Max, you don't have a clue about what you are saying about Brazil and South America in general. Your statement makes you look stupid, and ignorant to the people who has had the chance to travel around Brazil and knows that country well. .
August 19, 2012 SouthAmerica: Reply to jem Jem, you also participated on this discussion over 5 years ago on the enclosed thread, but things just got a lot worse for the United States in every way in the last 5 years and Brazil has been doing great with its relationship with China. Since that time the total cumulative outstanding debt of the US government went from US$ 10 trillion US dollars at that time to the current US$ 16 trillion US dollars â and the liabilities coming due related to the costs of taking care of the baby boom generation which was estimated to be US$ 70 trillion at that time â the new revised estimates brings that amount to over US$ 150 billion dollars. At that time 5 years ago the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan made the US look bad and had cost the United States over $ 1 trillion dollars up to that time, and that turned out to be only the down payment on that money pit. Five years later the United States looks a lot worse to the entire world after being kicked out of Iraq, and looks like it is also losing the war in Afghanistan, and US foreign policy it is like a joke and the United States has lost control of everything related to the Middle East â today US foreign policy looks like it has been designed and implemented by a bunch of clueless amateurs. And the Brazilian Central Bank US$ 120 billion dollars in foreign currency reserves as of April 2007, it has increased to over US$ 350 billion dollars by July 2012 and it will reach US$ 400 billion dollars in the near future. If anything Brazil is in a great financial position in relation to the size of its economy. Today Brazil has a very low rate of unemployment, the economy is not growing that much based on your American mindset that the economy has to keep growing at any cost year after year even though most of the population is going nowhere. In Brazil the growth rate is not as impressing as the growth rate in the other BRICS countries â because what is happening inside the Brazilian economy is an internal shift with a goal of lifting as many people as possible to the middle-class â the Brazilian population is moving up internally and the standard of living is improving to millions of Brazilians. In the United States we have a race to the bottom, and in the last 10 years the number of people on âfoodstampsâ has increased from 19 million people in January 2001 to about 50 million people in August 2012. The senior citizens assets have been decimated by a Federal Reserve monetary policy, the manipulation of interest rates to keep it artificially low, and market intervention for the benefit of only Wall Street and nobody else. The United States economy and financial system is in free fall, it is imploding and spinning completely out of control. Now going back to the subject of Brazil/China and the United States connection: The Republican Party Found its Best Candidate for the Presidential Election of 2008 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...an+central+bank+currency+reserves#post1458592 May 6, 2007 SouthAmerica: Reply to Cesco If you notice the article that you mentioned it is about the other countries of South America and about Cuba. The article does not apply to Brazil â and all you have to do it is check what has been happening to the Brazilian economy in the last few years. The results speak for itself. Anyway the future of the Brazilian economy is connected to China and not to the United States. I wish you were at the âSustainable Development Forum 2007â at the Hilton Hotel last Monday, April 30, 2007. The Forum was opened with a speech by former Brazilian president Jose Sarney â and he blasted the United States among other things because of its dependence on imported oil. Not only imported oil â imported oil from the most unstable places around the world such as the Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela, Angola, and so onâ¦It seems that the United States did not learn its lesson in the mid-1970âs when we had that major oil crisis. It is pathetic that the United States it is more dependent of imported foreign oil in 2007 than the United States was in the mid-1970âs. I also could mention that the Brazilian government has been paying almost all its international debt â Brazil has paid all its debt to the IMF, and also to the Club of Paris. And the Brazilian Central Bank has over $ 120 billion dollars in foreign currency reserves as of April 2007. Basically Brazil can pay every single dime of Brazilian government outstanding foreign debt right now. Total Brazilian government debt is the lowest that it has been for decades at 41 % of GDP. Besides Brazil has a much younger population than the United States and it will not have to come up in the coming years with trillions of US dollars to take care of the old folks â related to pensions and healthcare. Brazil as a country it has a very clean balance sheet and looking better by the day. On the other hand we have the United States with $ 10 trillion dollars of current outstanding debt plus another estimated from $ 50 to $ 70 trillion dollars in liabilities coming due related to the costs of taking care of the baby boom generation. By the way, the United States economy it will not be able to generate the cash flow necessary to pay all its bills. Besides Americans have better things to do with its borrowed money from China such as wage wars that have been lost and they have to keep these fiasco going as long as the American people let the people in Washington get away with this nonsense. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost the United States over $ 1 trillion dollars and this is only the down payment on this money pit. For all practical purposes the United States government is insolvent and bankrupted. When South American countries look into the future there is only one option - which it is China. Who on his right mind would look into the future and say letâs associate ourselves as close as possible to this country that is going broke and bankrupted such as the United States? People are not stupid, and they understand what is going on. Only fools believe that the United States will continue borrowing every dime from the rest of the worldâs savings for much longer. Unless you donât mind losing your hard earned money and incur large currency loses on your US dollar investments. By the way, when you mentioned a book about âIdiotsâ the first name that came to mind was the name of George W. Bush. I donât think that thereâs a bigger âIdiotâ in the Americas than George W. Bush - and his administration is turning the United States into a "Banana Republic". ********** SouthAmerica: By the way jem, for your information it was in the late 1980âs (over 20 years ago) when China destroyed the shoe industry in Brazil almost overnight â with their stealth and killer competition. .
In Brazil the growth rate is not as impressing as the growth rate in the other BRICS countries â because what is happening inside the Brazilian economy is an internal shift with a goal of lifting as many people as possible to the middle-class â the Brazilian population is moving up internally and the standard of living is improving to millions of Brazilians. This is almost true. People are making more money and their quality of life is improving but the numbers are a lie. The gov't simply expands or lowers who is counted, so those included are expanded not by income levels but are included because what qualifies as middle class is lowered. Certainly China has a lot of influence in Latin America and Africa but they are slowly realizing doing business with China isn't necessarily a good thing. They have Brazil over a barrel and are screwing them.
Reply to S.A. We agree that in almost every manner America has fallen under the irresponsible deficit spending of Bush and the bad socialistic (there were better options for those so inclined) policies of Obama (pelosis and reid) . The neo cons and the dem also seem to be under the control of the M.I complex, wall street and insurance companies... -- We seem to disagree on the complete disaster it has been for Brazil to be cheerleading for China as China took over their export markets. Do you have any leather goods in your closet in the states? Do they say made in Brazil? I don't have any any more. What are your leading exports now..? Raw materials? That is no way to lift a people up.