BRAZILIAN BANK ABUSE

 When talking about just plain bad bank management, we have to take our hat off to Banco do Estado de Sao Paulo (Banespa) Brazil's second largest bank, which has seriously campaigned for designation as the world's worse. Brazilians seem to take some morbid pride in comparing the Banespa disaster with some of the great banking catastrophes of all time. The say that the $10 billion cost of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and even the $14 billion hosing administered to Credit Lyonnais are not even in the same league with the $23 billion blood bath suffered by Banespa. Banespa has over 50,000 employees' people and has over 600 branches, its administrative mass compares with that of the domestic arm of Citibank, with only ten percent of Citibank's capital.  

A few years ago the regional government responsible for the Sao Paolo district persuaded the bank to lend it money to cover shortfalls in its annual budget. Before long, this had become an annual ritual and at a certain time every year, the city fathers would visit the bank’s headquarters and add to their loans in order to keep the city’s gears moving. Future tax receipts were used to guarantee repayment of the money, but when the regional administration began to default on its loans these guarantees proved all but worthless. Sao Paulo’ debts to Banespa, which amounted to around $20 billion, constituted one of the biggest black holes in banking history. As they always say, $20 billion here and $20 billion there and soon you are talking about real money.  

To give you a capsule look at how bad off Banespa is, you only have to perceive the fact that of the two million accounts still with the bank, 1.7 million are people that are legally obligated to leave their money in the calamitous institution, state employees. Eighty percent of Its capital is made up of deposits made by the state government.  At one time, the bank serviced over 3 million people, but most of those that were able to escape ran for the hills, sensing the bad things to eventually come. However, those that are still locked into the bank are only praying that they are still open when they either escape from civil service and get a real job or when they retire.  

As with Credit Lyonnais the only reason that Bank Banespa still exists falls into two categories, one being national pride and the other being the old "too big to fail" syndrome. Caught between the two, no one seems to know what to do. Banespa, in its favored status as a state bank where all government employees are forced to keep their funds as well as all businesses contracting with the state, legal escrow accounts and other state and city funds in all of Sao Paulo. The logical choice in a disaster of this sort would be to privatize the bank and pray that a miracle happens. However, no miracle can occur when the bank's only profits come solely from its monopoly, the same benefits would not accrue to any privatized entity because if they did, it would not be privatized.    

The people are so used to Brazilian banks being on the edge of disaster  that they hardly pay attention anymore. Of the ten largest banks in Brazil, five have recently gone out of business or are on the brink of extinction. The central government has had such a difficult time in dealing with the situation that they have once more gone back to printing money to pay bills. However, this becomes one hell of a trick, when you have a currency that is pegged to the dollar. They found out that this program just didn't cut the mustard when they dropped the peg by about eight percent and then let their currency float for a time. 

This dim-witted repositioning almost capsized the entire Brazilian government. The currency dropped right through the artificial floor that government indicated was sacrosanct and never looked back. Massive intervention efforts by the government were produced abysmal results and when the smoke had cleared, their currency stabilized substantially below the government's avowed level. This caused a chain reaction and the real had to eventually be re-pegged. Brazil is probably the only country in the world that has embarked on a program of pegging, re-pegging and money printing, but then again what other choice do they have?  

HEALTHCARE

  While every governmental agency in Brazil was broke, newly elected Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ran on a ticket of “Broke Shmoke, Health Care Comes First”. Apparently this was a winning line and he was victorious in a landslide. One of his first acts upon entering office was to arrange for the Brazilian Health Ministry to receive almost $16 billion to pay its bills. According to Brazill magazine in an article entitled, "The Health System in Brazil", April 1996, "Thanks to this (the money), the Sistema Unico de Saude (Unified Health System) (SUS) was able to conduct one million doctor consultations a day, perform 4,120 heart surgeries, maintain 508,700 hospital beds and hospitalize 11,350 cancer patients. 

In 1989 Brazil became the first Latin American country to eradicate polio, while measles has almost been eliminated, with only around 1,500 new cases in 1995. And, Insituto Butanta a leading research institution, has just announced that in a few months it will start producing a vaccine for hepatitis B, helping the country rid itself of this preventable disease. From the early 50s to today, life expectancy has increased from 46 to 65 years. Brazil has 6,500 hospitals and proportionally, as many doctors ([1]) as England (1.46 professionals for 1,000 people) Quite impressive, huh? 

However, before you start cheering about the fact that Brazil may have gotten something right, you have to examine all of the facts. When all is said and done, statistically all of this puts Brazil just a cut above Paraguay in resources devoted to healthcare and behind such pathetic countries as India and El Salvador. Moreover, from the almost $16 billion spent in 1995, $2.7 billion was used to pay staff, and another $2.9 billion went to cover old loans.  

While the US allocates 12.7% of its GNP to health, Brazil reserves only 4.2% for this purpose. Compare these number with those of France (8.9%), India (6%), El Salvador (5.9%) and Paraguay (2.8%). In hard terms, this means that less than $80 per capita was allotted to healthcare in Brazil last year, whereas in neighboring Argentina the number was nearly $300 and in the United States it was $2,300. That's what was being spent in the sector in 1987. The situation hit bottom in 1992 when a mere $45.7 per capita from federal funds was used for healthcare. In 1950 the number of hospital beds offered by the state was roughly the same as the private sector, the participation of the public sector has decreased to 29% of all beds available." 

