your posting: “This article reads like some 1950s Soviet propaganda” or
Came from Lula.

If you want to read the entire article on subversive “Soviet propaganda” – the source of the information in question on your posting - just go to the following web site and read the Forbes Magazine cover story ”Private Inequity”:

http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0313/046.html


The reality is: Today, many Private Equity firms operates just like the robber barons of a century ago.

.
.

this discussion has been focused on macro economics. Since you
have nothing up your sleeve (nsmely, facts) you try to pollute the
debate with minutiae. Why should the length of my vacation time matter
to a hunger stricken Brazilian?

Open your eyes!!!

.
Reply to New Yorker

You said on your above posting: “I think we all lived through the dooms day scenario for the US economy in the 1980’s when it was the Japanese who would doom the USA….”

I on know why based on the posting of various people I seems to me that they did not grasp what I am trying to say on this article.

This is not the United States of 1980 with a federal government cumulative outstanding debt just over $ 1 billion US dollars.

This is the United States of 2006 with a federal government cumulative outstanding debt of over $ 8 trillion US dollars, and the states in the US also have another $ 2 trillion US dollars in outstanding debt. Combined the United States has over $ 10 trillion US dollars in outstanding debt as of 2006 – plus all the other government debts that are coming due in the near future related to the baby boom generation (77 million people are coming down the pipeline and it will cost a fortune for the federal and state governments in the US in the coming years.) It is estimated that the costs related to this baby boom generation will add another $ 77 trillion US dollars in liabilities to the US federal government.

Never mind all the money that the United States is wasting in wagging wars around the world – the Iraq war alone has cost the US over $ 300 billion US dollars in the last 3 years and Americans have very little to show for all this investment.

The Iraq war is also destroying most of the best war equipment that the US army has and to replace all that equipment will cost trillions of US dollars in the future. (The equipment is being destroyed on a regular basis by sand storms, and the constant very high temperatures of the desert in Iraq; Iraq has a very hostile environment and weather for this American war equipment.)

The United States has been funding its war around the world with money borrowed from the international market – there is no way in hell this trend can continue indefinitely – mainly when we take in consideration what is happening in the economies of other countries around the world.

The Brazilian economy is also getting free from its international debts as Brazil paid its entire outstanding debt to the IMF and also to the Club of Paris.

When I think about the future of the United States economic system – the first thing that comes to mind is: how Americans will be able to generate a cash flow in the future to pay for current and the humongous debt that is coming due related to the baby boomers.

Remember, the United States is exporting its good jobs by the millions to foreign lands as a quick fix and greed by the major American corporations.

An economy based on Wal-Mart type of jobs is not going to be viable to pay the future bills that are coming due.

I have not mentioned as yet many other major problems that are in the pipeline regarding the US economy and that the American taxpayers will have to foot the bill.

Today and in the last few years private equity firms and hedge funds have been raiding and pillaging the pension funds of most American corporations – this represent cash flow and future income that it will not be available for millions of Americans retirees in the future.

I have not mentioned future Katrinas and its costs to the US government and so on….


.

.
Correction to my above posting:

I don't know why based on the posting of various people I seems to me that they did not grasp what I am trying to say on this article?.

This is not the United States of 1980 with a federal government cumulative outstanding debt just over $ 1 trillion US dollars.


.

As long as the USA continue to grow and as long as they inovate and continue to be the best place to invest then the debt burden can continue. We heard the same story 20 y ears ago when the budget deficit was just as high as a percentage to our gdp. The fact is no one can really predit the future. The political situation in china can change everything, but as long you are have a very fluid and open economy then you have a shot, but brasil do not have this. Brasil has a very close economy, Very inefficient for business to operate on the international arena. I visit brasil at least once a year for two weeks and i am always amazed at how inefficient your public institution is. You import taxes are very high in brasil, the rampant disregard for intellectual property. I love brasil, but I do not see brasil becoming a world power. I think she will always be country that never accomplish it true potential. I blame your large federal system including a very ineffective judicial system. Speaking about debt, you did not mention the very high public debt in brasil or what is brasil plans are for pension reform. I think every country has their problems and I am sure the USA will have major corrections, but we have the environment for individual and business to dream, prosper and innovate.

.
Reply to New Jerseyite

You said on your posting: “He says "It took 30 years for Brazil to develop a very innovative, very profitable, and efficient Ethanol industry that replaced the old system and Brazil's dependence on foreign oil." It wasn't ethanol that replaced Brazil's dependence on foreign oil! It was discovering more crude oil than Brazil consumed.”


***


For your information: There are about 357 sugar refineries in Brazil today and there are over 50 more under construction.

All these Ethanol refineries use what was left over from the cane sugar after they took out their juice as a source of fuel to create electricity to power these refineries – but they are creating an excess in electric power than the amount of energy they need to power these refineries – and the extra electric power they are sell to the local power electric companies that in turn distribute it to their customers.

Millions of people in Brazil today get their electric power from these sugar cane refineries and saving Brazil billions of US dollars if Brazil had to import oil to produce the same amount of energy.

Today, 42 percent of Brazil's energy use comes from renewable sources, compared with 6 percent for OECD countries. Around 90 percent of Brazil's electricity comes from hydropower.

