Brazil’s economy is at another of those multi-speed moments that it is becoming known for.
Readers will recall that in 2010, the last year in office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, economists complained that Brazil had one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator. The foot on the brake was interest rates as the central bank ramped them up to try to keep inflation under control while the accelerator was, of course, fiscal spending as the outgoing president kept the budgetary pedal to the metal as his anointed successor, Dilma Rousseff, contested an election that year.
Brazil’s three-speed economy
Joe Leahy – Financial Times, 01/27/2012
Brazil’s economy is at another of those multi-speed moments that it is becoming known for.
Readers will recall that in 2010, the last year in office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, economists complained that Brazil had one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator. The foot on the brake was interest rates as the central bank ramped them up to try to keep inflation under control while the accelerator was, of course, fiscal spending as the outgoing president kept the budgetary pedal to the metal as his anointed successor, Dilma Rousseff, contested an election that year.
Now Brazil is in the strange position of having record low unemployment – 4.7 per cent in December compared with 5.2 per cent in November, even as its economy crawled along at near zero rates of growth in the third and fourth quarters.
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