WhyBrasil

“Unemployment is low, wages rising and foreign direct investment pouring in ($67 billion in 2011, a record).”

– The B in BRICS: The Brazil backlash | The Economist

“Unemployment is low, wages rising and foreign direct investment pouring in ($67 billion in 2011, a record).”

– The B in BRICS: The Brazil backlash | The Economist

“programs like Science Without Borders show how educational and cultural ties between Americans and Brazil’s rising middle class are deepening.”

– Brazil’s President Rousseff praises new study abroad program – CSMonitor.com

“programs like Science Without Borders show how educational and cultural ties between Americans and Brazil’s rising middle class are deepening.”

– Brazil’s President Rousseff praises new study abroad program – CSMonitor.com

“Brazil “triplicou as compras no mercado americano nos últimos oito anos, exatamente quando eles mais precisaram””

– Novo patamar – Míriam Leitão: O Globo

“Brazil “triplicou as compras no mercado americano nos últimos oito anos, exatamente quando eles mais precisaram””

– Novo patamar – Míriam Leitão: O Globo

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a strike in Brazil: good for the country? or precursor to inflation?: @TheRioTimes

“The Brazilian Confederation of Workers in Education (CNTE) is coordinating the nationwide movement which has three principle demands. The first is that states comply with a national minimum wage for education workers which was agreed in 2008. The second is that a proper career training and development structure for teachers is defined and implemented. And the third is that ten percent of GDP be devoted to the National Plan for Education (PNE) to improve the public education system.

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– Brazil May Face National Teachers Strike | The Rio Times | Brazil News

BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE IS THE BEST LANGUAGE | @theeconomist :

“If you want a decent return on your investment, says Helen Joyce, the best language to learn is Brazilian Portuguese…

Some lunatics learn languages for fun. The rest of us are looking for a decent return on our investment. That means choosing a language with plenty of native speakers. One spoken by people worth talking to, in a place worth visiting. One with close relatives, so you have a head start with your third language. One not so distant from English that you give up.

There really is only one rational choice: Brazilian Portuguese. Brazil is big (190m residents; half a continent). Its economic prospects are bright. São Paulo is Latin America’s business capital. No other country has flora and fauna more varied and beautiful. It is home to the world’s largest standing forest, the Amazon. The weather is great and so are the beaches. The people are friendly, and shameless white liars. You’ll be told “Your Portuguese is wonderful!” many times before it is true.

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How to be Norway, not Venezuela By demanding so much local content, the government may in fact be favouring some of the leading foreign oil-service companies. Many would have set up in Brazil anyway; now, with less price competition from abroad, they will find it easier to charge over the odds. Seeking to ramp up production so fast, and relying so heavily on local supplies, also risks starving non-oil businesses of capital and skilled labour (which is in desperately short supply). Oil money is already helping to drive up Brazil’s currency, the real, hurting manufacturers struggling with high taxes and poor infrastructure.

When it comes to oil, striking the right balance between the state and the private sector, and between national content and foreign expertise, is notoriously tricky. But it can be done. To kick-start an oil-services industry, Norway calibrated its national-content rules realistically in scope and duration, required foreign suppliers to work closely with local firms and forced Statoil, its national oil company, to bid against rivals to develop fields. Above all, it invested in training the workforce.

But Brazilians need only to look at Mexico’s Pemex to see the politicised bloat that can follow an oil boom—or at Venezuela to see how oil can corrupt a country. Petrobras is not Pemex. Thanks to a meritocratic culture, and the discipline of having some of its stock traded, Petrobras is a leader in deep-sea oil. But operating as a monopolist is a poor way to maintain that edge. Happily, too, Brazil is not Venezuela. Its leaders can prove it by changing the rules to be more Norwegian.

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– Brazil’s economy: The devil in the deep-sea oil | The Economist

“São Paulo is almost beyond the imagination — a drizzle-shrouded megacity of almost 20 million that sprawls like Los Angeles and boasts enough skyscrapers to vie with New York. The gritty financial engine of the new Brazil, São Paulo exerts influence over commerce, media and culture. The Brazilian writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo calls it an “urban labyrinth that reaches toward the infinite.” It might not have the palm-fringed glamour of Rio de Janeiro, but in the view of urbane Paulistanos, Brazil has only one truly global city: theirs.”

– Key – Brazil Makes Its Own Manhattan – NYTimes.com