{"id":8109,"date":"2015-05-14T05:58:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T10:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8109"},"modified":"2015-05-14T05:58:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T10:58:23","slug":"brazil-just-getting-worse-and-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8109","title":{"rendered":"\u201cBrazil Just Getting Worse and Worse\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/05\/14\/brazil-just-getting-worse-and-worse-threatens-macro-and-financial-stability\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cBrazil Just Getting Worse and Worse\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>The \u201cB\u201d in the falling BRICS\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Brazil is in a tough spot. Led by weak investment and plummeting confidence, growth, after slowing markedly since mid-2013, came to a virtual halt in 2014. This largely reflects the impact of diminished competitiveness, the erosion of policy credibility, owing to a persistent deterioration of fiscal outcomes and above-target inflation, and a worsening of external conditions for the country.<\/p>\n<p>Risks to the outlook are significantly to the downside, and include adverse ramifications from the ongoing corruption probe concerning Petrobras, the possibility that fiscal policy goals may not be fully met, and energy and water rationing.<\/p>\n<p>External downside risks emanate from a tightening of global financial conditions, geo-political tensions, and contagion from adverse developments in other emerging economies.<\/p>\n<p>These risks could conflate if they were to combine with domestic policy shortfalls, and would threaten macro and financial stability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The phrase, \u201cthreaten macro and financial stability,\u201d is official-speak and central-banker jargon for a resounding economic and financial crash. It\u2019s Brazil\u2019s doomsday scenario.<\/p>\n<p>This was written not by some doom-and-gloomer, but by the IMF. It how its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imf.org\/external\/pubs\/ft\/scr\/2015\/cr15121.pdf\"><u>report on Brazil<\/u><\/a>\u00a0starts out.<\/p>\n<p>The report never mentioned \u201causterity,\u201d the classic IMF prescription to make sure the teetering country\u2019s\u00a0sacred bondholders \u2013 mostly financial institutions \u2013 don\u2019t end up holding the bag. But \u201causterity\u201d has\u00a0become object of derision. So the report bandies about the exact synonym, \u201cfiscal consolidation,\u201d after initiating it promisingly:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fiscal consolidation should proceed without delay along the announced lines, while monetary policy should remain tight to bring inflation to target.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>State-owned Petrobras, the country\u2019s largest company, the once shining knight and in the once most promising industry, has been torn apart by corruption allegations that go all the way up the political ladder. And things have essentially ground to a halt.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBrazil Just Getting Worse and Worse\u201d The \u201cB\u201d in the falling BRICS\u2026 Brazil is in a tough spot. Led by weak investment and plummeting confidence, growth, after slowing markedly since mid-2013, came to a virtual halt in 2014. This largely reflects the impact of diminished competitiveness, the erosion of policy credibility, owing to a persistent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[40,90,1860,195,240,5417,418,434,5418],"class_list":["post-8109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-austerity","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-debt","tag-economic-growth","tag-fiscal-consolidation","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-petrobras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8110,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8109\/revisions\/8110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}