Dilma and Lula's Dancing Avatars Appear in Political Ad

Anyone who thinks that dancing cats are the best entertainment on the internet hasn't seen Dilma dance yet.

Nelson Pelegrino, a candidate of the PT (Workers Party) in Salvador, has posted a video animation on YouTube featuring dancing avatars of himself, Lula, Dilma, the governor of Bahia, and a fellow PT candidate.

This article from "Folha" includes more details.

The song is actually pretty catchy.  The video, which was posted on August 21, already had over 11,000 views on YouTube as of August 23.

Brazil's Richest Woman

Dirce Navarro de Camargo
Photo from 1997

One day after "Forbes" named Dilma Rousseff the third most powerful woman in the world, we now know the identity of Brazil's wealthiest woman. 

According to this article from "Bloomberg Businessweek," she is Dirce Navarro de Camargo, a grandmother whose age could not be confirmed. She owns a controlling interest in the industrial conglomerate Camargo Correa SA. Not only is she the richest woman in Brazil, she is the third wealthiest person in Brazil. With a net worth of $13.1 billion, she is third only to Eike Batista ($21.1 billion) and InBev investor Jorge Paulo Lemmon ($17.4 billion). Ms. Camargo is also ranked as the 59th wealthiest person in the world.

Her husband, Sebastião Camargo, was born in 1909, and began working as a teen-ager, carting sand in donkey carts. He started a construction business in 1939 and won a series of government projects building roads and railways. An interesting quote from the article was one he made in 1990, when he told the "Folha de São Paulo" that "Brazil’s greatest progress was in the military government."

His widow took control of the business empire after his death in 1994, but the company is now headed by professional administrators.  The Camargo family keeps a low profile, especially compared to Eike Batista, who is not averse to publicity, and whose son Thor has been in the news after the car he was driving struck and killed a bicyclist.

Assuming that Ms. Camargo was not many years younger than her late husband, she is probably in her 90's. She has three daughters, two of whom have husbands who serve on the company's board.  The third husband died in an airplane accident in April, 2012.

Source: Brazil Portal

Planning for the 2016 Rio Olympics

Here's an article from the "Economist" about plans for the 2016 Rio Olympics, with some comparisons to the London Olympics.

The article mentions some of the challenges facing Brazil as it prepares for this monumental event. The main issues? Beefing up the infrastructure, and trying to deal with various delays that are already slowing some projects down.  

In other words, no big surprises!

BBC's "Five Villains of Growth in Brazil"

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

You've heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? Well, meet the "Five Villains in the Growth of Brazil," as listed in this article on the website "BBC Brasil."

According to the article, these are the villains, followed by my comments:


1. Precarious infrastructure

2. Lack of skilled labor force

3. Complex tax ​​system

4. Low rate of public and private investment

5. Excessive bureaucracy

Here are my comments and/or further explanations from the article itself:

1. The shaky infrastructure is confirmed in a Forbes article, which stated that only 14% of Brazil's roads are paved. That article also reports that Dilma is address the challenge by announcing a government auction for private contractors to bid on infrastructure projects. The investment is expected to be $66 billion.

2. The lack of a skilled work force should improve as education improves, but that will take time. One of Dilma's main focuses is on expanding educational opportunities, with particular focus on science and engineering.

3. According to many observers, Brazil's tax system is one of the most complex in the world, and most people agree that it needs to be reformed. Accomplishing that task is not going to be easy, however. Dilma hopes to move to a VAT-style tax system instead of Brazil's current payroll tax system. Meanwhile, she's hoping to simplify the tax payment process for businesses by establishing an online tax-payment system.

4. The article says that the current rate of investment in Brazil is about 18% of the GDP, and experts say it needs to be about 25% of GDP in order to sustain healthy economic growth.  

5. Brazil's bureaucracy is notorious not only for its size and pervasiveness, but its grinding slowness.  According to the article, Brazil ranks 126 out of 183 countries when it comes to the ease of doing business. This puts it below the average for other Latin American countries. North Americans who complain about our own bureaucracy don't have a clue how lucky we are by comparison.

So, yet another article about the challenges that Brazil must confront in order to maintain and build upon its remarkable economic growth.  

