Who's Driving the Deforestation in Brazil?
If you answered corporate and political interests, I would agree that it plays a role. A large role, billons of dollars fleeced from the poor without any concern that money will be worthless without a space suit providing you with Oxygen.
What’s behind the rapid deforestation? Could it be that Bosonaro also took an (cough, cough) investment opportunity in trade? I am sure that there are other (cough, cough) investment firms who have also invested.
Disclaimer: I have no ties to Goldman Sachs now or ever. I remain angry over the BIG LIE that preceded the World heading to the brink of a stock market crash, bank failures and depression.
https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/brics-book/brics-chap-5.pdf
CHAPTER FIVE
THE B IN BRICS: UNLOCKING BRAZIL’S GROWTH POTENTIAL
December 2006
While campaigning for his second term, which begins in January 2007, Brazilís President Lula
da Silva promised to implement economic policies that would boost GDP growth rates to
5.0%. This growth target sounds ambitious given that, since we published our first BRICs
studies in 2003, Brazil has grown only at a disappointing 2.7% a year on average, compared
with the 3.7% that we had estimated its long-term growth potential to be.
Brazil has underperformed not only relative to our expectations but also compared with all the
other BRICs. Since 2003, real GDP growth rates in China, India and Russia have averaged
10.2%, 8.0% and 6.9%, in each case far exceeding our estimates of their long-term potential
(4.9%, 5.8% and 3.5%, respectively).
The disparity in terms of growth performance between Brazil and the other BRICs raises three
legitimate questions: (1) Were we wrong about our initial assessment of the growth prospects
for Brazil? (2) Should Brazil still be part of the BRICs? (3) Can Brazil boost and sustain
higher growth rates in the long term, say at or above a secular average of 5.0% a year?
We remain confident about Brazilís growth potential, at least in terms of what we have
envisaged in our BRICs studies. The main reason for Brazilís underperformance is that, until
now, the government had been in the process of implementing a stabilisation programme, with
a view to achieving macroeconomic stability. This is a key precondition for growth. Thanks to
these adjustment efforts, macroeconomic conditions are more favourable now than they have
been for decades. The large balance of payments surpluses have been used to prepay external
debt and accumulate reserves, while a credible central bank (BACEN) has reduced inflation to
3.0% in 2006.
We believe that the Lula II administration will sustain sound macroeconomic policies and
make some progress on structural reforms. Stability should allow real GDP growth rates to
move gradually towards Brazilís potential rate of about 3.5%, which is near our BRICs
potential growth rate of 3.7%.
We also believe that Brazil could grow much faster, perhaps at a secular growth rate of about
5.0%. For this to happen, the government will have to tackle four difficult structural problems:
! Brazil saves and invests too little. To address this issue, the government will have to
deepen and improve the quality of the fiscal adjustment.
! The economy should be opened to trade.
! The government must improve the overall quality of education.
! The government should implement structural reforms to improve institutions, with a view
to increasing total factor productivity.
We do not believe that the Lula II administration and Congress will be ambitious enough to
implement this politically difficult agenda. Therefore, while Brazil has the potential to grow at
or above 5.0%, this is unlikely to happen during the next four years
…...snip
= new reply since forum marked as read
