BRAZIL-In the world behind the looking glass

Jabberwocky

In the world behind the looking glass everything is back to front. To do what you need to do requires that you do what you can’t do. The logic is impeccable but the conclusions are totally absurd.

The administration first calculated that to meet the fiscal primary surplus target of 0.5% of GDP it would need to trim some R$50 billion to R$60 billion from the 2016 budget. It will announce today that it will trim R$24 billion and move the goal post to allow for a 1% primary deficit. There! Problem solved!

The administration concluded that no cuts shall be applied to “social programs” such as Bolsa Família (the income maintenance program for Brazil’s poorest). Rather, “superfluous” programs such as Science without Frontiers (a technology transfer program) and Pronatech (a vocational training program) will be trimmed. They only contribute to productivity and since production is declining, why bother finding them?

Another argument presented was that while the R$24 billion is smaller than the previously calculated reduction requirement, it is large relative to a budget that is already much smaller! That begs the question of why, if the budget had already been trimmed when put together, the team arrived at the R$50 billion in the first place. Did they analyze a different budget? Or is their calculation flawed?

I remember an anecdote from the US Civil Rights Movement of the 60s and 70s when segregationist states imposed literacy tests for blacks to keep them from voting. A black voter entered a polling station in Louisiana and was told he had to pass the literacy test. He was given a document to read that was written in Chinese. The polling station official paled when the voter sat down and began to read the document. After roughly an hour of perusing the document the voter returned it to the polling station official saying “OK, I’ve read the document.” Fearing the worst, the official then asked the voter what was written on the document. The voter responded: “No blacks will be voting in the State of Louisiana in this election!”

Meanwhile, in another corner of the land behind the looking glass, Dilma Rousseff submitted her defense statement to the Superior Electoral Court that had required her defense against accusations that her campaign had received funding from the Petrobrás financial fraud scandal. Her response was eloquent and simple. The essence of her defense was: “No I didn’t and if I did do it, I didn’t know it!”

 She added that the accusations, raised by the PSDB, were simply the result of frustration at having lost the election in 2014 and were “politically motivated”. Now the Superior Electoral Court exists precisely to review “political” matters so why would a complaint not be “politically motivated”?

You might remember from a previous post that “Jabberwocky” is the nonsense language spoken in the world behind the looking glass. It’s the language of the PT and it cuts off all debate because you can’t discuss what you cannot even understand!

When does it all end? Paraphrasing NY Yankee baseball player Yogi Berra, (known for his incongruous comments on practically any subject), the game ends when it’s over.

Clear?