Hello, fellow humans...

I've had this Blogger account for a long time now, I opened it ot use it as an advertising tool when I was hyped about one of those "get your free PS3" scams, and never used it since then.

Well, I've never really had the patience to post anything here, but lately it came to my attention just how many hours of my life I, for some unknown reason, spend leaving huge comments (more like speeches) on other people's blogs, social networks, or websites.

So there comes the idea: why not post them here? At least I can look at them again in the future and gaze upon my own creations. Hehehe!

So here is my first post...

I was bored the other night browsing through Google News, I usually type in "Brazil", "Brazil Tax" or something of the kind (by the way, I must be one the very few 20-yr-old guys who spends his time of boredom reading the news instead of playing games or watching porn) in an almost subconscious search for good changes in my country, and found this:

http://www.brazzilmag.com/component/content/article/99-june-2011/12591-brazils-zero-misery-plan-gets-us-126-bi-a-year-to-lift-16-million.html

*If you look at the bottom you'll see my big ass comment, just so you know I'm crazy enough to actually post these comments

It was about another one of these social programs the Brazilian government is promoting, this time it's a big one, aiming at lifting the rest of th country out of poverty and onto the middle class. Well this is cool, but in Brazil most things the government does are a lot more about elections and re-elections than really doing something good for the country. In this case, the government keeps this slogan of Brazil as "The World's Powerhouse!", "Emerging Superpower!", or "Booming Economy!" in a way to fascinate the people into thinking things are getting a lot better when they really aren't, at least not for us. Now the government has this national slogan of "A Rich Country With No Poverty" when still, very few people have the feeling of being in a rich country.

That's the stark difference between being rich and simply having a lot of money... and that still is what differs us from developed countries.

Our mindset, even on resolving our poverty problems, still is of a poor country, and this is a little bit of what I develop on my comment...

Here's the comment I that threw me on:

Another socialist future failure
written by Ferdinand, June 04, 2011

This is just another stupid socialist program to reward laziness that will fail. Brazilian taxes are among the highest in the world. Most of the economy depends on government orders. The dream of the middle class youth is to become a civil servant because the market is already concentrated on the companies that supply the state, all the others having been absorbed by the big ones. In fact what we see in Brazil is the beginning of a national-socialist economy. More taxation to keep these programs working will mean the destruction of the free market in the country. You dont fight poverty with state-sponsored alms but with creating conditions for the free market to fully develop

...and my response:

I really agree with you, maybe not entirely, since these programs ARE of great benefit, but Brazil does takes the wrong turn when dealing with internal growth.

The country still occupies a spot in the list of 5 nations with the heaviest taxation in the world! And no noticeable reforms have been made so far. Products which (after much insistence from a minority of the government) are labeled as "needs", such as milk or meat, have specific laws added to waive them from some of the taxes. That's how computers came to be sold cheaper in the country, even though the quality:price ratio is still ridiculous when compared to developed countries.

The daily consumist life of an average Brazilian makes it almost unexplainable how Brazil still has internal growth:

Starting the day with a trip to the supermarket, Brazilians struggle to buy even the simplest daily "luxuries" such as a box of cereals or a bottle of orange juice: no matter how enormous the country's capacity of production is, these goods will still cost at least three times as much as in the US!

Now let's say our average Brazilian wants to build a home office, so he goes to the mall where he finds a "good" deal: 1,000R$ for a LOCALLY PRODUCED laptop which would cost about 300 dollars in the US!

Besides the laptop he also wants to buy a wireless router, but the cheapest one is 180R$! And let's remember that we're talking about a person who earns in Reais and spends in Reais, so spending 180R$ in Brazil feels a lot like spending 180U$ in North America!

Besides the router and the laptop, he wants to buy a chair and a desk. Well, for some strange reason the simplest wheeled chair will cost him about 200R$ and the desk that fits his needs is 300R$!

Conclusion, he'll probably only buy the laptop for now, splitting it into 12 monthly payments of 93,33R$ (interest!) on his credit card, and he better forget that All-Star he was staring at because it'll cost him another 200 of his hard-earned Reais![laughs]

Finally, when the end of the month comes, and our hero wants to buy himself a ride, I hope he's been saving money for a while because a "popular" car in Brazil, even when striped of basics such as A/C and automatic transmission, will still cost some 24,000R$!

Taxes here are so incomprehensible that taxation on products made in Brazil usually equal those imposed on imports, which where supposed to protect our industry, getting to the point where imported goods can actually be cheaper then national ones.

In my opinion, Brazil's market thrives out of stubbornness, and, if the country does not pay twice as much attention on reforming it's taxation, interest, and internal growth policies as it pays on social programs, these (social programs) could be have a disastrous end, as the smallest shift on economy could send this new, state-dependent, lower middle class right back into poverty.