Letters to the Economist about its reporting on the Brazilian economy. The country of the future SIR - I was taken by complete surprise four years ago when you published your famous (or infamous) cover of Christ rocketing over Rio to symbolise Brazil’s growth (“Brazil takes off”, November 14th 2009). Now I find I cannot fully grasp your latest cover with the Christ spiralling downwards (“Has Brazil blown it?”, September 28th). Even you recognise that a great deal of Brazil’s fundamentals and economic indicators are more or less the same. How can you possibly justify two such antagonistic views about the same country? Maybe you regret the overly optimistic tone of the first cover and are trying to rectify it. The simple truth is that Brazil was not fantastic then and it has not blown it now. Alexandre Bertoldi São Paulo SIR – There is another significant speed bump to growth that is as ubiquitous as those lining Brazil’s appalling roads: the labour code. A mountain of red tape that has scarcely modernised since the 1940s, the CLT restricts wage cuts, contains draconian penalties for sacking employees and implements paternalistic rules around working hours, to name just a few of its nightmarish provisions. The untenable labour laws are an appalling incentive for firms and workers. A common adage in Brazilian boardrooms is that this is the only country where your employees aren’t your greatest asset; they are your greatest liability. Luke Cohler Rio de Janeiro SIR – The section on infrastructure in your special report on Brazil (September 28th) should have mentioned the container port at Itapoá in the south. It can handle ships of any size, is privately financed and operates without any participation from the government. Itapoá is a good example of how future infrastructure projects should be managed. Peter Kadur Joinville, Brazil economist/news/letters/21588341-north-england-brazil-tax-start-ups-paddles
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:41:49 +0000
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