STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Too Big? Brazil and Olympics on a Failing Path
By Daily Bell Staff - June 19, 2016

Brazil’s Rio state declares financial disaster before Games  … The acting governor of Rio de Janeiro state has declared a state of financial disaster so he has more leeway to manage the state’s scarce resources less than two months Brazil hosts the Olympic Games.  Francisco Dornelles announced the decision on Friday. It will allow Rio’s state government to change its budgetary priorities without disrespecting Brazil’s fiscal laws.

Worse and worse. The more Brazil struggles to pay for these games, the more alienated many citizens will feel.

The state government is asking the federal government for $900 million.

The Brazilian system grinds on nonetheless.

Its President is impeached. Its economy is in a quasi depression.

In a March ARTICLE, we wrote: “Covert US Operations Undermine Brazil Olympics.”

We suggested that the Olympics would at least be reduced and that certain events would be delayed or cancelled.

Increasingly, the Olympics are being used to make political points. Russia, for instance, is currently banned from competing in Rio.

Brazil is a mess, with up to half of its federal leaders suspected of corruption.

Interim President Temer recently saw his third minister step down under accusations of corruption: Tourism Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves. He was  accused of accepting R$ 1.5 million in kickbacks from 2008 to 2014.

Brazil’s last emperor, Dom Pedro II, left office 1889 after a military coup. But now his descendants are organizing rallies promoting a return of a constitutional monarchy.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s recent street protests are said to be funded in part by right wing elements with ties to the United States. The unraveling of the Rio Olympics may be part of this larger process.

Brazil has been subservient to US interests in the past, and the idea is that under acting President Michael Temer it will be again.

The Olympics were to be a statement of political prosperity and competence. Instead, they have piled insolvency on top of incompetence.

More:

The move will let Dornelles adopt exceptional measures to pay costs related to the Games as the state grapples with the country’s economic recession.

… “The financial crisis has brought several difficulties in essential public services and it could cause the total collapse of public security, health care, education, urban mobility and environmental management,” the statement said.

The article adds that Rio’s state government is so cash poor that two of its hospitals were taken over by the city  in order to ensure doctors would get paid.

Like many large countries, Brazil is an amalgamation of different regions and cultures that have little to do with each other.

All around the world, large national entities exist with varying degrees of dysfunction.

In previous ARTICLES we have pointed out that the later colonial period was not an accident. Nations were purposefully created to act as steppingstones for regional “unions.”

There are reportedly two “major” geographical groups of separatist movements in Brazil: The Southern states (Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul); and São Paulo.

Neither are seen at this time as viable. Portuguese is a common language binding together various parts of Brazil. And for the most part, apparently, Brazilians do not identify by ethnicity.

Over time, large federal states don’t work. They degenerate into incompetence and outright authoritarianism. This is happening in the US, Europe, China – and Brazil as well.

Unfortunately, in Brazil, there are tens of millions who believe that if the central government is reformed and made to operate for the benefit of the “people,” that Brazil will improve economically and as a society.

There is not, apparently, as there is in the US, a great deal of sentiment for individual regions to take control from Brazil’s central government.

But if Brexit can happen in Britain, maybe some some form of regionalism can occur in Brazil It would not be a panacea, but reducing the power of the federal government and would diminish the corruption it attracts.

Conclusion: Solutions like the return of a constitutional monarchy do nothing to address the central problem. Brazil is too big. That’s where the corruption starts. The bigness also is conducive to outside control from the US. Separatism is not a concept that seems to have much traction in Brazil. But it should.

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