Well, now that we have seen the good news, what about the other side of the coin? Mortality for mothers is 50 times higher in Brazil than in Japan and this is in spite of the fact that as a percentage, Brazil leads the world in cesarean deliveries which in reality ought to be safer. An astounding total of 40% of Brazilian children are born by Caesarean section in public hospitals and the figure rises to between 85% and 90% at private hospitals. To put this number in perspective, the overall Brazilian rate is four times as high as that in the United States. In spite of the fact that many doctors in Brazil and elsewhere consider this procedure safer than normal childbirth, the World Health Organization's guidelines are surpassed in Brazil by geometric amounts. 

Most Brazilians think of their doctors with substantial passion and for the most part believe that they can do no wrong. The doctors push the Caesarean procedure because it works better for their schedules and their pocket books. Furthermore, they have been able to get the time that it takes to complete the surgery to under a half-hour while convincing Brazilian women that it is the "modern thing to do." They have conned the entire population that natural childbirth went out with the Stoneage. The Brazilian doctors also often tell their female patients that if they don't have the Caesarean the female organs will become larger and sex will not be as good. For the most part, this is a strong argument.  Caesarean's performed on Fridays in Sao Paulo are now called  "beach Caesareans" because the doctors in that part of Brazil don't like giving up their weekend by having to deliver babies naturally. 

This trend probably started because for some strange reason, early on, the Brazilian Government paid doctors twice as much to perform the Caesarean than to perform a natural childbirth. In addition, any drugs given to the women during the procedure were also covered while they were not in natural childbirth. This has changed but it became fashionable and Caesarean births have now become part of the Brazilian culture. However, the period of time that it takes women to recover from the surgical procedure of a Caesarean is substantially greater and it appears that the female population has been conned by the country's doctors. 

Brazil has over six times the infant mortality of the United States. Seventy percent of the people in Brazil over fifty years old have no teeth in spite of the fact that there are over 160,000 dentists practicing in the country. 

However, doctors under the Brazilian medical system receive $2 per patient visit, considerably less than the $2.50 standard fee for a shoeshine in the Sao Paolo Airport. Doctors are not well paid in this country as the average monthly wages for them are around $400. However, the use of the word doctor is deceptive by American standards as sixty-five percent of Brazilian doctors never train in a residence program, they go directly into business. This is why many Brazilians check to see how long their doctor has been practicing before placing their bodies in jeopardy.  

So the medical system in Brazil is not up western standards. As a result of this, even with a large number of under-trained doctors, a disease that has been stamped out in most of the world, Cholera, runs rampant in Brazil, as do yellow fever and dengue. In addition, in spite of the fact that, the it has been publicly announced on numerous occasions that the Aedes aegypti mosquito, has been eliminated the disease that it causes is running rampant. Worse yet, over 500,000 Brazilians per year get malaria and tuberculosis has been growing at an exponential rate. Some of this can be chalked up to the great distances involved in getting medicines and medical help to outlying people, but there is still little excuse.  

Moreover, some of the reasons for this dismal record are just pure and simple fraud. Investigators have turned up healthcare money being used for parties, clothes and strangest of all, obstetrical services for men. Political donations are high on the list of expenses for clinics and labs; many of which perform literally no known service and are paid millions of dollars a year. In the state of Maranhao alone, over 20% of all medical funds were found in private bank accounts and of course, that was only what was found. The world record for phony hospitalizations occurred in Campo Grande do Sul in the state of Parana where over 60% of the population was hospitalized in one year.  

Many of these people would have had a hard time getting to the hospital on their own, as their names were shown to have been lifted directly from some of the area's cemeteries.  However, no matter what you think, with poverty as pervasive as it is in this country you can not fault the people for these marvelous improvisations. An inclusive audit of the system revealed that 24.12 percent of all diagnoses for health care in Brazil were incorrect. Malpractice cases against doctors are growing at epidemic proportions and if it were not for interminable court delays for these types of hearings, the medical population of the country would have been severely decimated by long prison sentences.  

In addition, the Brazilian law clearly requires that each drug store have a pharmacist on duty during the hours that it is open. Statistics indicate that there are approximately 50,000 pharmacies in Brazil and between 30,000 and 40,000 pharmacists. We will leave it to you to figure that one out but it seems like someone is not watching the store. But nobody will ever accuse the country of not having some medicine for everyone’s taste. While the World Health Organization recommends a list of about 400 basic drugs; the Brazilian market stocks approximately an astounding 12,000. Such redundancy and over inventorying in a country practicing socialized medicine is beyond obscene.  Worse yet, in a country that is fudging on pharmacists to begin with, how can a novice possibly become familiar this massive number of medicines. 

There are 353 laboratories that are registered in Brazil under the law; Jose Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, President of Abifarma, which represents the pharmaceutical industry in Brazil, says that 60% of those 353 are illegitimate. That is not very comforting for Brazilian patients, especially those with severe medical problems. Moreover, someone contracting AIDS in Brazil can look forward to living less than 25% as long as his fellow sufferer in the United States or Europe.  This particular problem has caused a spillover effect. Many Brazilians who have become infected, flee to the United States for treatment, where they make up a high percentage of the total undocumented aliens getting medical attention in this country. Do these patients return to Brazil once they are cured.? As to that question, the New York Brazilian contingent said, "forget about it".  

