Friday, March 18, 2016

Glenn Greenwald — Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy


The dirt on Brazil. It's not as the US media (and deep state) would have you believe.

What at the bottom? Corruption? For sure. But the real issue is racism and white supremacy. This is turning out to be the narrative of this century. Whites are struggling to preserve and extend their power globally.

The Intercept
Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy
Glenn Greenwald

13 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Rather the oil rent again... Petrobras...

Tom Hickey said...

It's probably not an exaggeration to say that 90% of problems globally are oil-related. And if global warming has a human cause the is related to burning fossil fuels but that to 99%/

Matt Franko said...

This rent stuff is just bad news Tom...

Tom Hickey said...

How else are the 1% going to own the planet and control the politics? They obviously can't earn that kind of wealth from working for it.

André said...

Oil rent? No, that's not about that. Oil has a much smaller role in Brazil than in USA, Europe or the Middle East. We may never know what the ruling class wants, but oil doesn't seem to be the issue here in Brazil.

In 2003, the self declared left wing party PT (Wokers Party) won Brazil's presidential elections, and since then they are in power. For some time they have succeeded in some very interesting social policies, but now their government is involved in billionaire corruption scandals (maybe the biggest scandals in the world).

I believe today crisis it's about the population's increasing perception of corruption, the rising unemployment, media manipulation and rising inflation rates.

In 2013 you may have heard about 2013 Protests in Brazil, also called Brazilian Spring. It started as a small moviment, but suddenly and unexpectedly millions of people went to public demonstrations in the streets of several cities, against issues such as the high corruption in the government and police brutality used against some demonstrators.

Before 2011 elections, Workers Party's candidate Dilma Rouseff promised that she would make things better, fighting corruption, countinuing the party's social programmes, etc. She also attacked her rival, saying that, if he rose to power, he would rise interest rates, introduce austerity programmes and revert some social rights to the poorer workers.

She won the elections and in the next week she appointed a right wing Financial Minister that rose the nominal interest rates, introduced an austerity programme and tried to revert some social rights. Inflation was already rising (and brazilians have some emotional aversion to inflaiton, because of 1980's hyperinflation period, that is explored by the media), and unemployment started to rose after that. The combination of rising inflaiton, rising unemployment and declining economic activity was explosive by itself, but then the main leaders of Workers Party where involved in the biggest known corruption scandal in Brazil and probably in the world.

The Party's once had 70% approval, but know most of the population (a little more than 90%) disapproves the government. It is facing a big legitmicy problem. Now ex-president Lula is involved in the corruption scandals too, and that's because things are getting worse. The media is also making things more explosive.

I guess that's not as simple as some oil rent...

Matt Franko said...

Isnt the corruption all surrounding Petrobras in some way?

Tom Hickey said...

Not really. The current kerfuffle centers on Petrobras but that is only one aspect of the overall corruption.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-so-much-political-corruption-in-Brazil

John said...

It's only "oil rent" when non-white people control it. You never hear about other "commodity rents","food rent", "pharmaceutical rent" when they're controlled by rich western countries and their corporations.

In any case, the oil price is controlled by Washington's favourite Arab dictatorships. Therefore problem is in Washington. Ultimately, there is no corruption as thorough as that of the Washington-Arab connection, who set prices, kneecap whole economies (like Venezuela) and hold the rest of the world to ransom.

John said...

Tom,

Corrupt client states are free of any criticism, no matter how long the corruption goes on. So in Brazil's case, since time immemorial Brazil's corruption has been thoroughly ignored and excused by its Western backers. As soon as there is a modicum of democracy in Brazil, it is loudly and hypocritically condemned for its corruption, as if a few years of democracy will overturn hundreds of years of racist economic power relations and corruption. And it certainly is in no position while Washington undermines it and every other South American democracy at every turn by using the oil price to wreck their economies.

When is a "rent" not a "rent" anyway? Who decides it's a "rent"? The oil price should be well over $100 per barrel. It was artificially kept low for far too long. It went up briefly, and now it is being artificially kept low by US-backed despotisms. Whatever that is, it isn't a market of any kind.

Tom Hickey said...

When is a "rent" not a "rent" anyway? Who decides it's a "rent"?

A rent is anything in excess of market price in a perfect market. There are no perfect markets, so all market prices include a rent component. The less perfect the market the greater the potential for rent extraction with the limit being monopoly and the price that the market can bear.

Note that there is also the possibility of "negative rent," when monopolists or oligopolists reduce the market price under cost of sale to drive out the competition. Arguably, this is what the Saudis were attempting to do with US shale gas and other competitors to preserve their monopoly as swing producer. The world is possibly in a stage of negative oil rent now owing to the KSA policy.

John said...

Tom, all I meant is that there really is no neutral widespread definition these days. It is value loaded. It may have had a useful meaning, but now; and it may yet have in a different political economy. It was a useful economic term that has been effectively poisoned and infected itself into a highly politicised economics to mask power relations domestically and internationally. If Washington proclaims something is or isn't "rent" or anti-market, the automatons nod in unison. That's about the size of it. There is no unbiased definition, otherwise many things would be considered "rent". Are pharmaceutical companies and medical insurance firms not guilty of "rent"?

Tom Hickey said...

I agree with that that, John, and the same affects just about every other term in economics which is why economics is not a science and cannot become one with operationalizing definitions.

Economics is not science but philosophy and bad philosophy at that. It's handwaving, curve-fitting, etc. in the absence of actual rigor instead of the false sense of rigor that formalization gives it.

GIGO.

Tom Hickey said...

"with operationalizing definition" should be WITHOUT.