I never mentioned that a factor needed to be a super power is to have a powerful army and invade countries. For me a super power is the one that provides good standards of living to their citizens. Countries like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and maybe Canada are those who are doing the best. I've been in India and Brazil and the poverty you see in those countries hurts, is really bad. They are light years away from having a country in which the majority can have access to a nice way of living. I'm surprised to see how many rich Brazilians live in Greenwich, CT, someone told me that must of them are related to corrupt politicians. That's not surprising, Latin America has always been well known for having corrupt governments. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen in the US, Delay and John Rowland are clear examples, but here they go to jail, while in Latin America they travel in first class to Europe.
I agree in every point that you guys are saying ! I know BR very very well, part of my family is from Brazil. How come SOMEONE can explain this: Major of SAO PAULO stolen 800 MILLION USD. The Justice proves this with MANY MANY evidences and the guy just stay in jail for 3 weeks ??!?!?!?!? How come ??? I like the people VERY MUCH, but politics there have just gone CRAZY ! There is a petroleum pipe in rio that pays 1 bi USD per year in royalties to a couple of cities along the coast in which the pipe goes through ... if you go there.... they are just ordinary country villages ! HOW COME ??!?!?!??? I like Brazil, but there must be a turn over in the politic's before we CAN fully trust investment there ! Ibovespa IS TOO EXPENSIVE IN DOLLARS NOW ! Any market down turn.. Ibovespa will suffer alot ! The market there is too reflexive and with a high momentum !
OH boy you kill me SA.....How old are you? Every 7 years or so we hear the same crap and sucker american banks like Citibank invest heavy in S. America....and every ten years they end up forgiving or writing off BILLIONS in debt that won't get paid...Maybe this time is different but history tends to repeat itself....especially with a 30 year track record.
Unemployment rate is record high without no doubt, the "Official" numbers are not reflecting the reality.
. TM-Direct: OH boy you kill me SA.....How old are you? Every 7 years or so we hear the same crap and sucker American banks like Citibank invest heavy in S. America....and every ten years they end up forgiving or writing off BILLIONS in debt that won't get paid...Maybe this time is different but history tends to repeat itself....especially with a 30 year track record. ****** January 13, 2006 SouthAmerica: From the point of view of South America the United States has became an obsolete ex-superpower. South American countries are disconnecting from the United States a little bit at the time â American influence in South America is a thing of the past, executives of Brazilian companies very rarely come to the US to do business â the action today is Asia including China. Today, China is more important to many South American economies than the United States. China is investing in Brazil and in many South American countries â they know how to invest in the future. The United States has better places to invest its borrowed money today â for example: $ 300 billion dollars to date in Iraq â and this is only the down payment of this American investment that according to an article on the Financial Times of London of January 11, 2006 by economist Martin Wolf â can end up costing American taxpayer $ 1.8 trillion dollars when the United States adds up all its costs. Talking about being a sucker!!!! Just keep the good work and your current investment philosophy â all the countries around the world are watching the fiasco. In the meantime, Brazil has paid its total debt to the IMF, to the Paris club and so onâ¦â just keep tuned â today the facts speak by itself. ******* âBrazil Embraer suspends plans for Florida factoryâ Reuters - Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:33 AM ET By Todd Benson SAO PAULO, Brazil, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Brazilian jet maker Embraer said on Friday it had suspended plans to build a factory in Jacksonville, Florida, after the U.S. Army canceled a contract for a new spy-plane program. Embraer, short for Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica, was a key member of a consortium led by defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. that in August 2004 won an $879 million contract to develop the new spy plane, known as the Aerial Common Sensor. But the program's future was thrown into question in September, when the army determined that the Embraer jet -- a modified version of its 50-seat commuter plane -- was too small to carry all the required technology. To salvage the contract, Lockheed offered four alternative aircraft, including a larger regional jet made by Embraer that has yet to be tested by the military. But on Thursday the army terminated the contract, which was potentially worth $8 billion over several years. The decision was a blow to Embraer's plans to break into the lucrative U.S. defense market. The company had planned to assemble the planes in Jacksonville, Florida, where it was preparing to