PRIVATIZATION, THE ONLY HOPE

  Many Brazilians believe that, as they sell off their government industry to privatization, money will roll in, allowing problems such as medical care, police brutality and infrastructure deficits to be finally addressed. While, we too would wish that would occur, we became less than sanguine when reading a recent report covering the results of what government officials termed a successful privatization. 

Brazil sold its telephone company, Telebras for a goodly sum, $19 billion. The Brazilian Government is on record relative to the fact that it uses the money derived from privatizations for financing the deficit in its external current account balance of payments. This is not a bad idea as it has a stabilizing effect on the Brazilian Currency as well as reducing the country's foreign debt and helps in trade. The incumbent President, who is running for election again shortly in an attempt to win a few extra votes announced that he would use part of the $19 billion to beef up public spending.  

However, there are two major problems with this statement, the first is the fact that government doesn’t get the whole $19 billion, they only get 60% of it, with the rest paid over a period of time. The second but less important in Brazil is the simple fact that it is clearly against the law to do it. Nevertheless, this has never stopped Brazilian politicians in the past. In Brazil, where there is a will there is always a way.  

When they were informed of the illegality of the program that they were sponsoring, they were nonplused. One of the President's spokesmen immediately came up with another idea, he announced that the money would be used to pay off internal debt and the interest savings would be used to help drought victims in Brazil's hard hit northeast. While that played to the sympathy bit, it was just as illegal as the first proposal and everyone had to go back to the drawing board once again. It may be that they thought that no one would be the wiser and that any news would be good news to their long suffering electorate. 

However, privatization is not considered to be a panacea everywhere in Brazil. In this very strange country, the important state of Rio Grande do Sul is now run by a party that seems to aspire to some kind of weird political cross between socialism and communism. It is called the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) and it has Rio Grande do Sul’s major city well under their control. Moreover, the party seemed to be growing dramatically and with almost religious fervor, the people in the state were preaching its virtues as the only way out for impoverished people.  

 “A few months ago, PT candidate Olivio Dutra won the gubernatorial elections. For the first time in Brazil’s history, one of the country’s most important states is administered by a team that bases itself on socialism and the interests of working people. Olivo Dutra is a former bank workers union director and a well-known figure on the PT’s left, he defines himself, according to a conversation we had a few months ago as a “Christian Marxist.” The elected vice-governor, Miguel Rossetto, belongs, like the mayor of the state capital, to the Socialist Democracy tendency.” ([2]) 

Obviously Olivio would not have been elected if things in Porto Alegre weren’t going swimmingly for the populace. The city has formed an anarchistic type of government where a town meeting is held and a vote is taken with everyone invited. Whatever, way the majority votes in these meetings becomes law. Moreover, the State has now indicated that it will take a similar course. The laws that are being passed are totally at loggerheads with both the Brazilian Constitution and the Brazilian Judicial Process. What has happened here is that the state is becoming a place where causes are ripened and decent with the existing system becoming commonplace. Privatization has been stopped, repayment of what is considered to by illegal debt to the government has been put on hold, the cause of the landless Brazilians is now at the top of the calendar and socialism is rampant. You could say that this is an economic rebellion.

  “This is a system that lets local populations in each neighborhood of Porto Alegre decide, in assemblies that are open to the entire population, the priorities for the public budget allocated to their locality. In other words, it is the population itself, which determines, in an original demonstration of direct democracy, if the budget’s funds should be used to build a road, a school, or a medical center. Subsequent assemblies let the population monitor the implementation of the chosen projects, while a City Council of the Participatory Budget, made up of delegates elected by the assemblies manages the distribution of the budget to the different neighborhoods, following criteria decided on in common.” ([3]) 

We believe that if the clueless folks in Brasilia don’t get their act together in a hurry, the Rio Grande do Sul type of governance will sweep the country. After all, ninety six percent of the population can be considered poor or worse in this country. Under the current regime they don’t have either a hope or a prayer. After all the money that the United States has poured into stopping this type of political activity all over the world, it is right back at our doorstep and it seems to be working its way throughout our large neighbor to the south. In comparison to the Brazilian Government’s activities, these guys from the Brazilian Workers Party look to gain a lot more followers as they pick up speed. Who knows what will happen next?

 Universally, there was some anticipation that in the near future at least, the country would have phones that would stretch across the land for the first time. But what good is that if you can't get from here to there?  There phone system doesn’t go anywhere but neither do their roads. However, a national highway system in Brazil probably wouldn’t work anyway. Many of the areas would not have much traffic and it would not be very long before the jungle reclaimed these road. However, even if they were in good repair and they went somewhere, there are not gas stations. There are not parts suppliers in various regions should something go wrong and no way to fly in a missing part.  However, even if these problem all went away, it still might not matter. Brazilian drivers have probably the worse driver’s safety record on the planet.  

Brazil has set a world record with 50,000 traffic fatalities a year and almost 400,000 injuries. If you contrast that figure with the fact that the United States has ten-times as many cars and 20% less fatalities you get some idea of the extent of Brazil’s problem. And as far as traffic jams are concerned, Brazil also sets the standard in this as well, “It’s not uncommon in the world’s second largest city (Sao Paulo) for traffic jams to stretchy 140 miles. During a typical rush hour, traffic jams average 53 miles in length…” ([4]) If I knew that I was in back of a 140 mile traffic jam, I would not only go bonkers but probably attempt suicide by plowing into the car in front of me. This would save the drivers of both cars from a seemingly endless wait. It may be that this is the reason for so many road accidents in this country.    

