Greece
After a brilliant article on Greece, posted here almost a year ago, Michael “Moneyball” Lewis is back with a look at the other side of the European “equation”: the Germans. It is a huge piece, almost a mini-book, and one can guess what Mr. Lewis probable new book is about: Europe. Great weekend reading.
We’ve posted here before about Brazil and Greece and what lessons one could teach the other. We’ve also discussed the dangers of Brazil as the capital markets’ “darling”, as Paul Krugman said. This post has links to two articles that could very well merit a long post for each – and yet we feel it’s better to let our readers form their own conclusions. The first is Michael Lewis’ “Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds”. It chronicles his visit to Greece and discusses woes that are eerily familiar to any Brazilian over 3o years of age: insularity, lack of big-picture view, widespread corruption and so on. Then there’s the Economist’s 14-page Survey on Latin America. In their intro, they highlight “the danger of complacency”. And that’s the link between the two articles and Brazilian reality: we’ve been there not so long ago, we’re still not far enough from it and we must never return. Complacency should be a bad name around these parts.
The Financial Times had a piece about Greece’s woes on August 24th – and how Brazil’s fiscal policy presents an alternative. We feel it’s our duty as Brazilians to inform the FT that they’re basically right: Greece can borrow pages from the playbook of 2002 Brazil (or Lula, since the article mentions him). 2010 Brazil’s fiscal policies, however, should not be copied. What a difference a few years make.
