By BRUNO MACHADO*
The illusions of the left with the CPI of covid-19
With the establishment of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission that investigates the federal government’s role in combating covid-19, many illusions have been generated in the Brazilian left. Some believe that the government could be held criminally responsible during Bolsonaro's term, which would overthrow him from power. As if institutionality itself acted autonomously and could change the correlation of power existing in Brazil.
What elected and keeps Bolsonaro in government is the support of the Armed Forces, Faria Lima and Agribusiness. As the Armed Forces cannot be expected to leave the government, as they fill many positions within it. And much less should one expect action to overthrow Jair Bolsonaro from Faria Lima (since the Stock Exchange is on the rise) and from Agribusiness (since the exchange rate is devalued and exports are booming). Only the population taking to the streets (in expressive amounts of at least 1% of the workers as it was in the impeachment of Dilma) in demonstrations, civil disobedience or general strikes could destabilize what keeps Bolsonaro in power today and force Congress to institute a process of impeachment and prevent Jair from running in 2022.
After leaving the government and no longer being an elite candidate, Bolsonaro can indeed be held accountable and therein lies the importance of the CPI. In addition to incriminating one or another small holder of a government position, the CPI may indeed punish ministers and the president himself, but only when he is out of power, out of campaigns and, therefore, useless to the Armed Forces, to Faria Lima and Agribusiness.
Let's take it easy with the excitement about the CPI, it serves to deteriorate Bolsonaro's image for 2022 and could punish him and some of his ministers and secretaries in a few years, but it will not be a bureaucratic procedure that will change the board of powers in society Brazilian in 2021 or 2022.
We need to explain how liberalism caused the brain drain that skyrocketed 40%
In a recent article published in the Brazilian media, we learned that the brain drain increased by 40% in the country during the Bolsonaro government. With the commendable expansion of vacancies in public universities combined with social and racial quota policies, the number of Brazilians with higher education has grown. However, with the exception of professionals in the health area, who still find demand for their services, and those in law, who have few alternatives in other countries with other constitutions, Brazilians with a higher degree of academic training, with master's and doctoral degrees , are forced to look for opportunities in other countries.
It so happens that, with the de-industrialization of Brazil, which accompanies the reduction of the economic complexity of the country's production, professionals with high degrees of education have nowhere to work in a country that sustains itself with agriculture, mining and low-sophistication services, roughly speaking. The brain drain is a symptom of a country that is on a path contrary to the route of economic development, which means raising the degree of sophistication, complexity and, therefore, technical knowledge added to its products, which demands the work of these same Brazilians who were forced to leave their country to seek material dignity and professional satisfaction after so many years of study.
None of this happens by chance. The liberal ideology that denies the State its role as a development planner and rejects public policies such as government purchases, reverse engineering centers, subsidies to new technological sectors, among others, is the mother of the brain drain, of that waste of scientific knowledge that all Brazilian society paid for it via taxes and was responsible for deceiving so many Brazilians who thought that with a good academic background and in-depth technical knowledge on important issues in global production chains they would have access to a job market with good remuneration. It is time to point the finger at those responsible for such ideological propaganda of liberalism in Brazil and defeat them in public debate and at the polls in 2022.
We need to show small businessmen that they should be fighting against privatizations
Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in Brazil, who depend on their performance against the competition to maintain the solvency of their business, should be more aware of the consequences of privatizing Eletrobrás and Correios.
Not only because of the pandemic, but also because of a trend that has already been demonstrated in the recent past, the consumer trend is to buy more and more online and receive their orders at home. Therefore, the shipping cost is fundamental for those who are inserted in the business market.
In addition, every entrepreneur knows that, putting it at the tip of the pencil, the cost of electricity is a cost that represents a large share of a company's maintenance and production costs.
With the privatization of Correios, in addition to a likely increase in shipping costs, which discourages consumers from spending, there will be more frequent closures of fixed shipment packages by large companies with carriers, removing the possibility of small and medium-sized companies competing with large oligopolistic companies. Not only that, purchases of Kwh packages in large quantities will also be able to make the energy of large companies cheaper, which will also concentrate with the business market in Brazil
As bad as the bureaucracies are to start and maintain a business, and as complicated as business taxes are, they apply to your small and medium-sized business as much as your competitor's. Complaining about bureaucracy to justify poor business performance makes no sense if your competitor is selling what you don't.
What matters most to an entrepreneur is the size of his consumer market and the stability of the economy. In times of crisis, the government must spend more and become indebted to prevent the economy from entering a downward spiral in GDP and rising unemployment, as well demonstrated by Hyman Minsky in the 80s and applied in the crises of 2008 and the current. Furthermore, the higher the per capita income of its customers, the greater the volume of consumption and, therefore, the companies' revenues. It is for this reason that having a company in the US, on average, makes more money than having the same company in Brazil. It's not because the tax burden there is lower or because they've been chasing communists for a century.
The liberal economic project, today led by Paulo Guedes, favors the market concentration of those who already hold economic power. And, worse than that, it favors not the entrepreneur, but the oligopolist and the speculator in the financial and real estate markets. He doesn't fall into that trap and end up being devoured by the barons.
For these and other reasons, small and medium-sized businessmen should embrace a development project for Brazil, which expands per capita income, increases sales volume, makes the economy more stable by being less dependent on commodities, and therefore , increases the sales volume and equity of entrepreneurs.
We do not make it clear how Guedes and the Central Bank made rents soar during the pandemic
The IGP-M, the index used to readjust rents across the country, has skyrocketed in the last twelve months. The stamped economists of the biggest media vehicles justify this rise in rents to the rise of the dollar, even though rents have skyrocketed while the dollar has been at a constant high for many more months.
The reason for rising rental prices is the greater demand for investments in the real estate sector, which is more stable than the productive sector, due to the reduction in demand in the economy due to the fall in national income due to the crisis. While the federal government increased spending and reduced the basic interest rate in the last year (increasing the amount of money available for circulation in the economy), the market concentrated most of its bank financing in the real estate and financial sector, leading to a rise in the stock market and rents in the midst of a downturn in economic activity in the country.
With more money available to be distributed by banks and put into circulation by public spending, while there is no real economic growth in the economy, the major economic agents have directed their assets to sectors unrelated to production, generating anomalies such as the stock market at an all-time high and rents skyrocketing in full swing. recession.
All this federal government spending that ended up in the hands of speculators in the financial market and harmed workers who will lose a greater part of their income today with rent and of their future income with taxes that will be used to pay for BC action, which only concentrated wealth in Brazil even more, it could have been used differently. For example, replacing the BC's spree with commercial banks by distributing debit cards with a balance to be spent directly by the population in commerce, as proposed by the engineer and activist Eduardo Moreira, or even, that this expansion in the monetary base be carried out to finance, via a rate equivalent to Selic, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs who were harmed in the pandemic, a plan that was proposed by Guedes but no one saw the money arrive in almost any company, as it was held there in banks demanding absurd and unrealistic guarantees.
*Bruno Machado is an engineer.