Brazilian Nightmare Worsens On Bad Budget Data, Record Low Confidence, Horrific Government Approval Ratings
Last month, in “‘No Recovery For You!’ Brazil Officially Enters Recession, Goldman Calls Numbers ‘Disquieting’”, we outlined Brazil’s July fiscal performance and came away believing that the country had little chance of hitting its primary fiscal surplus targets. Here’s what we said:
The latest on the political front is that President Dilma Rousseff has 15 days to explain to the the Federal Accounts Court why everyone seems to think that she intentionally delayed nearly $12 billion in social payments last year in an effort to make the books look better than they actually were. And while we won’t endeavor to weigh in one way or another on that issue, what we would say is that if someone in Brazil is doctoring this year’s books, they aren’t doing a very good job because things just seem to keep going from bad to worse. Case in point, on Friday, Brazil said its primary budget deficit was R10 billion in July, far wider than expected. The takeaway: “no primary surplus for you!”
Just three days later, Brazil officially threw in the towel on the primarily surplus projection for 2016 only to reverse course a few weeks later when embattled Finance Minister Joaquim Levy promised to enact some BRL26 billion in primary spending cuts for the 2016 budget on the way to achieving in a primary surplus that amounts to 0.7% of GDP.
Of course implementing austerity in the current fractious political environment is going to be well nigh impossible which means any and all upbeat assessments of the outlook for the country’s fiscal situation should be looked upon with an appropriate degree of skepticism. Add in the abysmal outlook for commodities and you have a recipe for perpetual twin deficits on the current and fiscal accounts, a situation which portends more BRL weakness to come.
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