However, as bad as things are in Sao Paulo they have been even worse in Rio De Janeiro. There has been a competition between the two large Brazilian cities as to which one is the most powerful and there seems to be little question that Sao Paulo, at least from the standpoint of economic muscle has won the war. Naturally, whenever Sao Paulo starts to demean Rio, the natives immediately point to their much envied beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema and the magnificent women that inhabit them. Up until now, Sao Paulo has had no retort. 

Because of the fact that Brazil's entire infrastructure is always falling apart, little things like pipes bursting are a common occurrence. Recently a part of the sewer line that services the neighborhoods that run alongside of  the beaches collapsed and spewed waste  all over the shore and the bathing area as well. If that wasn't bad enough, the stench became unbearable to the degree that entire areas of the city were closed down. 

City Fathers wouldn't take any part of the blame saying that the State of Rio de Janeiro was the culprit. Shifting the blame even if well deserved did not help get the enormous stench off the beaches. It seems that while the city of Rio was in reasonably decent financial shape, the state was literally penniless and was teetering on bankruptcy. Eventually the state came up with the money to do the repairs but not before the beaches may have become permanently contaminated and the fishing industry had gone totally to  pot. 

As the stench lingered seemingly forever and while Rio was still at loose ends over what to do next, Sao Paulo as if to really dig in the knife,  announced that they were going ahead with the construction of the world's tallest building along with several other world class projects. This was like pouring oil unto a burning fire, because just that day Rio had been forced to concede that work on their highly trumpeted subway program was being stopped because the city had totally run of money. 

Naturally, Sao Paulo took this opportunity to immediately announce the opening of four more subway stops. Locals (Cariocas) are finally grudgingly starting to admit that Rio is not what it once was and it may rapidly be coming the "decaying seaside resort" that they Paulista (People from Sao Paulo) have been predicting. for more than a decade ago. The last straw occurred when the beautiful women that often went nearly naked on the Rio beaches headed South en mass to Sao Paulo when Rio's television and movie industries suddenly pulled up stakes and left for the country's economic capital.  One local put the  problem in simple terms, "we in Rio don't mind being second to Sao Paulo in finance and Brasilia in politics, but to lose our bathing beauties is a loss for which we can never be compensated."    

Certainly there are many reasons to chastise the strange goings on in Brazil and their almost childlike way the government and the people have of running their affairs. To some degree, the Brazilians have let their country operate on the “manyana”  principal of “why bother to do today what can be accomplished tomorrow.” In this country that saying has both real meaning and real value because of the grueling effects of hyper-inflation. It is hopped here that inflation will solve all of the people’s problems that on a day to day basis go un-addressed. However, the Brazilians do know how to have a good time and how to forget about their problems. The Brazilian pre-Lenten carnival is the grandest of them all and during the carnival, everything goes. Gaudy costumes, booze, rowdy behavior and sex are just a sampling of the ingredients making up one of the greatest shows on earth.  

Many of our famous dances have originated in Brazil and were inaugurated turning the caravel season. A recent new form of Brazilian Samba put to new music has not received rave reviews from many legislators and women’s groups in this country but has taken the country by storm. The song composed by a group called Pagod’art was initiated during the carnival season and has stayed on the top of all of the country’s charts for months. It consists to two elements, music and words depicting a male and a female lover singing and dancing about how she wants some rough stuff along with her sex.

 The male is happy to oblige and does so in the dance. Imaging the scene with millions of Brazilians dancing and slapping to the music. The dance has become so pervasive that there has been governmental concern that women in this country will become abused. Laws are currently being discussed to somehow ban the dance and the song. In the meantime, the craze is rapidly is spreading all over Latin American and will soon come to the United States. The chances of stopping this music which Brazil has fallen in love with are either zero or none. ([5]) At least the people will have a great time, that is until the legislators pass their silly little laws against fun.

Is Everything OK in Sao Paulo Brazil

Although Sao Paulo had eclipsed Rio as the capital of just about everything that is meaningful in Brazil, they still have their problems. These have recently increased as a situation somewhat akin to that of New York’s mayor Rudy Giuliani has occurred. There were numerous complaints against the administration of Celso Pitta who as mayor was running Sao Paulo into the ground relative to his consistent policy of  payoffs and charging bribes in conjunction with the granting of government contracts. Things got so bad that a women by the name of Marta Suplicy ran for and was elected to the office of mayor of Sao Paulo. Although at first blush this may have seemed like the ultimate political upset being that Mrs. Suplicy was a relative political novice, although she had served a short stint in the country’s House of Representatives. However, this was far from the whole story on the subject. Her husband of many years, was none other than the senior senator from the country’s most highly populated state, that of Sao Paulo with over 37-million residents. Senator Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, was simultaneously a man that was heir apparent to possibly both the presidency of Brazil as well as the Suplicy fortune.  

Once elected to become mayor, Marta caused wags to wonder what was going on when she brought aboard a man know as Luis Favre as her principal adviser. While that wasn’t the whole story, Mr. Favre had an interesting background to say the least. It turns out that Favre wasn’t his real name, he was born Felipe Warmus, who was the son of poor Polish Jewish immigrants and most recently had been a resident of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He left the country in 1969, thirty two years ago at the age of 19 one step ahead of the law who wanted him on charges of illegal political activities. His next stop was Paris where he adopted the name Favre and the Latin American director of the Trotskyite fourth International, a communist organization that although not banned in Brazil, is not exactly accepted either. However, Mr. Favre’s next occupation seemed to be that of marriage and during a relatively short period of time he took on four-wives in rapid succession.  