turn a defunct military base into a factory. MILITARY PLANS ON HOLD Embraer said it would now put those plans on hold, at least until it obtains another Pentagon or Homeland Security contract in the United States. "Embraer still considers the Cecil Commerce Center, in Jacksonville, Florida, as the chosen site for its defense initiatives in North America," the company said in a statement. The cancellation of the Pentagon contract comes as Embraer finds itself in an unwanted spotlight over the potential sale of surveillance planes to Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has expressed interest in buying Super Tucano patrol planes from Embraer, the same model that the Colombian military recently agreed to purchase. But Brazilian officials and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez have said that the United States was trying to block the sale since the planes included U.S. technology. Chavez, a former paratrooper who staged a failed coup in 1992, has tense relations with the George W. Bush administration. The United States also tried to stop Spain from selling military planes to Venezuela on similar grounds. But on Friday the Spanish government said it intended to go ahead with the deal without Washington's support and would sell 12 transport and maritime surveillance planes to Venezuela. Chavez said this week he would wait to see if Brazil could solve the problem over the Embraer planes. If not, he suggested Venezuela could buy similar aircraft from China. Embraer, the world's fourth-largest producer of commercial aircraft, has declined to comment on the potential deal with Venezuela. **** Note: Embraer is the third-largest producer of commercial aircraft in the world behind Europe's Airbus and Boeing. .
Brazil has doubled its holdings of US Treasuries in just the past year to over $25 billion, far outpacing any other nation. Is that your definition of "disconnecting", or do you just have a severe case of Schadenfreude? http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
. LivermoresGhost: Brazil has doubled its holdings of US Treasuries in just the past year to over $25 billion, far outpacing any other nation. ****** January 13, 2006 SouthAmerica: Even the Asian countries such as China and Japan? ****** LivermoresGhost: Is that your definition of "disconnecting", or do you just have a severe case of Schadenfreude? ****** SouthAmerica: In the last 6 months and also in the last few days Brazil has been buying US dollars to keep the Real (the Brazilian currency) from appreciating too much against the US dollar- Brazilian Central Bank market intervention. But the other reason why Brazil has been buying so many US dollars - it is because Brazil is in the process of paying a lot of foreign debt denominated in US dollars. The US$ 25 billion dollars that you mentioned was as of October 31, 2005, since then Brazil has made a final debt payment to the International Monetary fund (IMF) in the amount of US$ 16 billion dollars. (This final payment was made ahead of the actual schedule of due payments due in 2006, and 2007). Brazil also paid ahead of the scheduled payments the remaining debt owed by Brazil to the âParis Clubâ in the amount of US $ 3 billion dollars. I donât know what is the adjusted balance as of January 13, 2006 â but it will not be close to the US$ 25 billion dollar balance that you mentioned as of October of 2005. .
I have lived for a number of years in Brazil and am still living there. There is no doubt that Brazil has seen it's growth in exports which have been fast and tremendous. Much of this is connected to China's consumption - and trade between the two countries have skyrocketed. Brazil is a very rich country in terms of natural resources. However, this is to little comfort for the poulation. Wages stay as low as possible, and there is no apparent incentives to bring consumers into the economy as a strong component. Sales and product taxes are the second highest in the world, only surpassed by Thailand. A common product might have around 50 different taxes applied before reaching consumers. Of course the brazilian "jeitinho" (little way of things) means that most businessmen try and avoid any paying of taxes by bribing officials doing controls or writing the reports. It's a common saying that the fastest way to get rich in Brazil is to become a politician and get your hands on some federal money flowing through your office. Corruption is rampant, and in such a scale that it boggles the mind, really. There are a lot of seriously rich people in Brazil, but Brazil heavily lowers the average in south america of 40% living under conditions normally labeled as slums. The worst treated people are most times native indians who live in small villages, where federal programs very seldom see the day of light. Now, with Lula elected ,the first president not from the historical elite in Brazil, there has certainly been some change. But with the corruption scandals and payouts revealed with the ruling working party (PT), any last illutions have been shattered. Of course, Brazil makes a lot of money on exports and natural resources, but the country is like Fort Knox when trying to import goods if you are a consumer. A flat 60% tax is applied on imported products, the national production