The most worrying problem (to my own sense) Brazil is currently facing is corruption. I will probably state the obvious here but corruption takes your management resources, drive your country away from productivity and has the tendency to tire the populations. I remember once I was talking to a friend of mine from Ivory Coast in 2000's something over a laundry machine in Paris (a lot happen when you go clean your clothes). He was explaining me how friends of his had worked a lot to make money in Paris and then went back to IvC to open a shop... real entrepreneurial endeavour. Arriving there they spent away all their investment in small "payments" to help their store opining process which eventually never happened. Small corruption had eaten all the money away. You can understand that it does not only happened to that person and this non regulated government is participating to the decadence of the country (I love to blame the government ^_^). Well in Brazil you can find something similar and after years in the country I believe it has helped to lower the economy growth from what it should have been. I can see three main corruption schemes:
- Something equally dangerous to generalized small corruption that is called patrimonialism: you earned a position thanks to your birth line before your competences. Brazil is full of it and example flows (family Sarney, sons of ex-president Lula and many more). Even if everybody knows, it is big enough for all these people to walk away in impunity.
- Which drives me to the second plague: impunity of crimes (like the case of the -now solved- Mensalão). Not only for corruption cases but for all sort of criminal offences. I remember when I first came to Brazil I realized the price of life was not the same as in Europe. You get into trouble and you die for quite stupid reasons here (traffic issue, stressed out robber, lost bullet if you are near dangerous favelas...). Your assailant has good chance to disappear unharmed and uncharged for his crimes. The country is big and there is enough place to hide but that's not new. Justice is slow for charging criminals and your social origin is a factor to get things resolved. The late case of the foreign girl raped in a minibus is a typical example of social factor for crime resolution as it had happen before to local favela girls (same criminals) but when this American victim hit the tabloids the case was solved in a week. So if you want to keep on your criminal activity better keep low profile and only hassle the locals! So when big money is "lost", construction projects overpriced, social fundings hijacked for private purpose by the time the justice is on the case the money has vanished and the criminals already seeked out their protection. How not to want to steal when your own head of state are robbing the country? That blurs with patrimonialism and race issues, but here is an exposed example showing that they are wanting to end with the trends. Rio de Janeiro is very representative of that kind of corruption.
- That brings me to the carioca factor, things happen else where in Brazil and not in Rio (the Alphaville complex never settled in Rio before 2011 and it is a national brand, but from São Paulo!) or the contrary. Something that has to do with the "carioca spirit" of the city, "o jeitinho carioca", gives you the feeling there is no other way to do or organize something than their way. When you arrive in Rio for carnival all is shiny, beautiful and well organized. After a while you start to explore more the city, the state and you realize it is messy and absolutely not optimised financially. All that money disappearing isn't used for education, health or public transport so everything is going overpriced because there is not enough qualified people, hence not enough wealth produced but more people wanting to consume. Very recently the case of an abuse of public resources to private ends splashed at the governor of Rio de Janeiro state during the June protests and it is an actual sign of changing mentalities (which will be debated on a later post). That is only a representative example showing that it could and should be better but the head of the organization is not interested to improve for not knowing better.
- That brings me to the carioca factor, things happen else where in Brazil and not in Rio (the Alphaville complex never settled in Rio before 2011 and it is a national brand, but from São Paulo!) or the contrary. Something that has to do with the "carioca spirit" of the city, "o jeitinho carioca", gives you the feeling there is no other way to do or organize something than their way. When you arrive in Rio for carnival all is shiny, beautiful and well organized. After a while you start to explore more the city, the state and you realize it is messy and absolutely not optimised financially. All that money disappearing isn't used for education, health or public transport so everything is going overpriced because there is not enough qualified people, hence not enough wealth produced but more people wanting to consume. Very recently the case of an abuse of public resources to private ends splashed at the governor of Rio de Janeiro state during the June protests and it is an actual sign of changing mentalities (which will be debated on a later post). That is only a representative example showing that it could and should be better but the head of the organization is not interested to improve for not knowing better.
