Brazil is poor for the same reasons the Phlippines is poor: bad government economic policies, meddling Catholic Church, and a "latinized" culture of dependency.
Bad government policies: Brazil, like the Phlippines, has huge social spending programs but few if any of the money gets to the people due to corruption/waste. Even if the funds trickle to the people it just fosters and bolsters the problem of #3 below. The BEST thing they can do is to cut subsidies, eliminate certain tax brackets, and lower taxes overall. It would also help if there is free trade... let the country specialize in its own low cost core competencies and import the rest.
Catholic Church: Im not sure about the Brazilian bishops, but in the Philippines, separation of Church and state is a sham. The Catholic church influences key initiatives like birth control and family planning. Result: high birthrates which results in heavy competition for resources.
Culture of Dependency: The Phlippines and Brazil share the same "Latin" colonization. A few elites come in and divide the land into fiefdoms with the natives being subservient to the elites and their priest enablers/apologists. The colonial elites may be gone now but the mentality still remains... ie., all help, all resources come from the top or from the center. People are raised to "hope" and depend on people at the top or the central government. People are not raised to help themselves. People are not raised to praise themselves when they do something right nor blame themselves when something goes wrong. The culture of dependency easily perverts into the victimhood or passive mentality. Whatever scraps of social spending make it to the poor (as a bribe for votes) just reinforces this dependency. Maybe part of the reason America, Japan, and Germany are so successful is that they put the onus of success on the individual not on some amorphous "they" or "outsider".
Sorry for the daily rant. I live in the Phlippines and am Filipino. But I grew up in and am a citizen of the United States so I have an interesting experience of both systems.
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Originally Posted by Mr Dickovitch
How can Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva let his people live in poverty? It's sickening. This idiot needs to be kicked out of office immediately.
"The Brazilian government reported in September that 20 million people were living on a $1 a day in 2002, roughly on a par with Uganda, where 80 percent of the population lives in misery.
The World Bank estimates that about 8 million people in Brazil live on $1 a day."
It's so sad... why don't the peole in this country wake up and do something? I guess they are all sheep.
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