facilities are so protected and the politicians so embedded in various schemes and kickbacks from the factory owners that it will take quite a feat to open up the trading borders and get any consumers accustomed to higher quality goods. In Sao Paulo you can get most things though, and "grey import" and contraband is readily available. Now, protecting national producers by inventing special national TV standards is nothing new - and both the US and China etc. use these tactics to hinder free trade - it's simply incompatible technologies. That bolsters the grip on internal markets, and makes it prohibitively expensive for external companies which must have double the product lines. Then one starts complaining about the other countries "not opening up" for their technologies to start converting markets abroad. Well, this backfires some times as is the case with GSM, where services are far more advanced than under other technologies like CDMA. DoCoMo is the exception, but Japan has some very advanced consumers. Now, there are of course opportunities for foreign companies in Brazil as well, but dealing with the corruption and harsh laws which applies is exhausting after some time. Also, the political situation and very unstable currency makes it a very expensive proposition to not cater for the long haul in doing business here. There will be serious ups and downs, and bribes is for sure unavoidable. Anyone doing business here and saying they are totally honest and not paying any bribes anywhere are most certianly lying. Everyone knows how to make a cut for themselves, and are not hesitant to exploit any advantage or leverage they might have. Everywhere you meet someone pushing someone else they know to do some work for you, it practically part of the culture or way to do things and get them done. Red tape is a hassle, and Brazil has what's called "underemployment" (sic?) where any João is found at rest rooms/cleaning toilets, operating elevators or doing some pointless task. Of course, the US also has a lot of poor, are well accustomed to corruption schemes domestically and (perhaps especially) abroad. But they still have a strong backing by involving consumers which enjoy a way of life by trading leverages and advantages which makes foreign workers and products valued a lot less than they might. This way of life is not easily toppled, and is not something other rich nations will allow. Therefore, still with the G20 going, and Brazil making a lot of money, they will not become a super-power in my view, because of internal and external obstacles and resistance. I doubt it will ever happen without first some serious change in world order, like if China and India construct the worlds definite trading bloc. Then the US (and some other countries') consumers way of things is certainly starting on the end of the road. The brazilian Real will probably become a little better over the next years though. Perhaps sustaining some of the growth in the economy; they should be able to do so at least, if they don't pocket too much of the money.
In the 90's the actual presidente there "Fernando Collor"was put out of his post because of a 50 USD million scandall. But MANY Brasilia's insiders estimates that the current corruption scandall can sum up to 500 million USD (and again...nobody in jail). The actual president BARELY knows how to READ / WRITE ! How come a guy like this can command a nation !?!?!!?? What is he doing there ?!?!? What kind of people have ellected this guy !???? The president went on TV the other day and said that corruption in election is done by every party (including his own party does that). The president of INFRAERO (the Brazilian "Aeroports - Port Authority" equivalent) went on TV the other day, and he said the following: "When I was ellected to be the presidente of INFRAERO, I didn't know even what was INFRAERO and what I was going to do there. Now I know and I thank to the BR president." How come the son of the president, that was a simple unemployed, after his father got ellected, rise 5 millions USD from TELEMAR to build a small GAME NEWS / MAGAZINE for kids. (TELEMAR is one of the big... corp in the IBOVESPA.) To develop a business in BR is extremelly dificult, you have some corrupt authorities that will knock in your doors and ask for money otherwise they will close your business ! I know a good friend that had a business there and this happened to him, and also no support to open business by the local city hall. Not to mention that biased public auctions in many sectors are already a tradition there ! In some states construction companies, simply "shift rounds" in public auctions to construct street/roads for the governament. So they already know who will win. I could stay here for HOURS talking about scandalls in Brazil that happened and are happening... and nobody in jail, and the money evaporates !! Are you going to finance that ? I'm NOT !
I recall the late 80's when Japan was the New Emerging Global Powers destined to leave the U.S. in the dust. In the 90's, the role of the NEGP was bestowed by U.S.-hating upon the European Union. Where are these now? Here's my prediction: BRIC's will be bricks, and the U.S., unless it undergoes a Third-World culture transplant, will remain the one and only global superpower.