Dilma Is A Cover Girl

Dilma, looking confident and self-assured, is on the cover of the September 10, 2012 issue of "Forbes" magazine. The headline "The 100 Most Powerful Women" is superimposed over her photo.  

The article is available online.  

Forbes ranks Dilma as the third most powerful woman, after Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  

Some quotes from the article that I thought were interesting:

"No other BRIC balances democracy and widespread wealth nearly as well. Half of Brazil’s population now occupies the middle class---their output alone surpasses the entire economy of neighboring Argentina."

"Physical infrastructure is the most obvious need: As Garrabrant discovered, only 14% of the roads in the world’s fifth-largest country are paved. Of 142 countries surveyed, the World Economic Forum ranks Brazil’s quality of physical infrastructure 104th–behind fellow BRICs China, India and Russia."

In a separate profile on the "Forbes" site, Dilma says: "What I want my legacy to be is this country to be increasing middle class, to be highly competitive and highly educated." 

Dilma has received international news coverage lately, with stories about her visit to the 2012 London Olympics and her pro-active policies to keep Brazil's economy moving forward.

(By the way, I'm a big fan of Dilma's and I meant no disrespect with the term "cover girl." I would have said "cover woman," but it sounds wrong).  

Dilma Doubles Down: Armed Forces Will Be In Charge of Security for the Copa and Olympics, Instead of Federal Police

According to a story published in the newspaper "Estado" today, Dilma has had it with the striking Federal Police and the disruptions that they have caused at airports and border crossings.  

From the article: "A presidente Dilma Rousseff decidiu privilegiar o papel das Forças Armadas no comando da segurança dos grandes eventos que vão ocorrer no Brasil a partir do ano que vem - Copa das Confederações em 2013, Copa do Mundo de Futebol em 2014 ea Olimpíada do Rio em 2016. A intervenção da presidente na estrutura criada para os eventos ocorreu depois que Dilma formou convicção de que na greve em curso os policiais federais agiram para atemorizar a sociedade em aeroportos, postos de fronteira e portos."  

My (very rough) translation: "President Dilma Rousseff has decided to favor the role of the Armed Forces in taking charge of security for major events that will take place in Brazil starting next year: the Confederations Cup in 2013, the World Cup in 2014, and the Olympics in Rio in 2016. The president's intervention in the security system established for these events occurred after Dilma reached the conclusion that the ongoing strike by the federal police caused intimidation of the public at airports, border crossings and ports."

This is an important decision for several reasons. First of all, Dilma is a leader of the Workers' Party, which has traditionally supported labor unions and the right to strike. Dilma has apparently decided that her political affiliation is less important than guaranteeing the safety of Brazilian citizens, as well as the thousands of visitors who will be flooding into the country to attend these events. Any problems with security during these high profile events would result in negative publicity for Brazil, and could seriously undermine its global image.  

Second, it is fascinating to see Dilma calling upon the armed forces to ensure the security of civilians, instead of relying on the Federal Police, especially given her own troubled past with the military. Not only was she arrested, imprisoned, and tortured during the military dictatorship, but she has also received criticism from retired military officers due to her role in establishing Brazil's "Truth Commission." The Commission, which was inaugurated in May, 2012, will spend the next two years investigating the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. 

However, due to a 1979 amnesty, no criminal charges can be brought against military offenders.  For this reason, the Commission has also been criticized by victims of the dictatorship and their relatives and supporters, who do not feel that it is enough to simply investigate crimes and abuses.

This latest decision by Dilma might be seen as another move against striking federal workers. It will be interesting to see what impact, if any, it will have on Dilma's popularity. 

Perhaps of even greater importance, it shows that she is able to keep her own past experiences with the military from influencing her decisions as President. 

Brazil: Flying Into the Future

Here is an interesting article about the recent aviation show in São Paulo:

From the article (my emphasis added): "Brazil boasts the world’s second largest general aviation fleet behind the United States: as of 2011 it had 13,094 planes, according to ABAG figures. Of those, 25% are based in the economic powerhouse state of Sao Paulo. The country has 1,650 corporate jets, used by those who can afford to escape the urban traffic chaos."