While being occupied with his succession of wives he also became an expert in some of the good things in life such as wine and cigars. He also founded a French Internet company which for a time showed some promise.  It was about that time that he moved his marital and Internet machine to Sao Paulo and through various connections was introduced to Marta. It wasn’t long before she saw many of the same things in Favre that his other wives say before they dropped him. She sued not only sued he husband for divorce but also made the stunning announcement that she might well run against him for president of Brazil. This caused tongues to wage all over the city as the couple were elegantly in their political offices and enhanced each other. He was the one that had gotten her into political office to begin with. One of the leading journalists in the country, Zukenir Venture wrote the following in talking about the public end of what had been seen as an idyllic marriage: “touches not only those in the political medium but all of those who from a distance saw the union of these two as a kind of perfect political and sentimental marriage. And there isn’t anyone who hasn’t been moved by the drama of the spurned husband and a dead on arrival 36-year old marriage.   

In the meantime, Marta who was a sexologist by education became so intrigued with Favre that she seemed unaware of what was going on at the store, the running of Sao Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world. Many people soon began wondering what was it that Favre to be well on his way to a fifth wife and that woman being a sexologist as well. Although most really didn’t know what a sexologist really was, certainly she was an expert on sex and she like Favre a lot. That seemed to be all the answer that most people needed. She has already informed members of her own party that she and Mr. Favre are going to be married next year after her divorce becomes final.   

However, Soon many of the same problems that did in her predecessor started to plague her as well. However, Marta being the first female mayor of the city has her defenders and is still extremely popular with feminists who believe that she can do no wrong. However, the men believe that her husband Eduardo was dealt a hand from the very bottom of the deck. From all indications his wife had a long affair with Favre during her marriage and that among other things has given rise to much sympathy from men for his presidential bid. Even their son believes that dad was given the short straw.  

In the meantime, Favre has had the law in Sao Paulo changed to allow the hiring of foreigners by the city’s administration and that has proceeded at a blistering pace. No one seems to know what the mane that has become known as Marta’s Rasputin will do next but it has certainly raised so much interest that the city’s population has temporarily stopped worrying about traffic jams, payoffs, infrastructure problems, slums and criminals. All eyes are on the Suplicy' s looking for what is going to happen next. In a city where everyone was fixed on soup operas, the population now can’t wait to get the afternoon papers to see what has happened next. 

Big City mayors often get themselves into problems with their wives. We alluded to New York Mayor Giuliani and his marital problems which have now reached about as low as anything can get. The mayor of Beijing who merely had over thirty women he was supporting and went to jail for stealing money from the city and  various and sundry mayors from Paris and Rome and lastly, President Fox of Mexico who took on a female advisor while mayor of Mexico City who followed him to the presidential office amidst wagging tongues. Both were divorced Catholics making matters all the worst, but eventually the press cooled off when he made the union legit.  However, all of them have been men and in most of the world having a man having an illicit relationship can at times get away with it, a woman is quite a different story, but Brazil is quite a different place and for the moment Marta seems secure in her job as mayor and who knows, her elevated profile along with her professional lover may rocket her into Brazil’s State House. Much stranger things are the rule in this country so who is to say?     

Riders of the Purple Sage

 Many of the people of Brazil are located about as far away from the United States as the most far-reaching points in Europe. They speak a language, which is rarely heard in the states, Portuguese, and their habits since the early days of the country were more historically Spanish then they were English. However, just as in much of the world, the American way of life has its way of encroaching on peoples thinking no matter how far away from this country that they are located. There are probably two major reasons for this, the first being that the majority of multinational clothing, sports and media companies are headquartered in the United States and their advertising in one form or another is obsequies. In other words, our culture is being sold everywhere that there is a consumer ready with the bucks to make a purchase. The other is the fact that historically the American people are great travelers and show off their culture where ever they go. Americans are thought of as rich and therefore trendsetters. Wherever they go, their peculiar habits and getup are assumed to be in and they are randomly copied.   

If someone asked you, where is the largest rodeo in the world located you would probably answer, “In the United States or if not, probably in Canada.” Well those would be the logical answers but they would both be dead wrong. The largest rodeo in the world is held every year in Brazil where the event goes on for almost two weeks, over a million people attend and the prize money is getting close to being on a par with that offered in the United States. Their cowboys look the same as those you would see in the American West and when they ride and  rope they appear to be every bit as good as their counterparts way north of the Brazilian border.  

Just as Kansas City used to be where the cattle drive used to end one way or the other, in Brazil the town at the end of the cattle drive is named Barretos. Barretos is located in time about half-way between where Dodge City and Chicago were at the turn of the century. Dodge was one of the spots in the west where the cattle were driven to and placed aboard the trains headed for the stockyards where they were slaughtered. When the cowboys hit Dodge City, Laramie, Wichita or whatever was at the end of the old Chisholm Trail, they were paid their wages, had a bang up time and the competing trail crews would usually get into a contest as to which crew was comprised of the best cowboys. As time went on, the event developed a formality and rodeos as they began to be called were held throughout the United States on a regular basis. Moreover, as we are all well aware that Wild Bill and Annie Oakley along with Chief Sitting Bull played not only Madison Square Garden but, all of the bright spots of Europe as well. Rodeo had arrived. 