Brazil has a very advanced automobile industry and column by Thomas Friedman – published on The New York Times on June 17, 2005 mentions that fact.

Brazil is away ahead of the game when compared with the United States and today a large number of cars in Brazil use flexible-fuel technology.

Friedman’s article also said: Brazil hopes to have all its new cars flex-fuel ready by 2008. As Luft notes, if you combined a plug-in hybrid system with a flex-fuel system that burns 80 percent alcohol and 20 percent gasoline….

And today in major cities in Brazil buses, trucks, ambulances and many other government vehicles use gas as a fuel instead of gasoline or ethanol.

It is a win-win situation for Brazil and the Brazilian people.


.

Please be more specific.
When in the last decade Brazil grew 4 % or more ?
The answer is 1 time. Yess ONCE only in 2004 when you grew 5 %.
Under Lula mandate, Brazil grew 0,5 % in 2003, 5 % in 2004, 2,3 % in 2005 and probably around 3 - 3,5 % at best for 2006.
Thus simple maths equal an average of 2,76 %.

I just remind you that it is not only China or India that have good growth rates......BUT ALL developing countries that are beating you....HANDS ON.
Brazil is at the queue of the queue. The last of the last.
Most LDC countries have also beaten you.
Your growth rate has even been at around 50 % of the Average World growth rate (by definition....including developed, developing and LDC
countries)
For the last 4 years there has been a BOOM Worldwide...that you missed.
Just look at Argentina, Chile, even Colombia, South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam just to name a few outside of Your China and India.

It is really amazing of how you dont realize yet how under performing you have been compared with your peers.
Of course finding bad excuses.....will continue your blindness.

As to the loss of the middle class in USA, sorry, their Middle Class is far wealthier than the Brazilian middle class....whatever stats you look at.
I just remind you that the Brazilian average income is Reais 1028.- or around $ 500.- per month.
As per the World Bank, the recently published report on....doing business.... and that appeared even today on this site, ranks Brazil 121 out of
175.
Is that not great for a leading developing country that pretends to be more developed than ALL the stats ?

Sorry, Brazil is an archaïc and medieval country....wether it pleases you or not.
You dont have one chip manufacturing plant yet. NOT ONE.
You dont have one car manufacturer. ALL are foreigners
You have mostly Assembly Lines, even in the mobile phones.

But how could it be different, since you have only 10,5 % of students going to University. South Korea, another developing country, have 86,5 % of students going to University.
Despite your "relative" wealth, it remains really relative sinced you have one of the world worst wealth inequality.
And you have the World highest poverty rate when compared to your GDP per capita.


Finally Goldman Sachs will also compliment a country paying the world highest interest rates.......after inflation.
Guess why ! smile
Your actual Selic rate is 14,25 %, you have around 3,5 % inflation, which equals to 11,75 % AFTER inflation. Unique on earth.
Guess who will be paying the bill ? You........the taxpayers......having already one of the highest tax rate.
Your overall tax rate is 39 %, the same as in the UK.
What does your government with all that money ? Education NO, infrastructure NO, healthcare NO, low cost housing NO.

A large part goes to paying the interests rates, your huge bureaucracy. Very little is directed to investments.

Just think about the following :
Your federal government debts are growing at around 18 % per year. Yesssss
At such a rate, in only 10 years your debts will have multiplied by 5 times. Yessssss.....incredible but true.
Yesterday your government sold bonds in the International markets : 12,375 % for 16 years. Yesssssss

Cant you see a problem in a not too distant future ?????? I do !
Brazil is not a reserve currency but mostly a currency for speculators : they take a long time to get in......but they get out much faster.
Why should your debts grow by 18 % annually when in reality very little goes back to the society one way or another ?

Sorry but something is wrong, dead wrong, completely wrong. You mostly finance your bureaucracy, red tape, interests rates and
CORRUPTIONS ! These spendings dont bear any fruits...thus it is a terribly bad management.

Unfortunately Brazil is still a Socialist country with unbelievable taxes. Brazil is benefiting now as is Saudi from high commodity pricing, what happens when this reverses. This is the typical Brazilian view that everything in the world revolves around the US and its position vis-a-vis the US. If this writer wants to Brazil to fulfill its potential through away Keynes & read Friedman & Hayek. The last item that this writer forgets is that the Pentagon is still in the US and all the upcoming huge industrial projects for the future will be in the US & not in Brazi or China. Brazil can make the buggy whips of the future (cars). One of the last places in the world to invest is Brazil. I just wish it were not so.

I just read your comment about energy. 40% of the energy in Brazil is renewable, my question is how much of this is hydro? Probably 90% of this 40%. I have been traveling to Brazil 4-8 times per year though Houston Texas since 1989 & from about 1995 onward each and every plane I have been on is full of Texas Oil men. It took 10 years for these Texas oil men to create an oil surplus. Vitually everyone I know in Brazil never uses the Alcool that is offered. So you should say thank you to GW & the rest of the Texas oil men for the Brazilian economy.

