What Happened to Brazil? April 1, 2017

What happened to Brazil (economically-speaking)?  In previous articles, I have already spelled out the problem in so many words.  Brazil did enjoy economic growth for a while, which made them appear as though they were ready to join the grown-ups table of commerce-oriented countries.

But then Brazil hit an economic downturn from which it has failed to recover.  Even in 2009, it was still able to display a facade of prosperity, and thus successfully sold the International Olympic Committee on the idea of becoming the first country and city [Rio de Janeiro] to host the Olympic Games.  All those sports venues, built by government money, are now vacant and deteriorating, by the way.  So much for governmnent “stimulus”.

But do not take my word for it.  Now, Felipe Moura Brasil, a native Brazilian, offers his perspective on the systemic problems that have brought Brazil to this sorry pass (video at the top of the article).  Watch, listen, and learn.

Among the points he cites are:

• Government transferring money from the rich to the poor.  Funny who the poor never got any richer as a result.
• Those who did get richer by the aforementioned government actions of legalized theft were — surprise, surprise — Lula da Silva (Brazil’s then-president) and his corporate cronies.
• The Socialists increased government spending, deficits, and debts, calling it “Stimulus” (e.g., all the Olympic venues that are now abandoned).
• The same Socialists also increased the salary and retirement benefits of those in the civil service, euphemistically calling it “investing in the future”.
• Handed out thousands of jobs in state-owned companies to political allies, euphemistically spinning such corruption as “good governance”.
• Government spending kept going up, causing the economic growth to eventually collapse.

Fortunately, the Brazilian journalist in question cites some good news in the wake of this government-begotten economic wreckage.

One is that, according to Brasil, more Brazilians are starting to see capitalism and limited government as the way out of their national malaise.  As we have already pointed out on this blog, da Silva’s successor, Dilma Rousseff — also a Socialist — has been impeached and removed from office.  Her successor, Michel Temer, has already been leading some important economic reforms.

As Brasil himself points out at the end of this video, it will take a long time for his native country to recover economically from the havoc wrought by the Socialists.  This is to be expected for a country that was still on the upper end of the “developing country” spectrum, and whose corrupt government policies preempted it from being able to fully emerge as one of the truly grown-up, commerce-oriented nations (e.g., the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc.).  Brazil’s only hope to be able to recover so as to emerge as one in the future is through, again, limited government and free enterprise.

Just as socialism wrecked Brazil’s economy and continues to wreak apocalyptic havoc in Venezuela, it can also cause America’s prosperity and social order to also collapse.  Bernie Sanders supporters, take note.