The economy fell into recession in August and is expected to shrink by 2% to 3% this year. Inflation is pushing 10%, its highest since 2003, unemployment has climbed to over 8%, and the Brazilian real has lost about a third of its value against the dollar this year. These are the results of an explosion of government spending and debt that has gotten the country's Standard & Poor credit rating downgraded from investment grade to junk. If you want to know what that all means, just ask the Greeks.
"President" [Dilma] Rousseff's current approval rating is 8%. And the punchline? The Brazilian electorate just foolishly reelected her a month ago, meaning they've screwed themselves for at least another four years, and almost certainly beyond. Who says vaginas aren't powerful?
- Me, two days ago
Hmmm; maybe vaginas aren't all powerful after all:
Even in Brazil, a country that is no stranger to crisis, the recent, rapid-fire succession of financial, economic and political blows has been breathtaking.
After a week in which the nation’s top young financier was thrown in jail alongside a senator -- pushing his bank into a struggle for survival -- and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warned the economy was slipping into a full-blown depression, impeachment proceedings were initiated late Wednesday against President Dilma Rousseff.
Though the hearings will ultimately center on whether Rousseff violated fiscal laws, the root of her widespread unpopularity is the same that landed the banker, Andre Esteves, in jail and crippled the economy: an unprecedented corruption scandal that’s hamstrung the country’s biggest companies and triggered policy paralysis in the capital city. With gross domestic product now shrinking at an annualized pace of almost 7% and the budget deficit swelling to the widest in at least two decades, Brazil’s currency and local bond markets have posted deeper losses than those of any other developing nation this year....
Lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha said Wednesday night he accepted one of thirty-four requests to impeach the president on charges that range from illegally financing her re-election to doctoring fiscal accounts this year and last. Impeachment hearings could take months, involving several votes in Congress that ultimately may result in the president’s ouster.
Consider, dear readers: This is a sneak preview of coming attractions if Hillary Clinton somehow becomes POTUS next year: Massive corruption, exploding deficits that dwarf even those of her predecessor, continuing economic depression with no racist hype to conceal it. The Empress is already massively unpopular; let her swindle and defraud her way back into the White House and the scenario unfolding in Brazil right now is guaranteed to happen.
Well, maybe; it would require the Republicans to actually impeach Her Nib, so YMMV. Which highlights the question of why the Brazilians are willing to wage this "war on women" on behalf of their country, economy, culture, and people who/which are being decimated by this old harridan tyrant, but Americans dociley sit back and keep taking it from a (half-)black equivalent and perhaps our own Dilma Rousseff next.
Good hunting, Speaker Cunha. Pray that U.S. voters can learn from your country's horrible example and avert that fate altogether eleven months from now.
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