Loud-mouthed yanks
written by steven on September 7, 2006, 4:25 am

Lot of stupid yanks babbling a lot of nonsense on this site. The fact is that the US population is getting poorer each year while a tiny minority is getting richer. Most americans are forced to have 2 jobs to make ends meet, and this includes the middle class. No other developed country allows their workers so few rights as the US, i.e. virtually no holidays, and they have no rights when facing unfair dismissal. So maybe the US economy is booming, but the riches it creates lines very few but deep pockets.


The professor of my course on the history of capitalism and labor, stated some of the things you pointed out, in my class a few days ago. More and more U.S. citizens share less in the economic prosperity of their country, and the only wealth most Americans have - if they have it - is their house. I'm differentiating between income and wealth here, of course one can build wealth through income. The labor orginization in the United States has been steadily weakening too.

Anyways... I'm not suggesting all is gloom for the USA, because of course it isn't, but neither would I say Brazil has no potential improving future for herself. Brazil will increase I believe in economic prosperity, as most corporations see themselves as global rather than just national companies, the fact that Sao Paulo has a more prosperous auto industry than Detriot is a real symbol of that to me. Corporation are loyal to themselves and their stock holders. No nation on earth has the prosperous, diverse, and dynamic auto market of the U.S. - yet Detroit took a nose dive while Sao Paulo went upward in providing jobs for the auto building sector. I suspect many more U.S. companies will leave for China, India, and Brazil eventually - it will cost them less.

Amazing how jealous gringos get of other countries prosperity. They don't realise that most of their richness come from ripping off South American and African countries. They have a superiority complex and therefore their arrogance.

Brazil is a great nation and getting better everyday, South America is changing fast, USA has lost it grip as well as respect. Most of South Americans see you as you are, a bully nation led by the most incompetent president in history. (One reason to tell yor kids not to do drugs)

China, India as well as Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela are the economies of the future. Chavez, Lula and Kirchner along with the rest of Mercosur will integrate South America and you gringos are wetting your pants!

Oil supply from Venezuela will reamin at 1.5mil/day the future increases in production will go to China, India, Brazil, Argentina etc. Now your transmnationals pay taxes a royalties in Venezuela and each day get less opportunities. Soon enough if the USA doesn''t change the idiot in the Wack House soon their transnationals will be kicked out for good.

This century belongs to South America with Brazil in front to guide us. Make no mistake!

Man,thanks for this very intersting article.I wish you were wrong....... and hope a soft and creative landing and by the way I admire your patience on the replications.
Cheers

Amaral has a valid point on US debt burden. It's just too much debt, caused by government irresponsability. However, that alone will not cause them to fail. Their debt, in percentage, when compared to their GDP, is still smaller than that of Brazil. Not only that, brazilian debt pays astronomical interest rates, which make the debt double every 4 years. Amaral, I'm afraid you are too biased in a US x rest of the world rhetoric and on hope of seeing Brazil succeed, so you just can't see that their mistakes do not justify ours. I agree with you on the problems that baby boom generation will cause and so on. But you didn't take in consideration the freedom to make business that their institutions provide them. Now look at Brazil: on this matter, we are even worse, and we haven't even the slightest degree of freedom and unregulation that they have. If they are to fail, and that's a strong point that may lead them to failure, we will fail first.

You also say they are outsourcing their jobs. That's true too. They are even sending R&D jobs abroad and that's also true. However, they are still keeping a lot of jobs there. And which jobs are these? In the technical fields, they are those for cutting edge microbiology, medicine, IT, nanotechnology, and other advanced research. Base science and technology, for that matter. Weren't it so, they wouldn't be importing brains from everywhere in the world (the outsource here is on the other hand, you see). It's the kind of job that needs a safe institutional environment to make the investment pay in 5, 10 or even more years, that remains there. The R&D that they outsource are those of product R&D, basic software development, IT administration and so on. They may even look new to you, like that of SWAT teams on IBM, but the fact is that this technology is not cutting edge anymore (you can see that huge, large traffic websites exist since the dawn of the Internet, for instance, and huge, large traffic in-company systems already exist in the banking industry for at least 20 years). And even that is exception, for if you look at IT centers like those of Exxon, HSBC, IBM, Google and others in Brazil, you'll see that those centers are limited to basic software development according to frameworks developed abroad, as well as basic IT administration and help desk. The outsourced jobs are those jobs that will be generating revenue in less than 2 years, so it's manageable if some institutional disrupt occurs and their costs get too high. And even here Brazil barely offers a secure environment for 2-year long investment (that's why India and China receive that investment first). Talk to anyone working for R&D labs in Brazil and the US to check this.

The americans also keep the jobs of those responsible for the business of their companies. The head of business remains there. The outsource here is the contrary. Many companies that appear in other countries outsource their centers of decisions to the US.

Also, you won't like what I'm going to say, but: Keynes is crap, and should be understood like this. He was an irresponsible guy without long term view. It's just like he said: "In the long run, we will be all dead". No wonder he is so much loved in Latin America, for he's the gringo who justifies the inneficient governments that we have here.

Yesssss you are right 99 % !
But saying that Brazil has the best beaches and the best vacations places is not only wrong but an heresy !