However, Brazil got lost somewhere in the last century and American culture somehow took more time to arrive. Eventually, Barretos a mid-sized Brazilian City that housed the country’s newest slaughterhouse became the home of the Rodeo. It started out without much fanfare as more of a method to channel in more acceptable directions, the cowboys energies when they were just in from long cattle drives into something that was better than the usually rowdy drunken behavior that most of them felt was their due after so long on the trail. In 1956 a group of prominent citizens in Barretos called The Independents began providing the arena, the prize money and the diversions for these “caubois” to not only blow off stem but to be paid to do it. The event grew almost every year until they were forced to move it into a 35,000 seat called Cowboy Park. It you think that the rodeo hasn’t taken hold here just look at the following: 

“Beyond Barretos, Brazil also boasts a year-round circuit of more than 1,200 other rodeos, according to the National Rodeo Federation. Last year, Brazilians bought 24-million rodeo tickets, the group calculates, or about as many as were sold at all the country’s professional soccer games.”[1]

Country Music and Western Gear 

It wouldn’t be logical to have a bunch of cowboys strutting their stuff in tight genes without a tad of country music as well. For whatever reason, cowboys and country music seem to go together in Brazil like ham and eggs. American country music stars are big heroes in this country and crowds of 50,000 people or more regularly hear folks like Reba McIntyre and Garth Brooks strut their stuff.  

It seems as though in order to hear country music is this country you also have to dress the part, but that means dressing like a cowboy or cowgirl, maybe taking a chaw of tobacco, wearing a cowboy hat and getting into the spirit of things with doing line-dancing. While things American have been copied all over the world, it is rather strange to see the people seemingly trying to imitate the American South Western culture and doing it while speaking broken Portuguese.

The Art form of Sao Paulo Kidnapping

Talking about a growth business, kidnapping in Sao Paulo takes the prize. It seems that anyone that was anybody was abducted last year and the numbers are still spiraling out of control. Two years ago the number of people kidnapped tripled but that was just a warm up, last year it went up over 800 percent. It’s getting a lot like Mexico City here with anyone that has money owning an armored plated car and living in a gated community.  

However, the problems in Sao Paulo differ in one particular respect with those of Mexico City or Columbia. The gangs there are highly sophisticated and search out their targets carefully over substantial periods of time. Traveling businessmen carry large amounts of money or people targeted as working for sizeable companies who have plenty of dough to pay a ransom are diligently sought out, often through the use of highly sophisticated methodology. That is not the way things work here; in Sao Paulo, small gangs of low level hacks or street toughs have given the gangsters of this country a very bad name by their willingness to kidnap anyone that they think may have a couple of bucks. Sao Paulo has become the cut-rate abduction center for the known universe. It is common here for someone to be grabbed for as little as $500. 

This is a stunning number when you consider that the penalty for this crime is so severe, often resulting in the death penalty, you would think that those engaged in it would stalk more promising quarry. However, that is not the case and when there are so many gangs roaming the streets looking for anyone that could have a buck or two, it seems that their philosophy has boiled down to simply, you have to take what you can get. Moreover, they say that the penalty for starvation is even more severe than being sent to jail and therefore most criminals seem to have no compunction relative to turning to this trade when the need arises.  

The police in Sao Paulo have created a Special Forces unit just for dealing with kidnapping and they have become extremely adept at getting victims back fairly safely. As opposed to other places where fingers are routinely cut of to impress worried relatives that the adductors indeed have the victim in custody and will not hesitate to do the person substantial additional bodily harm unless their demands are met. In Sao Paulo it is the person’s ears that are most often targeted. There is no particular reason for ears, but possibly the fact that people only have two has something to do with this difference. It may take a while to cut of fingers one at a time and send them to the hysterical family members. In Sao Paulo they don’t want to waste time by waiting until families have witnessed every one of ten fingers. I think there is also something in bullfighting that has to do with ears but I am not sure that isn’t in Mexico or Spain rather than Brazil. However, it could be extremely relevant.  

However, in spite of the fact that the number of kidnappers seems to rise endlessly, the Special Forces here has made some headway in the problem by  dropping the limit on withdrawals at ATM machines. This in turn has caused a small decrease in what they call “lightning kidnapping”. This is where an individual is kidnapped and is carrying a bank or debit card. They are then driven to an out of the way ATM where they either extrude the cash or are shot. These fearless midnight marauders don’t have time for the niceties of life; no ears or fingers on these “lightning attacks”. The victim either comes up with the money instantaneously or they are dispatched to the great beyond or even further. Because of the local nature of this crime, it has become difficult to catch the perpetrators and the only thing that the government was able to come up with was to make the take so low that the risk/reward became untenable. However, this has also dramatically affected the shopping habits of residents and they have started carrying more cash. Between the gang’s abilities of grabbing additional cash from each victim along with a lesser sum from the ATM, the pendulum is swinging back in favor of the gangs once again.  

