Evaluating Brazil in The Casey Report, Jan. 2013

Hi El Jost,

While Doug Casey is an internationally known American economist his statement has several glaring inaccuracies and he is also relying on a lot of anecdotal, stereotypical or outdated information.

The figure he quotes for international tourism is three years old. During the past three years international tourism has nearly doubled. Immigration to Brazil is not included in that figure and I can assure you that the immigration rates, especially from North America and the EU countries is way up from past figures as well due to the US sub-prime crisis and the European debt crisis.

While he states that he has in the past been to Brazil he makes it clear that this was his first trip to São Paulo and it was for only one week. That is hardly enough time to take in the myriad tourist attractions let alone make a "definitive" evaluation of the economic and social climate of South America's largest city.

There is crime all over Brazil and while São Paulo and Rio get their share of bad press over crime they do NOT have the highest crime rates in the country. This is a popular misconception. The fact is that the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Espirito Santo and Pernambuco have much higher crime rates than both Rio and São Paulo.

Having lived in São Paulo for several years (moved away last June) and also having visited L.A. I wonder how he comes up with the comment that the city lacks L.A's charm. Obviously he didn't travel around to many of the city's numerous business centers at night to see the social atmosphere. Did he travel to the São Paulo Zoo or visit many of the numerous places where he could learn about São Paulo's culture; MASP, ORCA, São Paulo Museum, Ibirapuera Park, etc. (the list is too long to even continue)?

If he's going to make any kind of statement about the Brazilian economy he certainly missed the mark. Did he report that Brazil was the country that was LEAST effected by the global economic crisis and ensuing recession that began with the US sub-prime and continued with the EU debt crisis? Did he mention that Brazil was the LAST country to be effected and the FIRST to recover? Did he mention that Brazil came out of the crisis in a STRONGER position and more quickly than any other nation in the world? Did he mention that, while perhaps not spectacular, the Brazilian economy is growing steadily each year and we've nudged the UK out to secure the title of 6th largest world economy?

Sorry, I've been living in Brazil for eleven years now and I can state without any reservations whatsoever Brazil in general and São Paulo specifically continue to be a wonderful place to live, work and invest despite the problems that exist.

Perhaps his report was intended to be an account of his experience as a tourist, more than any kind of economic statement. Even so, I'd be much more inclined to put credence in something written by someone who had actually spent some time in the city.

As Casey so aptly puts it, there are many things that should be taken with a grain of salt; not all of them are government statistics. Opinions regarding the economy which are not based on long-term studies would fall into that category; in my humble opinion.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

Thank you William for your comments.

Yes, I did know that you had lived in Sao Paulo, indeed that is the reason I clipped out the Sao Paulo part of his article describing his views of that city after a one-week visit. I think I would agree with you that one week is only enough to make first impressions only.

Since, as I mentioned, the excerpt is from a subscription site in fairness I cannot show the parts about Brazil's economy. I can say though regarding your comments about Brazil's economic boom of the last decade or so, Mr. Casey's comments are largely in agreement with yours.

Elwin

One other point confirms something you told me some time ago about the foreign language abilities of Brazilians. I had asked how well an English speaker with no or little knowledge of Portuguese would get by in Brazil.

Mr. Casey also made this comment:

...and the average Brazilian speaks only Portuguese, although kids are learning either Spanish or English in schools. But how well did you speak a foreign language when you got out of high school? If I didn’t have some Spanish (which is much more comprehensible to a Portuguese speaker than vice versa), I would have been reduced to hand gestures. That’s apart from the fact that illiteracy is officially figured at 10%, although my guess is that it’s much higher.

If you ask any Brazilian if they speak English you will get one of two answers. Não! Or you get "mais ou menos" (more or less) and you can count on it really being LESS. The language education in the public schools is virtually non-existent and the private language schools are pathetic, more about making money than about education. Trust me on that because I've been an English (ESL) teacher for twenty-five years, eleven of them here. In São Paulo, Rio and here in Macaé the executives make an effort to learn the language because they understand its commercial value. I think his figure for the illiteracy rate is about right, I'd say around ten percent sounds like a reasonable estimate. That's 14.1 million people, over half of those in the Northeast of Brazil.

This is the one reason that I advise everyone who is thinking about immigrating to Brazil that the single most important thing they must do is to learn as much of the Portuguese language as they possibly can before arrival and continue their education in the language until they reach conversational fluency. One simply cannot rely on the English language in order to get by in daily living here, NO WAY.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team