- France has the world highest tourists numbers followed by the USA.
- There, contrary to Brazil, beaches are cleaned. 95 % of the Brazilian beaches are dirty. Simple.
- The Dominican Republic, although with 20 times less population have not only better beaches than Brazil, but they are cleaner anmd their tourism if 10 times more developed than in Brazil, on the quality. The same could be said for Thailand. I dont have included yet Spain, Portugal, Italy just to name a few.....better than Brazil.
- Your analysis is unfortunately not taking in account a basic factor. Namely that despite the increased tourism in Brazil, the country is in deficit in their tourism trade. This means simply that more Brazilians do tourism elsewhere than incoming tourists. Therefore even Brazilians have the same analysis as ME ! laugh
- Finally doing tourism in Brazil is far more risky than doing tourism elsewhere in view of their crime rates and assaults rate against tourists.
It doesnt mean that other developing countries are completely safe but simply LESS dangerous. And while you are usually welcomed in many tourists countries......you dont get the same reception in Brazil.

Myself and all my friends travelled to many countries, including Brazil. All of us enjoyed going in that country but none of us will go twice.
To be more honest.....we enjoyed and were excited....before we actually entered the country. On average we were even more excited when we took the plane to return to our homeland.

Brazil once in a lifetime....yesss....but not twice. Elsewhere (many countries) are so much better and friendlier.

Cheers

Just correcting my post: where you read "freedom and unregulation", read "freedom and deregulation".

So, Amaral, the US are better than Brazil mostly because there is too little government intervention. Got it?

I could not disagree more. I dont know where in brasil you visited, but try to go to the northeast and follow the curve from Jeroquaquara ( not sure of the spelling) all the way down to recife. i think that is a few hundred miles of untouched beaches. very pristine and very clean. I think one way brasil can increase tourism is to lift visa requirements for americans..

.
According to this study during a five year period 1998 - 2002 Brazil lost 20 percent of its manufacturing jobs.

I have a feeling that we are losing more jobs globally than people realized - and the sad part is that there are very few people interested finding out what is going on.

How many millions of jobs were eliminated from these countries since the end of 2002 when that research was done?
.

.
Factory Employment Is Falling World-Wide Study of 20 Big Economies Finds 22 Million Jobs Lost; Even China Shows Decline
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - October 20, 2003
By JON E. HILSENRATH and REBECCA BUCKMAN

The U.S. manufacturing sector has gone through 38 grueling months of declining employment, but a new report shows that factory-job woes aren't just an American problem. From Brazil to Russia and yes, even to China, manufacturing jobs are disappearing around the globe.

Economists at Alliance Capital Management LP in New York looked at employment trends in 20 large economies and found that from 1995 to 2002, more than 22 million jobs in the manufacturing sector were eliminated, a decline of more than 11%.

Contrary to conventional U.S. beliefs, the research found that American manufacturing workers weren't the biggest losers. The U.S. lost about two million manufacturing jobs in the 1995-2002 period, an 11% drop. But Brazil had a 20% decline. Japan's factory work force shed 16% of its jobs, while China's was down 15%.

Joseph Carson, director of global economic research at Alliance, says the reasons for the declines are similar across the globe: Gains in technology and competitive pressure have forced factories to become more efficient, allowing them to boost output with far fewer workers. Indeed, even as manufacturing employment declined, says Mr. Carson, global industrial output rose more than 30%.

At the same time, countries everywhere -- including developing countries like China -- are struggling to reduce excess capacity. "We've got too many steel plants in the world, too many auto companies," says Bill Belchere, chief economist for Asia at J.P. Morgan Chase in Hong Kong. "There's going to be a further shakeout as we move forward."

.

Continue article.

The job losses in the U.S. have become a hot-button political issue in Washington. Some U.S. manufacturers and labor unions complain that American manufacturing jobs are fleeing to low-cost Asian countries, like China, which is keeping its currency cheap to make exports inexpensive. While there's no doubt some U.S. jobs are moving to China, India and some other low-cost countries abroad, Mr. Carson says that isn't the entire story.

"The argument that politicians are throwing out there is that we are losing jobs and nobody else is, and that is wrong," says Mr. Carson. "What I found is that the loss of manufacturing jobs that we have seen in the U.S. is not unique. It is part of a global trend that began many years ago."

Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, which has been lobbying the Bush administration for support, says he doesn't accept the results of the Alliance study. He notes that the job losses in the U.S. in just the past three years have been especially pronounced -- matching losses, in percentage terms, that were recorded during the sharp recession of 1982. Moreover, these losses have come at a time when manufacturing employment in China has begun to rise again after dropping sharply in the late 1990s. "I don't think it is terribly relevant to take aggregate employment loss numbers for the whole globe and compare the loss on a global basis with the United States, and say, ' Hey everything is all right,' " he says.

Yet other economists are also looking at global trends and coming to conclusions similar to Mr. Carson's. Economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for instance, found that manufacturing employment was down 9% from 1990 to 2001 in the U.S. and among OECD countries outside the U.S. Like Mr. Carson, they link the decline to improvements in productivity. They add that while overall employment has been declining, developed countries are shifting their remaining output to higher-value products, such as high-tech ones.