Moreover, this crime is one that has recently become more mobile. Victims are best spotted by the cars that they drive. New automobiles are extremely expensive in this country and those that are showroom fresh and are of foreign extraction are particularly vital signs of substantial wealth. Very often these cars are pulled over on dark stretches of road and the victim is separated from his cash, jewelry and often his clothes and then left to fend for himself. In many cases the car is also taken and the parts are resold to chop shops or automotive dealers and suppliers. These automotive carnivores are almost impossible to locate and a car can be disassembled in very short order. The criminals often make substantially more by selling the parts in a new car then they do from the kidnap victim.  

Here too, the government thought that they had come up with an answer. By owners buying global position devices the car can be tracked. In spite of this highly sophisticated anti-kidnapping device the gangs have learned how to find the GPS devices within seconds, dismantle them, steal what they can and drive away before anyone even is aware that the person has become a kidnap victim. Sort of trumping the your partners ace. This strategy tends to operate much more effectively on trucks carrying valuable cargo because there are substantially more places to hid the GPS devices and that the cargo is for the most part considered to be of more value than the driver himself.

“The newsmagazine Epoca published a “survival Guide’ in a recent issue with a `warning against driving flashy S.U.V.’s and imported sedans. Other suggestions included regularly changing the route taken between home and the office: avoiding driving at night; and always carrying cash and an ATM card, bargaining items that can save a life.” [2] 

However, it is hard to come up with a guaranteed scheme to avoid this problem when you are talking about a city of 17-million inhabitants with most of them living substantially under the poverty line. Many people have previously considered Bogotá, Columbia the kidnapping capital of the world, but that is no longer true. Last year the number of people abducted in Sao Paulo was twice as high as the city that houses the crazies that operate the drug cartels. Interestingly enough, in the past, many people now living in Sao Paulo had formerly resided in Rio de Janeiro and had moved because of the high crime rate there. While in general the statistics still bear this out, the number of kidnappings in Sao Paulo is almost 30-times that of its more famous neighbor, Rio.  

Or it may just be that certain crimes are more indigenous to certain areas without consideration of the demographics. It would certainly appear logical that Rio with its large tourist population and numerous holidays would make it quite a mark for the kidnappers, but this is not the case. There is one difference between the two cities that probably creates these strange statistics. In Rio there is a strict rule against paying ransom and in Sao Paulo there is not. This and the fact that more often than not, in Sao Paulo the victims are often fingered by the cops for the benefit of their gangland associates, this is something that has been dealt with accordingly in Rio.  

However, you can’t stop families from wanting to retrieve relatives that are losing their ears and you also can’t stop underpaid cops from wanting to collect some extra spending money especially when they believe that they are underpaid.  These folks say that the same things that have worked so well in Rio are not going to be that effective here. Moreover, Rio’s crime wave makes the one here look like a blip on the radar screen so it seems that Sao Paulo officials are not entirely unhappy with their seemingly used unfriendly  trade off.      

Brazilian Slaves and Others Stories

As the jungle continues to be destroyed in the Amazon, the valuable timber is shipped to Brazil’s ports and then on to the United States, Asia and Europe. Once the land is cleared of trees and other unnecessary vegetation, cattle are brought in and ranch houses are constructed in what not ago was somewhere beyond nowhere. The resources that are needed to turn the jungle into grazing land are immense and because of the hot and wet climate, the possibility of re-encroachment by the Amazon is always a possibility.  

To keep the ominous jungle at a safe distance and the cattle fat, happy and moving towards the distant markets, large numbers of laborers are required but luckily for the ranch owners, Brazil is almost always in a state of high unemployment and such workers abound. However no one in their right mind would want to work in the godforsaken lands that have just be claimed from the largest jungle on earth. Serious workers that would be best at doing this job would have little interest working in a place where there is no entertainment, the labor is backbreaking, the insect infestation is paralyzing and one can contract tropical diseases that have no name and can be incurable. This place is hardly a walk in the park and the hours are tough as well, work starts when the sun comes up and ends around midnight. Moreover, there is no time off for vacations, the food for the most part is rotten and any wages that the workers earn are used up at the company store or cantina for goods that cost at least double what they would be at the closest town. However, even if a closest town did exist, these workers don’t get any time off and even if they did, they wouldn’t allowed to go there by their bosses anyway.  

Moreover, when a worker gets sick, the medication is provided, but at a very high cost and deducted from the nominal wages that the men receive. When someone decides that they don’t want to work anymore here, there are two options, they are summarily shot or sent packing into the surrounding jungle most probably to die from any number of dangers that exist their. In other words, this is a reincarnation of Devil’s Island.   

And who on earth would want to work under these conditions? Well the answer is nobody would, however the stakes are high and there are unquestionably a lot of people are out of work in Brazil. The rich ranchers that are moving back the jungle send out what they call “gatos” or “cats” who usually ply their trade of finding hired hands in the poorer states in Brazil’s Rainforest area. The states are called Piauf and Maranhao and whenever a seemingly likely prospect comes into view, they go right into action. “How would you like a great job with good pay, three squares a day and a paid vacation. In addition, all your medical needs will be provided along with free transportation back to anywhere you would like in Brazil twice a year for two weeks. Your money will be banked wherever you prefer or we will send a portion of it to your family on a regular basis should you desire. We will sign you up for a short stint and if you are not happy with it you will be able to return at our expense wherever in the country you would like. After five-years you will start to accrue a pension and you will be allowed to retire after fifteen.” 

