Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Argentina’s Economy Minister Backs Wealth Tax, Rejects Austerity
Sebastian Boyd. Bloomberg. April 19, 2020
Argentine Economy Minister Martin Guzman has backed the idea of a wealth tax on the country’s rich as the nation to fend off creditors and find money to help cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The tax would affect 11,000 people with fortunes of at least $2 million, Guzman said, without specifying where that cut-off point might come. He spoke in an interview with journalist Horacio Verbitsky, published on the website El Cohete a la Luna. President Alberto Fernandez, in a separate interview, spoke of the need for wealth redistribution.
Argentina lacks room for austerity or cutbacks and needs to reprogram its debt with the International Monetary Fund, Guzman said, as the country enters crunch negotiations with creditors. Argentina, which is due to make about $500 million of debt payments on April 22, last week announced proposals for a deal that would see it pushing back most of its payments until the next decade.
Argentina won’t be able to deal with its debt obligations to the IMF until 2023, Guzman said, adding that he thinks the fund understands that the debt will have to be reorganized.
Because of the health crisis, it doesn’t make sense for countries that have limited resources to pay creditors, Guzman said. That would make recovery more difficult once the pandemic is over. Even before the crisis though, Argentina was already unable to pay its debt.
Argentina had 2,839 confirmed Covid-19 cases and has reported 132 deaths. It has imposed a nationwide lockdown since March 20, which appears to have helped flatten the rate of infections.
The deal proposed on April 16 includes a three-year moratorium on all payments, a 5% reduction on principal and a 62% reduction in interest payments. That’s the same proposal Argentina would have made before the virus, the minister said.
The wealth-tax idea comes from lawmakers who had suggested a tax on people with assets of more than $3 million. That’s at the official exchange rate of around 66 pesos per dollar. The blue-chip swap rate, a measure of where the peso would be if it were floating, has fallen to 103 pesos per dollar amid speculation the country is preparing to print more money.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro trumps Trump
Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Inter-Press Service. April 21, 2020
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 21 2020 (IPS) - Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro appointed medical entrepreneur Nelson Teich his new health minister on 17 April. The businessman quickly echoed his boss’ desire to resume business as usual regardless of its potentially lethal consequences.
Bolsonaro had fired his previous health minister, displeased by Luiz Henrique Mandetta’s public remarks on the need for lockdowns and physical distancing. Mandetta’s firing was met with outrage across Brazil. Locked-down citizens banged pots and pans, shouting “Bolsonaro Murder”.
In his final briefing as minister, Mandetta urged staff to challenge “denialism” and mount an “unyielding defence of life and science”. “Don’t be afraid”, he said, “Science is light … and it is through science that we will find a way out of this.”
Covid-19 apocalypse
Meanwhile, Brazil has begun digging large graveyards ahead of an anticipated peak of the national Covid-19 epidemic. In Sao Paulo’s Vila Formosa cemetery, the largest in Latin America, about 20 excavators are digging graves around the clock.
In an impassioned interview, popular former President Lula da Silva accused Bolsonaro of leading Brazilians “to the slaughterhouse” with his irresponsible handling of the crisis. Officially confirmed cases have soared to over 38,000, with close to 2,500 deaths as of April 19.
But these figures likely understate the gravity of the situation as Brazil’s states have no standardized testing method, and mainly test those hospitalized. A Brazilian research group estimates actual infections at 15 times the official number. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff has asked: “Why is there no testing? What are they trying to conceal?”
Another study projects that without any action to stem the pandemic, Brazil could face more than 1.15 million deaths, and 529779 with only ‘enhanced social distancing’ for the elderly over 70. Even with extreme lockdown measures and widespread testing, the death toll would still be 44,200 due to late action.
Bolsonaro vs state governors
Despite the life-threatening risks, Bolsonaro has compared the C-19 threat to a “little flu” or “cold”, dismissing it as a media-hyped “fantasy”. He has dismissed preventive measures as “hysterical” and has repeatedly demanded that state governors withdraw their social distancing orders.
On March 24, Bolsonaro emulated US President Donald Trump, claiming “those under 40 rarely die of coronavirus and that even he, at 65, shouldn’t be worried because he was ‘an athlete’ in the past”. On April 8, Bolsonaro passed the buck, “Each family has to protect its elderly people, not to throw that responsibility to the state.”
Bolsonaro has disregarded social distancing recommendations, urging others to also defy them. At a pro-government rally he called on March 15, he shook hands with the crowd while supposed to be in quarantine after 24 people who had travelled with him to the United States had tested positive for the virus!
The Brazilian president has also lashed out at Brazil’s state governors, who have ordered shops and schools closed to slow the spread of the pandemic that threatens to overwhelm the health system in Latin America’s largest nation. Nevertheless, Brazil’s 27 state governors have defiantly maintained restrictions.
Sao Paulo has been the epicentre of the outbreak in Brazil. Without offering a shred of evidence, Bolsonaro accused the state of exaggerating its Covid-19 deaths. Its governor Joao Doria has accused Bolsonaro of unleashing an “uncontrolled attack” against him for his strict measures in the economically crucial industrial state.