Glenn Hubbard, who resigned as chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers earlier this year, has also been making these points in presentations on the economic outlook. "It does seem like people are thinking about this as a purely American phenomenon," says Mr. Hubbard, "but there is something bigger going on." He likens the trend to the global decline of agricultural employment in the last century as that sector became more productive. From 1910 to 1990, agricultural employment in the U.S. fell to 2.5% of total employment from 32%; in the U.K., it fell to 2% from 11%, and in Germany, it fell to 3% from 34%, according to statistics provided by Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth-based economic historian.

Rather than making efforts to protect the manufacturing sector, Mr. Hubbard says the Bush administration should be pushing harder for measures that would ease the transition of workers into the service sector, such as advancing "re-employment accounts" that provide workers with cash to use toward retraining.

Perhaps the most surprising result of these latest studies is the manufacturing employment trends in China. Since 2000, manufacturing payrolls in China are up about 2.5 million, even as the rest of the world has suffered. But looked at over a longer time horizon, employment in China's manufacturing sector is down sharply. From 1995 to 2002, manufacturing employment has fallen to 83 million from 98 million, a 15% drop that outpaces many of the declines elsewhere in the world.

It isn't difficult to figure out why. China remains burdened with a massive and unproductive state sector that will take years to restructure. Even as foreign direct investment pours into the country's newer plants, millions of workers at inefficient state plants have to find new work, a source of potentially destabilizing unrest in the country and massive internal migrations.

.

.
I wonder if the 4 million men who are unemployed today in the United States on the prime of their potential careers – are included on the number that the US Labor Department gives out every month – a number not included on the unemployment numbers – the figure that they call “discouraged workers” – I understand there are millions of these discourage workers in the US today.

Never mind the other millions of people who could not find work and decided to retire at an earlier age than if a job was available to them.

Other millions of people call themselves consultants – it is better than unemployed, retired, or looking for work. Many of these consultants make very little money with no benefits – other than a lot of leisure time on their hands.


******


The New York Times published a front-page story on July 31, 2006 “Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job” – I had a feeling that that trend had been going on at least since January 2001.

The article said: “…men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 – have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.

About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working….The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today……But their ranks are growing at all education and income levels.

…Many of these men could find work if they had to, but with lower pay a fewer benefits than they once earned, and they have decided they prefer the alternative. It is a significant cultural shift from three decades ago, when men almost invariably went back into the work force after losing a job and were more often able to find a new one that met their needs….


.

Amaral, you missed the point. You have to be considering if unemployment is actually getting higher. You see, if we were to read the news about job losses some 100 years ago, we would be noticing that people were rapidly losing their jobs in agriculture business, as well as other extractivist sectors, like coal miners and such. Would you dream for one of your children to work as a peasant or a miner? That's the wonderful thing in our times, but you are completely blind to it: we can now feed the entire mankind, and provide basic raw materials with only a fraction of the workers of some 100 years ago, despite the fact that the population by that time was a little bit more than 1.5 billion and now it surpasses 6 billion. That's called productivity. Has the unemployment got higher? No way! There are jobs for more than 90% of a workforce that's at least 2 or 3 times as high as the entire population on Earth by 1900! They are just different jobs. Even those in the extractivist industries.

I will give you a tip for your readings: in Administration, forget about Ford and Taylor and read Ohno. Focus on the part of the unpopular way of increasing productivity by causing unemployment of both workforce and means. And in Economics, read von Mises, on the part where he says that human beings act, when faced with some difficulty. Understand that I'm not in favor of having many people unemployed. No way. I think that an economy that has unemployment rates topping 4% of workforce is already less efficient than it could be. But that doesn't mean that jobs should be secure. The countries that reached rates of about 2%, and had the highest wages, were the ones with the least labor laws.

Continuing the above paragraph, let's get back to Ohno: the contracts in Toyota were mostly lifelong contracts. The person who was hired by Toyota already knew, in advance, that he/she was going ot work for Toyota all his/her lifetime, until retirement. They wouldn't look for other jobs, and Toyota would not lay them off. Even so, Ohno applied his method to unemploy workforce. But why did he do so? Toyota couldn't lay them off, so what Ohno was preaching was to eliminate the jobs of Toyota employees so that they would be doing nothing!? In the short term, exactly that. But let's look at long term effects: Toyota has modernized itself to put machinery to work in the place of the old workers; the old workers now didn't have much to do, so they could receive training to operate new machinery; it remains that these workers had a very much higher productivity operatinng the new machines, which led to increase in business revenues and, of course, on their wages; as the productivity continued going up, more workers got unemployed, received training and got back to work more productive. That didn't happen only in Toyota. It happened in virtually all of the japanese industry in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And despite the fact that population has grown, unemployment remained low. And you do remember how important were the japanese industries by that time, don't you?

Hence, what we need, Amaral, are ways to educate and keep the workforce fed during unemployment periods. When unemployed, the person must not have a big impact on his/her life in the matters of consumption standards, understand? The person must be calm and safe to study and look for other works to do. His/her family must not suffer too much, as that is counter productive. But the goal is not to create barriers for unemployment. Only unemployed people can make full use of their time to study and return to workforce as more productive individuals, hence, contributing more, and earning better wages. As such, unemployment is a good thing and necessary for modernization in the short term. The japanese way worked very well. We could follow it.

