Brazil's widely documented (and escalating) economic, financial, and political devastation has traversed a path from the tragic, to the farcical, to the absurd, and now appears stuck in surreal.
Submitted by Clarice Palmer via TheAntiMedia.org,
As online publications have hailed the major protests overtaking the streets of Brazil at the outset of an apparent political revolution, few discuss the problems that have been brewing for decades in South America’s largest nation.
In less than five months, Brazil is expected to host the Summer Olympics.
If you follow LatAm politics, you know that that is an absolute joke. Last summer, the country descended into political turmoil and the economy sank into what might as well be a depression. Nine months later, inflation is running in the double digits, output is in freefall, and unemployment is soaring. On Wednesday, the government reported its widest primary budget deficit in history and less than 24 hours later, the central bank delivered a dire outlook for growth and inflation.
Well, bad news is still good news in Brazil, apparently.
Despite the fact that a complete political meltdown is less than two months away, the market is excited about what’s being viewed as a possible turning point for the country’s economic fortunes.
On Tuesday, embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was dealt a bitter blow when PMDB - the party of VP Michel Temer and House Speaker Eduardo Cunha - officially left the coalition government.
"Dialogue, I regret to say, has been exhausted," Tourism Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves, a PMDB leader and former speaker of the lower house of Congress, said on Monday as he resigned from Rousseff's cabinet.