Last week in an unrelated topic I suggested that the economic situation in Brazil was worrisome. It took just 2 days for the country explode with violence. The feel-good and biased reaction on the forum was, as expected, total derision. Well, today, a week later, the country saw the biggest riot in all it's history, vastly documented in all news sites. I also mentioned that Brazilian currency was free-falling. More derision! Today it reached the lowest in 5 years.

How long the favorable currency will last? Nobody really knows. Neither if is gonna go even lower.

If you dont mind some eventual tear-gas, book your flight. There is a sauna-boy waiting for you.

Thanks for your reporting about that and all of your other contributions. It is invaluable to have eyes and ears on the ground in a favored destination like that.

Never having been there myself and far removed from their news I had no ideas thing had turned so drastically from the Lula days. This shocked me too. I thought only Americans could take a robust deficit-free economy and turn it into a deficit choked stagnant economy while digging a debt hole half-way to China. I do not know how bad things actually are down there to make an accurate comparison but it is clear that they need to do something to straighten their affairs out.

Riots? Violence?

More like large peaceful demonstartions. After all, down here they are calling these manifestacoes or demonstrations.

I was in he city last week on Thursday and Friday and again this past Tuesday and outside of the demonstatration areas, things appeared perfectly normal. Rio de Janeiro is not a city in flames or under siege with the populace looting supermarket shelves bare.

Reality has come to the real with the lowering of sky-high interest rates and money searching for other markets with better returns.

But ya know, being alarmist and shocking makes for much better headlines. Just remember W., Dick and the WMD.

Riots? Violence?

More like large peaceful demonstartions. After all, down here they are calling these manifestacoes or demonstrations.

I was in he city last week on Thursday and Friday and again this past Tuesday and outside of the demonstatration areas, things appeared perfectly normal. Rio de Janeiro is not a city in flames or under siege with the populace looting supermarket shelves bare.

Reality has come to the real with the lowering of sky-high interest rates and money searching for other markets with better returns.

But ya know, being alarmist and shocking makes for much better headlines. Just remember W., Dick and the WMD.

Of course, demonstrations are always localized, or almost so. That was true in Egypt when they brought the government down. It is true at most G8 meetings. Yet they can have power effect as Egypt showed. Not saying anything that severe will happen in BZ. But these things often do seem to have effect as recent comments from the government at least pay lip service to.

The question is: Why are these demonstrations happening now? It doesn't appear to be agenda-driven groups like eco-terrorists, or the political opposition as far as I can tell so far. It seems to be rooted in a poor domestic economy and govt resources going to so many extra governmental activities like the olympics and soccer world cup while domestic spending suffers. At least that has been my take from very limited exposure at a very far distance. If this is not the case then the questions remain: Why and Why now?

And it is always true that events like these do make good headlines and that too puts the government under pressure. Take a look at the HUFFPO banner this am....

Thanks Tampa Yankee, for your accute observations. What happened in Tiannamen Square 20 years ago vastly transcended the square itself, with a huge meaning for the entire China. What´s happening in Istabul right now, vastly transcend the square (whatever is called), without meaning the entire Istambul is in flames. Unfortunately whats happening in Brazil is a lot bigger than several squares, talking about 80 cities, million people in the streets. Yes, lots of peaceful demonstration, but also violence, (the videos speaks for themselves) and even looting (from appliances to newstands!)

On my 2 posts I was not really predicting the riots, nobody could, it never happened before, I was just calling attention to the rapid deteriorating Brazilian economic condition. I was also trying to deal with the subject with caution, mentioning that it was unlikely to Brazil to become the next Greece. On the other post I even suggested people to rush to Rio, I would never do that to put people on the harms way. Is true, Rio is not a city in flames, if you are in Ipanema or even Copacabana it probably it won´t affect you, but if you wanna go to Meio Mundo (which a lot of the people in this forum do), is not outlandish suggest that you might get some tear gas.

Yes, I did suggest the currency would be falling. My idea is make the members to get the most for their dollars, and the time right now seems pretty good. Unfortunatelly I´m not able to predict how long it will last.