So, Amaral, I propose you read what those authors put it. And I propose you follow them. Unfortunately, your views are too biased. It couldn't be otherwise. You focus in some very specific trends only. You don't focus the whole picture of the present, and in consequence, you cannot see the long term effects of all that's happening.

Amaral, I haven't read entirely the article you have posted before posting my own reply. My bad. Anyway, look at what Mr. Hubbard says about agriculture employment in the US, UK and Germany. I agree completely with him: the governments should ease the transition of jobs. Lift the barriers in education and on labor laws. Make the life easier for the ones relocating from one job to another...

Anyway, what's your opinion on this subject?

Quote:


"and today any smart investor should invest in Brazil and be in the ground floor of this great long-term investment opportunity. "

That's a laugh my friend. Try dealing with the corruption and ridiculous level of beaurocracy in brazil, as well as the fact they only want money coming in, and make it as difficult as possible for anything to go out. That's not the way capitalism works, nor an efficent economy. Brazilian economy and efficiency is an oxy-moron.

When one looks at world bank development indicators and PPP rates, the U.S. has nearly 10X the PPP rates of Brazil, India, and China combined!!!


Real good advice, any smart investor would know that he better be prepared to be charged one of the highest tax rates in the world, participate in a system where a known 77% of ALL municipal gov'ts. are known to be corrupt, wonder what the real number is? And where he'll have to grease more palms then the CEO of Jiffy Lube and be prepared to accomplish in years what is normally accomplished in weeks or month in the beaurocratic system known as "Brasil".

And has been for the last 20 years, and "still is" today :

Hated everywhere, big bullies, no culture nor taste, but plenty of ignorant opinions.

USA....shame on you, your time is comig to am end, thank the allmighty!

Long live the free people of the world.

Is it a provocation??

Does it really suck to be an American? Just ask millians of illegals in this country who are earning a living wage and can afford to feed his family. After reading all of the articles, I will say just one thing. Why do millions of people from many countries, including Brasil, leave their families, friends, culture and risk being arrested entering the USA illegally. Why? Because in the end, after all of the doom and gloom economic facts, the USA is still a country where people can find work and feed their families. The USA has been over run with Brazilian who entered the USA illegally. Thank god that Mexico now requires visas for Brazilian. This has slowed the pace down of Brazilians entering the USA illegally. The only reason Americans like Brasil is for the whores that stand on the street in Rio trying to make money.

Hated everywhere: true.
big bullies: why? just because they want to sell you cheaper and offer you big deals?
no culture nor taste: rock 'n' roll, Hollywood, among others, come from where then?
but plenty of ignorant opinions: true. See Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. That's the side effect of letting idiots express their opinions. I guess you would prefer China or Iran then, where there is only one official ignorant opinion... the other idiots must just shut up.
Long live the free people of the world.: yes, long live the americans! May them keep their freedom and recover whatever freedom lost in the last years!

As an American living in Rio, I read many things in the article with which I agree and others with which I did not.

Brazil has made an impressive national committment to energy indepence. It has required sacrafices from the whole country to achieve this goal. Some of the pain (as most Americans would consider it) includes electricity costs about 70% higher than I paid in Los Angeles and gasoline which costs nearly double. Both are amazing differences when you compare average wages. This energy independence makes a signifcant contribution to the current account surplus.

But, these are things that the US should do as well. The US can't continue to consume 40% of the world's petroleum - it's just not sustainable. And, as a result of these higher costs, I buy flourescent light fixtures and drive an SUV that gets double the mileage of my last one in Los Angeles. It's not suffering, it's just better choices. I caluclate that our family consumption is 50% or less than in the US - and that with a similar size home!

Some of the comments with regard to US debt and Brazilian debt are way off the mark. Total US Federal debt, not including social security future obligations is nearly 100% of GDP. Annual deficits, including social security and other "off budget" items total nearly 7% of GDP. And, this is only at the Federal level; if you include State and Local obligations, the total would be breathtaking. It's only through this fiscal irresponsibility that the current US administration has been able to maintain the fantasy of a 4% growth rates.
Add to that current account deficit and you have completely unsustainable total of about 15% of GDP.

Interestingly, my own work life is a reflection of just how much the technology that the author writes of is true. I am legally "retired" in Brazil. The truth is that I conduct my business affairs through a virtual private network to my LA office and with a very cheap internet phone. With these two technologies, I conduct my business seamlessly. I also have a good friend from LA, now living in Budapest, doing exactly the same thing.

However, where I differ with the author is about investment in Brazil. It could be a good investment if government corruption and bureacracy weren't so out of hand. But given the current situation, I think I'd hold off. Brazil needs to look at their level of competiveness with respect to labor costs (not wages), poor infrastructure, the poor level of education and the high (and growing higher) level of violent crime.

The cause and effect of american agressive foreign policy and the world despising america and americans all over the planet. People will go to america to make money, certainly not love it.

.