Bolsonaro vs courts, congress
The President’s March 20 executive order, stripping states of authority to restrict people’s movements, was revoked by Brazil’s Supreme Court four days later.
On March 23, Bolsonaro issued a presidential order suspending deadlines for government agencies to respond to public information requests, including his policies to address the health emergency. Brazil’s Congress rejected the decree.
On March 27, a federal court suspended Bolsonaro’s presidential decree the previous day exempting churches and lottery houses from state and municipal health regulations by classifying them as essential services, also barring the federal government from over-ruling social distancing measures enacted by states.
On March 28, a federal judge ordered the federal government to stop a publicity campaign urging Brazilians to flout social distancing recommendations, initiated by the president’s own communications office and his son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.
On April 1, Bolsonaro posted a video claiming shortages of food and other essential products because of Minas Gerais state government measures, which his own agriculture minister later admitted was false.
Military is back
Meanwhile, the Brazilian elite is losing faith in Bolsonaro as his handling of the crisis threatens to call into question the entire status quo. In response, Bolsonaro has appointed his Chief of Staff Gen. Walter Braga Netto to head a new crisis committee.
Braga Netto was praised by Vice President Gen. Hamilton Mourão for “doing what we (the military) know, putting the house in order”, less than a week after Mourão celebrated the 1964 US-backed military coup that led to a 21-year military dictatorship, tweeting “56 years ago, the Armed Forces intervened to face the disorder, subversion and corruption that ravaged institutions and scared the population”.
Meanwhile, Army Commander Gen. Edson Leal Pujol issued a March 24 statement, warning: “The Strong Arm will act if necessary, and the Friendly Hand will be more extended than ever to our Brazilian brothers”, concluding “WE WILL FIGHT WITHOUT FEAR!”
It has been suggested that Braga Netto is now “operational president”, with Army support, at least for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis. On April 19, Bolsonaro joined demonstrations in Brasilia protesting coronavirus-related lockdowns, calling for a military coup outside Army headquarters!
The main objective of enhancing federal executive powers is expected to be preventing, and, if necessary, repressing an increasingly likely social explosion.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro denounced for joining pro-dictatorship rally
Tom Phillips. The Guardian. April 20, 2020
Former presidents, politicians and newspaper editorial boards have lined up to denounce the “moronic” and “anti-democratic” behaviour of Brazil’s far-right leader after he hit the streets to egg on protesters demanding a return to military dictatorship.
As the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 rose to nearly 2,500 on Sunday, Jair Bolsonaro left his presidential palace in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to fraternize with flag-waving radicals.
Among the demands their banners listed were an end to the social distancing measures opposed by Bolsonaro, the closure of Brazil’s congress and supreme court, and a re-run of a dictatorship-era decree used by military rulers in the late 1960s to suffocate their political opponents.
At one point – snubbing social distancing rules for the umpteenth time since the coronavirus crisis began – Brazil’s paratrooper-turned-president clambered onto a truck to address the hundreds-strong assembly.
“The era of roguery is over. Now it’s the people who are in power,” Bolsonaro proclaimed outside the Brazilian army headquarters, coughing repeatedly as he spoke.
“Everyone in Brazil must understand that they must yield to the will of the Brazilian people.”
Bolsonaro’s outing – which some suspect was a deliberate provocation designed to distract from the rising Covid-19 death toll – sparked immediate censure.
Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who governed from 1995 until 2003, tweeted: “Deplorable for the president to join anti-democratic protests. It’s time to unite around the constitution against all threats to democracy.”
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president from 2003 to 2010, tweeted: “The same constitution that allows a president to be democratically elected also contains devices to stop them leading the country to the destruction of democracy and a genocide of the population.”
Rodrigo Maia, the head of Brazil’s lower house, said Brazil was in a dual fight against coronavirus “and the virus of authoritarianism”.
“In total, 2,462 deaths have been recorded in Brazil. Preaching a democratic rupture in the face of these deaths represents an unforgivable cruelty to the families of victims,” Maia tweeted. “We don’t have time to waste with coup-mongering bombast.”
Eduardo Paes, Rio de Janeiro’s former mayor, tweeted: “There have always been morons going around ranting against democracy … Generally they’re minorities whose tickles you don’t even feel.”
“[But it’s] something quite different when it’s the president – a democratically elected one – joining this kind of movement. There’s no way to remain quiet and not repudiate this,” Paes added.
The O Globo broadsheet called Bolsonaro’s speech a “dangerous” assault on the democratic rule of law.
Even members of the military top brass were reportedly upset, with one senior official urging citizens to ignore Bolsonaro’s actions. “Let the president talk to the nutters on his lonesome,” they told the news magazine Veja.
On Monday morning Bolsonaro denied he had been attacking Brazilian democracy but told reporters: “I am actually the Constitution”.
Bolsonaro is a longstanding fan of the military men who ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985, and autocrats including Chile’s Augusto Pinochet.
Bolsonaro’s reaction to Covid-19 – which he has downplayed as media “hysteria” – has proved similarly controversial. Last week Bolsonaro sacked his popular health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who had clashed with him for undermining health ministry recommendations designed to protect Brazilian lives.
Mandetta’s replacement Nelson Teich made no immediate comment on Bolsonaro’s decision to flout the same guidelines on Sunday.
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