One of the most unfortunate acronyms ever invented was BRIC. It supposedly embodied an epoch-defining ignition of capitalist growth and prosperity in Brazil, Russia, India and China. And these leading paragons were held to be emblematic of a general economic awaking in the EM.
But it was no such thing. The BRIC countries were actually economic cripples riven with socialist and statist policy afflictions that had the good fortune to hitch a ride on the central bank fueled credit binge of the last two decades.
Not surprisingly, the term was invented in 2001 by Goldman’s London based stock peddler and propagandist, Jim O’Neill. The latter’s patented slide shows about the awesome BRIC advance were typically bulging with charts and data. But what O’Neill failed to comprehend was that these bounteous curves and soaring CAGRs were tracking a metastasizing monetary bubble, not a miracle of capitalist prosperity.
