See the article, published on 12 April, Brazil in Focus During a recent gathering of industrial leaders in Rio de Janeiro, Eliezer Batista da Silva mused that Brazil has the “taxes of Sweden and the services of Angola.” It’s an old saw, but it gained an extra bite in the mouth of Batista, a founder Read more about Published at Brazil in Focus: Brazil needs a Tax Break[…]
One of the oldest tenets of corruption theory is that election campaign contributions constitute the fountainhead of corruption in government. To repay that three million dollar contribution of BankX, elected candidate X proposes a bill to lower taxes on bank profits. Simple stuff. Conventional thinking is that if you eliminate this patron-client relationship by financing Read more about Narrowing or Widening the Fountainhead of Corruption?[…]
US$35 billion of public monies stolen. A colossal affront to the cities and country they work for? Yes. Preventable? Not yet. The most significant news item on the diversion of public monies I have seen in some time appeared in yesterday’s Globo as the lead opinion piece: “The Indicators Show Billions Stolen.” The article cites Read more about Considering the Diversion of Public Monies in Brazil -A Cool US$35 Billion for Starters[…]
Today’s Folha de Sao Paulo reported that the President’s Commission on Public Ethics has issued an ‘ethical censure’ to Erenice Guerra, Dilma Rousseff’s chief lieutenant during her tenure as Chief of Staff for President Lula da Silva. Guerra resigned in shame following revelations of corruption, influence peddling to benefit family relatives, and prevarication. Today, I Read more about Considering Impunity in the Public Service[…]
Libraries have always counted among my favorite places, but I got quite a shock when I visited a beautiful (functioning) colonial library in downtown Rio the other day, the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura (below). I entered the library and looked for an electricity outlet to plug in my computer. Unsure of whether the outlets Read more about Don’t Read your Book in Our Library[…]
Brazilians are famous for being friendly, happy people. They are so happy, in fact, they ranked 9th of 144 countries on the 2009 Happiness Index. So how does one of the happiest countries in the world also rank as one of the most murderous? Globo just reported that official are going to try to “disarm” Read more about Happy but Dangerous[…]
A correction on my last post must be made. The Committee to Protect Journalists apparently did not reveal all the facts when they disseminated news on Brazilian officials censoring news on Google. They mis-communicated Brazilian requests to remove material as requests to remove news— which is not the case. As a result of the CPJ’s Read more about Correction[…]
Following up on several other related posts, two recent news items give us reason to wonder about freedom of information in Brazil. First, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, ANATEL, confiscated the computer equipment of three young people and fined them $3000R (about $2000US) for sharing an internet signal among their three dwellings in an effort to save Read more about The Right to Information in Brazil– Censorship, Fines for Sharing Wi-Fi[…]
Just a quick note to express my utter amazement at traffic here in São Paulo. I’ve been here for a week and a half now, attending a workshop at the University of São Paulo (USP) and I have had enormous difficulties getting to and from the USP. For the eight kilometers I need to traverse, Read more about São Paulo Traffic: Collective Pathology or Poor Policy?[…]
Credit is a difficult issue in Latin America. Credit card APR interest regularly runs at 30-50 percent, upwards of five times what it is in North America. Bank loans are not a lot cheaper. Yet more than ever Brazilian consumers are borrowing and financial institutions are encouraging them to do so. When I recently opened up Read more about The Price of Consumer Debt[…]