Business leaders wake up as Brazil asks for help
Business leaders, economists and even financial market leaders have finally listened to the wake-up call. Over the weekend, two robust and correct demonstrations called for the country to be respected. More than 500 economists and bankers released a long, open letter to society demanding, mainly, the adoption of effective measures to contain the pandemic. In another demonstration, a group of businessmen and executives launched an offensive in Congress, not only for the emergency aid, but also in favor of the discussion of other social measures to help the impoverished Brazilian families.
It is redundant to mention here the suggestions made by the business leaders, including the financial sector. The proposals are basically those that we see daily in the mainstream press, in the desperate interviews with doctors, scientists, and relatives of the dead, as the pandemic's death toll approaches 300,000. In short, the proposals combat denialism and call for urgent government action.
As important as the suggestions made in the two documents is the fact that the businessmen have woken up to a reality: the country asks for help and cannot continue in this senseless march, with the head of the government not only ignoring the pandemic but also encouraging suicidal behavior by unwary Brazilians.
It is necessary to be frank and concede that the business leaders played a fundamental role in the election of the current president of the country. It is not necessary to remember that the support for this choice was based on the idea that, for better or worse, any government would be acceptable, as long as it did not represent the continuity of the four PT (Workers' Party) terms in power. Even today, with all the terrible consequences of more than two years in office, the businesspeople's support for the current government, in all polls, is much higher than the national average.
There was certainly omission, a behavior that seems to be changing now. It was believed, before and after the beginning of the government elected in 2018, that a free-market economic policy exclusively focused on fiscal tightening, failing to consider the impact of this policy on the lives of people who lose their jobs, could save the country. For a certain period, this belief materialized in the pension reform, which would clean up the public accounts over the next decade and boost investment and growth. All the savings imagined for the ten years have already been spent on the...
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