The end of the world has already arrived in Brazil.
A constitutional amendment passed by the Senate last month is being called “the end of the world” amendment by its opponents. Why? Because the consequences of the amendment look disastrous — and long lasting. It will impose a 20-year cap on all federal spending, including education and health care.
.. The government isn’t backing down. The “end of the world” amendment is just one of many neoliberal measures being pushed through by Michel Temer, the president. It should be cause for concern that Mr. Temer can undertake so many such reforms, especially considering most of them, including the budget cap, go against the agenda of the person who — unlike Mr. Temer — actually won the most recent presidential election.
.. He’s still at it, saying he’s taking advantage of his unpopularity to put unpopular measures in place.
.. His proposal will set a minimum retirement age of 65, in a country where the average person retires at 54.
.. Although the average life expectancy in Brazil is 74, we’re one of the most unequal countries in the world. For example, in 37 percent of the neighborhoods of the city of São Paulo, people have a life expectancy of less than 65 years. It’s even shorter for the rural poor.
.. 51 percent of Brazilians rated it “bad” or “terrible.” (Only 10 percent of respondents said they approve of the government. Thirty-four percent called it “regular.”) Mr. Temer, who took power thanks to Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment, has also been found guilty of violating campaign finance limits and has been named in one of the many corruption scandals unfolding in the country.
.. Nevertheless, the new government has already received full support from the following organizations: Brazilian Federation of Banks, the Agricultural Parliamentary Front, National Confederation of Industry, the World Trade Organization, the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo, Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Chamber of Construction Industry, National Federation of Motor Vehicle Distributors and several top executives.
Italy Just Handed the Global Economy Another Giant Variable
Even that possibility threatens Europe with trouble. If investors worry that Italy may leave the euro, they will demand greater rewards for continued lending. Those with the greatest debt burdens — Greece, Spain and Portugal — could see their borrowing costs rise beyond their ability to pay.
.. For now, such grim scenarios appear remote. The referendum maintains the power of the Italian legislature’s upper chamber, a potent check on the Five Star Movement, or any government pursuing radical change.
.. The consensus is that Italy can patch immediate holes in the banking system. But the referendum has destroyed what momentum existed to address the condition that is both cause and effect of the banking problem — a dire lack of economic growth.
Italy’s banks are stuffed with uncollectable debts in part because the country’s economy is smaller than it was a decade ago. Bad loans on bank balance sheets reflect that millions of people have lost jobs, eliminating spending power, while companies have seen sales evaporate.
.. Voters clearly did not trust Mr. Renzi to wield greater power. Now, they will be represented by someone with less power where it matters a great deal: Brussels and Berlin.
.. Brussels and Berlin argue, such countries must deliver so-called structural reforms, stripping away labor protections and trimming pension benefits.
.. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble effectively threatened to banish Greece from the euro if Athens did not deliver on reforms it promised as a condition of successive European bailouts.
.. Mr. Renzi was a rare leader who carried credibility in such quarters. He gained modest relief from European spending strictures in part by pointing at his reforms.
“Renzi is the only leader in recent history who has advanced a structural reform agenda,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy.
How Brexit Will Change the World
17 top economists, foreign policy gurus and historians look five years into the future.
.. Some of them think the Brexit vote is a sign of the sun setting on Europe. “Brexit could be a wake-up call, or it could be 1933 all over again,” says Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is more optimistic, saying that Brexit would set Europe “back on a path of high employment and healthy growth.”
.. Some of them think the Brexit vote is a sign of the sun setting on Europe. “Brexit could be a wake-up call, or it could be 1933 all over again,” says Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is more optimistic, saying that Brexit would set Europe “back on a path of high employment and healthy growth.”
.. In Europe, countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and possibly the Netherlands, will be watching to see if the Brits can pull this off; if the damage seems manageable, pressures to take a similar path are likely to build in at least these countries.
.. Russia has been in recession for two years, in part because its biggest market, Europe, has been buying less of its biggest export, energy. Is it going to do better if that market slows further? Almost surely not. Same for China. Losers all around.
.. The vote fortifies him and his supporters in their deepest belief: that hyper-pluralist, overly rule-bound, post-sovereign policymaking is doomed, prone to interest-group capture and stalemate, and unlikely to sustain popular loyalty over the long term. For China, the lesson is roughly the same.
.. If you want to say that the losers from Brexit are the world’s pluralist political orders, you can make a pretty good case.
.. Scotland will probably secede from the UK, which will have major consequences for British defense policy, given the basing there of the nuclear deterrent. Advocates of Trident modernization may get a boost from the isolation that Britain will feel in departing the EU, but they will need to find other basing arrangements (perhaps co-locating on U.S. bases).
.. I expect limited impact outside of the United Kingdom in the next five months. The initial market hysteria will soon be completely reversed, outside of the United Kingdom, and there will likely be a strong rally following Trump’s defeat in November. Within Britain, there could be a substantial impact. It is quite possible that the real estate bubble in London will burst
.. the UK will no longer be viewed as a safe haven for the world’s rich.
.. In five years I expect that the EU will have turned away from austerity and will again be back on a path of high employment and healthy growth. The Brexit vote, along with the growth of populist parties across the continent, both left and right, will have finally convinced enough of the EU elites outside of Britain that they had to take a course other than austerity in order to save the EU.
.. The main difference is that the UK will have a much smaller financial sector, with more of its wealthy being generated from productive sectors of the economy. (Okay, this is some wishful thinking—but it’s not impossible.)
.. The main difference is that the UK will have a much smaller financial sector, with more of its wealthy being generated from productive sectors of the economy. (Okay, this is some wishful thinking—but it’s not impossible.)
.. we may see British young people working on the Continent being sent home because they no longer have a valid work permit
.. In five years’ time, the consequences will be less far-reaching than many are predicting today. Every corporation that does business in the UK and the EU will have an incentive to lobby Brussels to make the “divorce” as amicable as possible.
.. And thus, a major casualty of Brexit will be the U.S. rebalance of its foreign policy toward Asia, a policy that depends on a stronger Europe to take on more responsibility in its neighborhood.
A New Deal for Europe
the failures to make such reforms are not enough to explain the sudden plunge in GDP in the eurozone from 2011 to 2013, even as the US economy was in recovery. There can be no question now that the recovery in Europe was throttled by the attempt to cut deficits too quickly between 2011 and 2013—and particularly by tax hikes that were far too sharp in France. Such application of tight budgetary rules ensured that the eurozone’s GDP still, in 2015, hasn’t recovered to its 2007 levels.
.. the Erasmus education program—which provides opportunities for students and teachers to study and train abroad—is ridiculously underfunded. It has a budget of two billion euros annually, against the 200 billion euros set aside every year for interest on eurozone debt. We ought to be investing heavily in innovation and young people.
.. If France, Italy, and Spain (roughly 50 percent of the eurozone’s population and GDP, as against Germany, with scarcely more than 25 percent) were to put forth a specific proposal for a new and effective parliament, some compromise would have to be found. And if Germany stubbornly continues to refuse, which seems unlikely, then the argument against the euro as a common currency becomes very difficult to counter.