Word: brazil
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...alongside that highly industrialized Brazil lives another, desperately poor country where 70% of the 150 million citizens live in poverty. That is the legacy of the chronic overspending that began in the 1970s when military rulers borrowed heavily from Western banks to cope with spiraling petroleum prices and to finance an ambitious industrial expansion scheme. By the time Collor took office, Brazil was saddled with a $115 billion foreign debt. Interest payments to foreign commercial banks were stopped last July. Chaos loomed as the economy zoomed into hyperinflation, with prices rising at a rate of more than 100,000% annually...
...activity and dropped inflation to 3.29% in April. Collor also announced the immediate abolition of two dozen state agencies and said he would sell off most state-owned industries. In addition, he called for massive public-sector layoffs and higher taxes. The cruzado novo was replaced by the cruzeiro, Brazil's fourth currency in four years...
...same time, Collor reversed a long-standing government policy that treated the Amazon basin principally as a source of wood products and a locale for development. He declared that he would work vigorously to stop the burning of the forest by ranchers and settlers, then appointed Brazil's foremost environmental activist, Jose Lutzenberger, to enforce the program. In an interview with TIME, Collor was unapologetic about the abrupt turnaround. "On questions of ecology, we have made a fundamental commitment to life," he said. "We have nothing to hide and nothing to explain...
...slash high tariffs over the next five years. The move effectively ended an indulgent era of high tariffs and import quotas, during which duties ranged up to 105% and imports of 1,200 goods were prohibited outright. Still to be tackled is the thorny issue of foreign debt. Since Brazil stopped payments, arrears of $7 billion have accumulated, taxing the patience of creditors...
...Brazil's fractious Congress has moved quickly to capitalize on the slippage in public enthusiasm. In July it approved an inflationary wage-indexation program that calls for monthly upward adjustments of salaries. The President, whose tiny National Reconstruction Party has only a handful of congressional seats, has vowed to veto the bill, a move certain to be unpopular. To avoid a backlash at the polls two months from now in congressional elections, the government will offer low-income workers a onetime wage bonus. Following through on the rest of his program will depend heavily on the returns from those elections...