This above is just one variation on the theme that these gatos weave. The gatos are paid a handsome commission based on the number of recruits that they are able to bring back and provide a constant source of human labor to what are in reality slave camps from which there is literally no escape.  

The journey into oblivion seems to start out well enough. The potential laborer signs the agreement, which does not contain any of the things that the cats said it did, but after all these men are illiterate and if they weren’t, no one would be offering them this glorious opportunity anyway. They are put aboard a bus and most of them are looking forward to great working conditions and a wonderful future. Moreover, once aboard things start looking up immediately as most of them are given literally all of the cachaca, a local brand of fire-water that they can drink. The stuff is so strong that the men soon become almost unaware of what is going on around them and hardly notice that the bus ride seems to go on endlessly and they are not being fed. It is as though they have been anesthetized for their rude awakening.  

In reality the bus ride takes five days or more over some of the worst terrain imaginable and the fact that anyone on the bus has kidney’s left after all of that cachaca and the bumpy road is in itself a miracle. However, the fact that the men are given all the liquor they can handle is part of the deviousness of the plan. They hardly realize how far they are being taken and without knowing where they are, they are not likely to be able to get back if they wanted to leave.  

Once they disembark the new workers are usually met by a muscle bound foreman carrying a rifle or a six-shooter. They are soon informed of what is expected of them including the rigorous tasks that they will be expected to perform along with their hours of work. When they are finished getting their indoctrination lecture they find to their consternation that their resting place will be usually on the ground outside. Naturally they are ready to bolt for the door but the worst is yet to come. Some feel that after a few weeks of the backbreaking labor they will have enough money in the bank to catch a bus back to civilization but they soon find out that is not to be as well. As the years roll on, none of them ever seem to accumulate enough money to get out of debt to the rancher let alone get out of town. They are routinely charged for everything including the medicines that they require to say alive when infected with malaria or hepatitis. In spite of the fact that most laborers sleep outside on the ground, they are charged for their rooms. Eventually many of them realize that their only viable option is escape or death. Death is the easiest, if a worker refuses to work he is summarily dispatched by the foreman.

“’It was 12 years before I was finally able to escape and make my way back home,’ said Bernardo Gomes da Silva, 42. ‘We were forced to start work at 6 in the morning and to continue sometimes until 11 at night, but I was never paid during that entire time because they always claimed that I owed them money.’ Interviewed recently in his hometown, Barras, about 600 miles east of here, Mr. Gomes da Silva said particularly troublesome workers, especially those who kept asking for their wages, were sometimes simply killed. ‘I can’t read, so maybe a half-dozen different times I was ordered to burn the identity cards and work documents of workers who I had last seen walking down the road, supposedly on their way out,’ he said. “ We also found heaps of bones out in the jungle, none of us ever talked about it.’”[3] 

If they deem escape to be the better alternative and are among the few lucky enough to make it through the jungle and they indeed reach civilization or whatever it is called in these parts, they usually are in for another ghastly surprise. Hotel or more appropriately flophouse managers in the vicinity are usually secret agents (cats) for other ranchers and other foremen. These escapees having no money soon  default on their housing bill and they are once again turned over to other ranchers to earn back these charges. Obviously the whole grim scenario has re-started again and for most of these men, there is no hope once they get in the clutches of these remorseless ranchers.  

One would think that there would be laws against this kind of behavior and there are. However, Brazil is a big country and needs a lot of people willing to work hard to make the country tick. However, it was probably the last country in the world to abolish slavery, which it did in 1888 but that was only as far as the law was concerned. Slavery in this country has never stopped and the opening of the Amazon has created an opportunity for these ruthless landowners that they never dreamed of previously. The stakes are colossal and the profit potential is high and for the most part, almost all of the ranches are unlawful. Only a handful of these establishments have been granted export licenses for either cattle or hardwoods (primarily mahogany) but that is hardly an impediment. 

“…the Brazilian government has estimated that as much as 80 percent of Amazon timber comes from illegal sources, according to a confidential 1997 report. In booming mill towns like this one, (Xinguara), dealers openly resell, copy or simply counterfeit the government certificates needed to export timber. When a shipment of mahogany reaches the port of Belem for shipment to the United States, government inspectors have no way to determine its origin.”[4] 

Phony export documents are hawked in every town in the Amazon and as the customs people will tell you, you can’t tell where the wood came from without a scorecard or documentation. Moreover, these people are routinely paid off and it wouldn’t matter a lot what the documentation looked like or even if it existed at all. For the most part, the ranchers have become extremely wealthy from their illicit activities and are usually are on quite friendly terms with the local police. More often then not, these police often come directly to ranches for their bribes and turn the other way when viewing the slave labor. More often than not, the wealthier of these ranchers are also high-ranking political figures in the state or county and are part of the law-making establishment. The itinerant workers don’t stand a chance against those kinds of odds.  

Moreover, the Catholic Church is just about the only hope these people have but the priests have for some unusual reason taken to warning the workers after the fact by distributing leaflets. As we have pointed out, these folks are not skilled at even understanding cartoons much less reading the printed word so that these forewarnings are for the most part logically unheeding because they go unread. No one has seemingly been willing to set the well-meaning church officials straight regarding the hopelessness of their actions, but keep in mind that this is indeed an overwhelmingly Catholic Country and the truth is that there are very wealthy land owners who are Catholic as well and the churches here are very poor. As P. T. Barnum once said, don’t give a sucker and even break.