“Does it really suck to be an American” - written by Jerry Pace:

“Just ask millians of illegals in this country who are earning a living wage and can afford to feed his family. After reading all of the articles, I will say just one thing. Why do millions of people from many countries, including Brasil, leave their families, friends, culture and risk being arrested entering the USA illegally. Why? Because in the end, after all of the doom and gloom economic facts, the USA is still a country where people can find work and feed their families. The USA has been over run with Brazilian who entered the USA illegally. Thank god that Mexico now requires visas for Brazilian. This has slowed the pace down of Brazilians entering the USA illegally.”


****************


Reply By Ricardo C. Amaral

You said the following on your posting: “Why do millions of people from many countries, including Brazil, leave their families, friends, culture and risk being arrested entering the USA illegally. Why?”


Because the United States has been promoting for a long time the biggest advertising program in world history and that add campaign has been very successful.

You might ask me what are you talking about?

The movies. American movies and weekly television series has been distributed around the world. Since the 1950’s Brazilians have been accustomed to watch American weekly series on Brazilian television. Never mind the regular movies that they have been showing on movie theaters for many decades.

What is the message of this Hollywood massive add campaign during all this time?

In the United States it is easy to get a job and also a very decent living wage. Everybody has a nice house, with a two-car garage, the kids have a chance to get a very good education and the sky is the limit.

Most of these American movies give the impression that life is very easy in the United States and people have lots of vacations and they are always buying lots of stuff that they don’t need. It is buy, buy, and buy….

They also picture a place were it is easy to get all kinds of government benefits when you need it including the best health care in the world.

People from around the world have been watching this Hollywood massive marketing for decades, and today even more than ever with global cable networks, DVDs, the internet and so on…

With that kind of massive marketing campaign I am not surprised that every poor person from around the world wants to come to this “Shangrila.”

By the way, you are completely misinformed. The majority of Brazilian illegal immigrants does not come to the United States via Mexico. They come via Varig, Tam, Continental, American, Delta and other airlines.

It sounds more romantic to say that an illegal immigrant had to cross a desert under 120 degrees and no water or food, but trying to survive snakes and other hardships. But the reality is they just boarded a Boeing 747 in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo or other major city in Brazil and they landed in American airports in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Boston and so on… The biggest hardship that this people encounter today is that they can’t take with them on the airplane their cel-phone, their hair gel, their toothbrush and toothpaste, and in general airplane food is nothing to write home about it.

The other point is that: besides being more comfortable to come to the United States by airplane instead of crossing the Mexican desert by foot – it takes a lot less time to come to the US directly on an airplane and it is a lot cheaper to travel on these airlines than to go to the trouble of hiring some gangster in Mexico to help you enter the United States the hard way.

Today I can buy an airline ticket to go to Brazil – to Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro – for under $ 500 for the round trip. And some times during the year they have specials that cost about $ 380 for the round trip.


.

A recent poll conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres/EOS Gallup (673,027 replies) in many parts of the world asked: Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace?

Results:

North Korea 5.6 %
Iraq 6.5 %
The United States 87.9 %

Conclusion:

It does SUCK to be American.

I rest my case!

Brazil with below 4% growth rate getting rich is a big joke. You have developing countries like China & India growing at 10% & 9% GFP will will 4 decades ahead of Brazil after 2 decades. Brazilans should stop dreaming and start working. Natural resorces are gods gift to Brazil. What technology is writter talking off? Software Technology is driven by Indians and manufacturing is driven by China, what is Brazil doing ? Lula is just laying eggs. Brazil should get itself satisfied when world compares Brazil on same stage with China & India. Brazil being compared with the growth of China & India is big insult to the growth of future superpowers. FINALLY YOU DONT EVEN PLAY SOCCER WELL ANYMORE.

.

Ricardo C. Amaral - Reply to written by John, 2006-09-11 04:45:33

You said: “what is Brazil doing?”

You can read the answer on the web site listed below – read the thread posted by SouthAmerica.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76323&perpage=6&pagenumber=4

odd comment from Ricardo... US life is so much easier...

Having lived at Nogales, Mexico, a bordering town with the USA, I could personally see that the flow of brazilians was considerable.
Quite a few were arrested in Mexico before crossing to the USA, just like in the soap "America".
I agree with Ricardo, it is much easier to take a plane, but now that the US is more stringent with visas, what now?
Will only middle classers make it to the US?

.
Today, after the Mexicans – they are number one - the Brazilians are the second largest group of illegal immigrants to enter the US on a yearly basis.

Please don’t blame the Brazilian government for this exodus of Brazilians who are coming to the US. The current exodus of Brazilians that are coming illegally to the United States, that is happening with the compliments of Globo Television – the largest television network in Brazil.

Globo Television can be seen all over Brazil and some of their programs has 80 percent of the national audience. Globo TV has been showing a soap opera in Brazil that became a major hit with the national audience – it is called “America” – and this soap opera shows the life of a bunch of illegal immigrants from Brazil that decided to take a chance in the United States. The soap opera shows how these people were able to get inside of the US illegally, and follows their lives, their education, their jobs, their hardships, and so on.

The soap opera glorifies how some of these people were able to become wealthy, and live the good life in the USA. That soap opera served as a terrific marketing tool on how to advertise to poor Brazilians the good life in the USA, and the potential for them to live as illegal immigrants in the United States.

Since Globo Television started showing the “America” soap opera in Brazil – we had an explosion of Brazilian illegal immigrants heading to the United States to try to better their lives according to what they are watching on that soap opera.

