Should we emulate Brazil

August 19th, 2012 at 2:42 pm by David Farrar

Clare Curran tweeted:

NZ Govt take note “@rnz_news: Stimulus package announced by Brazil http://bit.ly/PF0Pei ”

This got me interested in the details of what Brazil had done, and which a Labour MP was asking NZ to emulate.

Brazil has announced the first phase of an economic stimulus package designed to boost growth in the economy.

More than $US60 billion will be invested in roads and railways over the next 25 years, with more than half in the next five years. This includes 8000km of new roads and 8000kms of railways.

Now US$60b sounds like a lot of money. But Brazil had GDP of $2.5 trillion so we need to adjust for the size of the economy. NZ GDP is around US$135b so the equivalent in NZ would be US3.2b or NZ$4.0b. However this is over 25 years, so is annual expenditure of NZ$160m a year. Not exactly a huge stimulus. To be fair it says half over the next five years so it is $400m a year for five years.

But I suspect Clare did not look at the details of this spend on roading and rail. CNN reports:

Among the initiatives, the government will sell rights for private companies to operate 7,500km of roads and 10,000km of railways.

Superb. That is my sort of stimulus package. $60b of PPPs!

The measures would double the capacity of the country’s main highways, transport minister Paulo Passos said at the event.

However I suspect the Greens would not be so keen. And hasn’t David Shearer just been making speeches against increasing the capacity on the roads of national significance?

The centre-left coalition government led by Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ party has traditionally been opposed to privatizations.

But she has proven pragmatic in the face of infrastructure bottlenecks.

Good to see a NZ Labour MP tweeting in favour of a privatisation programme.

Earlier this year, her government awarded projects to redevelop and operate three major airports to private sector-led consortia

Great.

And Radio NZ concluded:

In addition to the announcements on Wednesday, President Dilma Rousseff is preparing to lower the price of energy for industry and abolish some federal taxes, which could cut the price by 10%.

So Brazil is also planning to increase greenhouse gas emissions by reducing energy prices, and also plans tax cuts.

I look forward to questions in the House from Labour demanding the NZ Govt implement a Brazil style stimulus package.

Tags: Clare Curran, fiscal stimulus

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2012 at 2:42 pm and is filed under International Politics, NZ Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

18 Responses to “Should we emulate Brazil”

Adolf Fiinkensein (2,447) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
First it was Sweden, then Finland and now Brazil?

Labour will soon run out of countries for us to emulate.

What about just trying to be New Zealand, only bigger, brighter and better?
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
I am immensely pleased at the news that the Labour Party wants to emulate Brazil’s economic approach.

I’m sure that this will include the way Brazil has gone about obtaining energy independence over the last thirty years:

Brazil has gone from importing 77% of its oil from foreign sources in 1980 to importing no oil by 2009. A great success story in conservation and alternative energy? Not really. Total Brazilian oil consumption still more than doubled.

The biggest factor is that Brazil increased its domestic oil production over the last two decades by 876% (not a typo). Most of that production has come from offshore exploration.

Brazilians achieved independence from foreign oil the old-fashioned way—they drilled. Instead of tapping our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, how about tapping into our still-in-the-ground oil reserves?

Come on Clare, you can say it:

Drill, baby, drill!
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The Scorned (549) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
“Clare Curran’s Brazilian” is about to enter the NZ political lexicon…..
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PaulL (5,197) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
I think it is important to emulate other countries. NZ is reasonably small, and we definitely don’t have a monopoly on ideas. Most things in politics and economics have been tried in other places, so before we start predicting the end of the world if, for example, we had a 90 day trial period, we should check whether the world ended in other countries that also have that rule.

Conversely, we shouldn’t blindly implement initiatives from other countries. Things are different in a NZ context, and an economy is a complex thing – so concluding that “Australia has lots of unions and Australia has better economic performance than NZ, therefore we should have more unions” is not great logic. Ignoring information is stupid, assigning too much importance to that information is also stupid.
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wat dabney (2,700) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Describing vast debt-funded spending programs as “stimulus” packages is sheer political propaganda; happily and unquestioningly perpetuated by the media.

Programs of deregulation, government debt pay-down and firm plans to absent the state from all economic meddling would be a real and sustainable stimulus package.

Unfortunately, as ever, bad economics makes for good politics.
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Viking2 (9,489) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
The Scorned (331) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 3:32 pm

“Clare Curran’s Brazilian” is about to enter the NZ political lexicon…..

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Grizz (425) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I think we should be more like Brazil and Finland. Finland has a great nuclear energy programme and Brazil is becoming a world leader at deep sea oil drilling.
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southtop (227) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Throw Sweden in there too Grizz. They have been lowering taxes?
Maybe Curran has figured out doing the same crap over and over and expecting a different result is dumb……or maybe not
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emmess (1,179) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
After several decades of promoting Sweden as the closest thing to a workers paradise that there is, the left now see Sweden as some sort of corrupt fascist client state just because of the Julian Assange case.

For example see the comments here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/julian-assange-few-friends-left-sweden
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Hamnida (905) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
I note you Neolibs can’t resist sexualising women at every opportunity. I suggest you focus on the issues instead of making degrading comments about women.
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burt (5,933) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
The Scorned

Clare Curran, brazilian – same sentence – NO – stop that; please.
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Viking2 (9,489) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Hamnida (307) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 8:48 pm

I note you Neolibs can’t resist sexualising women at every opportunity. I suggest you focus on the issues instead of making degrading comments about women.

