Word: lula
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...Lula's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, was the first President to recognize that change was needed. He restored fiscal sanity by slaying hyperinflation, but his attempts at social reform were timid. Lula's victory in 2002 panicked Wall Street and the Brazilian élite. But instead of defaulting on Brazil's foreign debt or busting the budget, as they feared he would, Lula embraced one of the few positive legacies of Brazil's royalist roots: deliberate, negotiated consensus-building. It's a hallmark of Brazil's widely respected diplomatic corps - and it tempered Lula even when he was a metal...
...does not like admitting it, but once in the presidency, Lula embraced Cardoso's macroeconomic orthodoxy. He then used that as a base on which to weld social programs, such as Bolsa Família, a grant scheme that has paid out more than $20 billion in aid to poor families in return for parents getting their children vaccinated and making sure they attend school. Brazil's business leaders insist record profits during the 2005-2008 boom allowed Lula to aid the poor; Lula argues his antipoverty crusade fueled the economic growth. It's a chicken-and-egg debate...
...Better Life Whatever the explanation, the philosophy has done the President well. Two years into his second and final term, Lula has an 80% approval rating. This suggests that despite the recession, most Brazilians still feel they're winning. "It was very difficult to change social class in Brazil 10 years ago, or even four years ago," says Luis Minori of the market-research firm Ipsos. "Now people have access to microcredit and computers and other means of social mobility." In that sense Brazil has outperformed even China and India, Neri claims, because "poverty is falling [in those places...
...downturn has slowed growth, but it has not stopped it. To make Brazil even more business-friendly, the government is spending $263 billion on tax breaks and infrastructure. Like Lula's social projects, the Growth Acceleration Program, which began in 2007, was funded largely by high commodity prices, most of which have now plummeted. But Brazil seems to have invested the windfall smartly. Exports have been diversified so as to reduce reliance on commodities, and before the downturn the nation socked away a record $208 billion in foreign reserves. The banking system has remained well regulated, and so far seems...
...today's price of $40, profitability will be a challenge. Nor is oil always the blessing that it appears; in nations from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia, its promise of easy money has crowded out other sectors of the economy, and fed corruption, too. But Lula, who keeps a jar of oil from the recent find by his desk, along with others filled with exotic beans and plants developed for biofuels, sees the oil as another resource to help end poverty. "God," the President crowed after the discovery, "is Brazilian...