The soap opera “America” still going on in Brazil – and there are many more Brazilians heading this way in the future – Thanks to the soap opera.

Brazil – through Globo Television – is a very large exporter of soap operas to the international market – they love Brazilian soap operas in Europe, in South America and in some African countries. Wait until all these other people in many countries around the world start watching the soap opera “America” – A lot of people from these countries might decide to also take a chance and become an illegal immigrant in the old USA.

If Lou Dobbs – from Moneyline on CNN - is going crazy on his program and he mentions on a regular basis about the 3 million illegal immigrants who entered the US illegally last year – if you think that is a lot of illegal immigrants then wait until they start showing the soap opera “America” around the world.


.

It really sucks that America and Brasil can't work together.. it really seems that we have what each other needs...

Brasil has all the natural resources, but not the ability to use them efficiently.. I really wish I had more brasililan neighbors and friends in the United States.. and not just Taxi Drivers..

I love Brasil.. and wish our governments were more friendly.. b/c I think our people can get along marvelously.. nao?

I know I love visiting brasil, and look forward to retiring there and hope to be welcomed with open arms by the brasileiro's!

You said: “I know I love visiting Brazil, and look forward to retiring there and hope to be welcomed with open arms by the Brasileiro's!”

Most Brazilians that I know have no problems with the United States and the American people – and they love to come to the US for a visit.

Brazilians know how to differentiate between being anti-American and being anti-Bush administration. Most people that I know even the ones that have lived in the United States for years and returned to Brazil – they don’t like the Bush administration.

The entire world knows that today the current US government administration stands as a global symbol for “Incompetence.”

If you want to see what incompetence is all about – you don’t have to look further than the Bush administration.

But that can be changed very fast in November of 2008.


.

Never underestimate the power of the force.

.
IBM is confirming one step at the time what I have been saying on my articles about IBM, outsourcing, and so on….

IBM used to be the “symbol of United States technological advance” to the world.
Today IBM is a symbol of United States decline and the ascendancy of China in world affairs.

IBM is saying: bye, bye USA (the US represents yesterday) and is moving into the future – into India and China.

The actions taken by IBM since June 2006 speak volumes and are very clear, and they have signaled to the world that the USA represents the past and that India and China represents the future from the point of view of IBM. IBM’s real actions speak louder than 1,000 words.

Quoting from above article in June 2006: “Mr. Palmisano and other top executives will meet here with investment analysts and local customers to showcase IBM's global integration capabilities in a briefing customarily held in New York. During the week, the company will lead the 50 analysts on a tour of its Indian operations.”

It did not take long for IBM to move another major piece of itself to Asia this time to China.

In October 13, 2006 Forbes magazine published an article saying: “IBM is moving its global procurement headquarters to Shenzhen, China. It will be the first time the headquarters of a corporate-wide IBM division has been moved outside the U.S.

…The move will involve both IBM's hardware and software businesses. By emphasizing software and services skills, it will make possible the development of new partners and suppliers. IBM, as a company, spends $45 billion a year with external suppliers.”


.

Although I like the spirit of the article, I wish it were based on facts. The statement that the U.S. can outsource 50% of its labor is truly ridiculous. You cannot outsource gas attendants, restaurants, car dealers. Certainly a significant amount of labor can be outsourced, but I would like to hear a realistic number. This brings into question many of the statements in the article. It mostly just seems to be this guy's opinions and guesses.

In 1995, a book was published, "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin, which described in detail the current and future trends in the job market. I recommend reading that book to anyone who wants to understand the current catastrophic job market.

I will quote the following from Jeremy Rifkin's mind-opening book. He wrote in the introduction: "Global unemployment has now reached its highest level since the great depression of the 1930's. More than 800 million human beings are now unemployed or underemployed in the world.

...In the past, when new technologies have replaced workers in a given sector, new sectors have always emerged to absorb the displaced laborers. Today, all three of the traditional sectors of the economy—agriculture, manufacturing, and services—are experiencing technological displacement, forcing millions onto the unemployment rolls. The only new sector emerging is the knowledge sector, made up of a small elite of entrepreneurs, scientists, technicians, computer programmers, professional educators and consultants. While this sector is growing, it is not expected to absorb more than a fraction of the hundreds of millions who will be eliminated in the next several decades in the wake of revolutionary advances in the information and communications sciences.

...Now, for the first time, human labor is being systematically eliminated from the production process. ...Substituting software for employees...To begin with, more than 75 percent of the labor force in most industrial nations engage in work that is little more than simple repetitive tasks. Automated machinery, robots, and increasingly sophisticated computers can perform many if not most of these jobs. In the United States alone, that means that in the years ahead more than 90 million jobs in the labor force of 124 million are potentially vulnerable to replacement by machines. With current surveys showing that less than 5 percent of companies around the world have even begun to make the transition to the new machine culture, massive unemployment of the kind never before experienced seems all but inevitable in the coming decades…..


.

I am glad Americans now know so much about the Brazilian economy. I wonder why... ... ..
Have a nice winter! I'll be surfing in Florianopolis if you need me, after work, of course...
Cheers!