Word: collor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...make it stick? And will it work? While economists believe that Collor's bold program is well reasoned and long overdue, the consensus is that he overshot the mark initially, stopping inflation but nearly halting business as well. In the process, he has angered Big Business, alienated much of the middle class, and invited the risk of a major recession. He has also provoked the wrath of Big Labor, as evidenced last week by strikes at a state-run steel plant outside Rio de Janeiro and at the main Ford auto factory near Sao Paulo. Now Collor must scramble...
...Collor describes his goal in a phrase borrowed from the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes: "To win -- or to win." His long-distance vision is to boost Brazil from the Third to the First World, and he is convinced he can do it with a freer market, greater industrial efficiency and a leaner bureaucracy. Certainly, Brazil's potential is enormous. It has immense rivers and forests, rich agricultural lands, huge deposits of gold, gems, petroleum, iron ore and minerals. With a gross domestic product of $350 billion and annual exports of $34 billion, it is Latin America's most developed nation...
...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...
...Collor's answer was a monetary "shock" that a Bank of Boston report called "the most severe program of economic stabilization ever imposed in a Latin American country, or perhaps in any country." Under its main provisions, the majority of all financial assets, including savings accounts in excess of about $1,200, were frozen for 18 months. Millions of Brazilians were affected: Collor's action took about $85 billion out of play, abruptly halted most business 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...
...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...