Yeh Right, I just bet you watched the video. Could hel-p yourself you self righteous knob.
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PaulL (5,197) Says:
August 19th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Hamnida: I notice you personally can’t help but generalising in stupid ways.
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Lee C (4,499) Says:
August 20th, 2012 at 7:10 am
I agree with Amnesia – Regarding the ‘sexualisation’ of women. Guilty as charged, I’ve changed my perverted ways now though. But That’s not the only sort of objectification going on here, is it?

Yes, It’s called Objectification – take a group of society and then dilute their individual identities into one presumed ‘catch-all’ definition and then use that definition to justify making generalised blanket judgements about the motives and thoughts of the whole group.

Often it is used by one who considers they hold the power to define the terms of the discourse because the acknowledged ‘truths’ that inform the objectified term are somehow considered ‘more true’ each time the objectified definition is repeated.

Interestingly this kind of objectification was first noted when it became evident that, in warfare, the enemy was usually given an objectified name ‘Tommy’ ‘Slant’ ‘Hun’ ‘ ‘Towelhead’ Gook’ etc. It was part of the psychological detachment required to assist in killing the ‘dehumanised’ enemy. In general terms it justifies degrading a political opponent’s views to representing the ‘bleating’ of a unjustified cause. So, if you can find a term which objectifies your opponent’s view, it serves to pour scorn on their arguments and signal to other like-minded types that the objectified group’s arguments are deserving of their scorn, too.

It is that process of psychological objectification which informs Amnesia’s constant references to ‘neolibs’ (and of course, my use of the word ‘Amnesia’ rather than his (or her) proper name when I communicate with him (or her).

I think ‘neolibs’ is a neat term. Personally I think people should be pleased at the description, especially if one reads Crouch’s ‘The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism’ – in the intro it describes that the term ‘neoliberal’ in essence signals a deep confusion in the user and society generally that actually can’t work out what to call the modern political movement it has dubbed ‘neoliberalism’. So in fact Amnesia’s use of the term ‘neolib’ simply signals a generally confused use of a term, and betrays his (or her) complete confusion about what he (or her) is describing.

Which is why I was interested in his (or her) definition of the term the other day. And which is why, I suspect, he (or she) couldn’t supply one.
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Hamnida (905) Says:
August 20th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Neolib (noun for someone who believes in Neoliberalsim): A consumer driven economic theory based on the idea that the market knows best and the privtitisation of previously publicly owned assets. The roots of modern neoliberalsim can be found in the U.K under Thatcher, U.S under Regan, and in New Zealand where the Fourth Labour Government implemented many neoliberal polices. Neoliberalsim has seen the divide between rich and poor grow, as markets, including the labour market become deregulated and workers lose wages and conditions in real terms. In the OECD, countries that have rejected neoliberalsim have compared favourably to those who embraced it.
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emmess (1,179) Says:
August 20th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
In the OECD, countries that have rejected neoliberalsim have compared favourably to those who embraced it.

Such as?
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PaulL (5,197) Says:
August 20th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Apparently if you look at 2007/8, when many “countries that have rejected neoliberalism” were living entirely on borrowed money – mostly borrowed from countries that had in fact “embraced neoliberalism.” I suspect the answer as of today looks quite different – look for 2011 statistics perhaps.
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Lee C (4,499) Says:
August 20th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Just one definition that suits your narrow purpose, so does this mean the guys and gals at the Standard are ‘neolibs’ because they would love Cullen and Clark to come back?
How about this?
Neo lib: Not to be confused with neoliberal economics, a neo-liberal is a person that is the exact opposite of a neo-conservative. Unlike the neo-con, the neo-lib rejects everything related to God and uses more emotion versus logic in regards to social, environmental and political issue decision making.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=neo-lib
or:
ne·o·lib·er·al·ism (n-lbr–lzm, -lbr-)
n.
A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/neoliberal

“Neo-Liberalism is a moral and intellectual justification for greed. A way for those few who accumulate wealth, by impoverishing many, to justify themselves, and keep those they are stealing from docile and compliant.”
http://thestandard.org.nz/what-is-neoliberalism/

However, neoliberalism is more a phenomenon of the rich western market democracies, than of poor regions. That is why I emphasise the historical development of liberalism, in those western market democracies. The IMF and the World Bank are not the right places to look, to see the essence of neoliberalism. And the WTO ideology – free trade and ‘competitive advantage’ – is 200 years old. There is nothing ‘neo’ in their liberalism. http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html

Although deregulation is favored by most neoliberals, complete deregulation typically is not. If corrupt business practices go unaddressed by the free market or regulation, economic growth might be hindered. More commonly, neoliberals support minimal regulation for the purpose of safety and environmental concerns or to protect consumers. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-neoliberalism.htm

As you can see, there are a variety of interpretations of what the term means. My point being that you are being deliberately provocative by promoting the term ‘neolib’ as if it were an accepted term of abuse whihc all ‘in the know’ would accept. You ‘hint vaguely’. You may as decry ‘Veggies’ using Hitler as your examplar of vegetarianism. It’s more complex and multifaceted than that.

I mean – look at your terms: ‘modern neoliberalism’? Was there a previous version? what was that called ‘Nearly-new neo-liberalism’? You shouldn’t just foist terms out there expecting people to be mind-readers and accept what you are trying to say because you haphazardly employ a few big words.

This was my earlier point:

“Many of the words that we today use to describe public life contain the prefixes neo-, new, or post -: neoliberal, neoconservative, New Labour, postindustrial, postmodern, post-democratic. We seem determined to show that we are peple busily involved in momentous systemic change, but we are not sure what new state we have entered, so we name ourselves in terms of what we are leaving behind (post-concepts) or hint vaguely at renewal and inovation (neo -.concepts). Neoliberalism is one of these.” Crouch, C. (2012) The strange non-death of Neoliberalism, MA. Polity)
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