How do you squeeze hunger and the stock market into the same story? Start with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, "Lula" for short, Brazil's first elected left-wing president. As if that's not mediagenic enough, he has a fifth-grade education, used to sell peanuts and shine shoes for a living, moved on to be a union boss, and has run for president three times before. Yeah, the U.S. has had outsider presidential candidates before, but Lula actually won.
The media gave everyone a Brazilian history lesson, and so will we. (Don't worry, we'll make it short. You, in the back, no spitballs.) Brazil's last left-wing president was a vice president who took over after a presidential resignation. Then came a right-wing military coup, and Brazil only got to elect its leaders again starting in 1985. Democracy is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills: Brazil is the ninth-largest economy but it also has $260 million in public debt, around 50 million citizens living in poverty, and the fourth-widest disparity in the world between the rich and the poor. Cynics might wonder why Lula, or anyone, would actually want the job of turning this boat around.
The stock market and Brazilian currency suffered for months while the money-handlers of the world pondered Lula's working class history, including jail time for union activism. Some economists worry that Lula and the leaders of Venezuela and Cuba "could make up a trio of maverick South American leaders who could undermine the entire continent's economy," said the Telegraph. Investors fear Brazil might default on its giant debt under Lula's leadership, or that he might overspend on social programs. Brazilian banks, however, "congratulated Mr da Silva on a victory that represents the desire for change among millions of dispossessed people," said the Independent. Local banks to world investors: It's a Brazilian thing, you wouldn't understand.
The U.S. may not understand, and Lula opposes Dubya's ideal of a hemisphere-wide free trade zone, but Bush called to (cautiously) congratulate him. U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was also sounded cautiously optimistic until he said, "Markets are going to look very carefully at what he does today, tomorrow, and in the next week to provide reassurance that he's not a crazy person." It's that sort of tactful diplomacy that makes Americans so loved around the world.
Lula's promises to the poor helped get him elected, and he kept it up on Monday in his first presidential speech. "The market should also be aware that Brazilians have to eat three times a day and that there are many people who are hungry," he said, and declared job creation a top priority. Since the homeless and hungry don't trade equities, the Brazilian markets tanked after the speech. Finance journos used the phrase "wait and see" fairly often, but we think they might have been making excuses for debt-obsessed investors who think poverty relief is bad news.
Even in a recession, the United States is such a wealthy country that we hesitate to make even loose comparisons with Brazil. But in Unspun's usual scan of media sites Monday night, we happened to read that there's been a dramatic increase in hungry children in New York City, and that almost 20% of children in the well-off Seattle suburb of Bellvue receive subsidized school lunches. Here's hoping the U.S. won't have to reach Brazil's level of poverty before a president puts feeding people at the top of the to-do list. - Jen Muehlbauer
Brazil Leader Moves to Reduce Hunger (AP)
http://tinyurl.com/2a39
Brazil's First Leftist Leader Pledges Help For The Poor
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=346867
President-Elect Lula Pledges Progress for Brazil
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID=1645155
Lula Praises Brazilian Democratization
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021028-044823-1367r
Brazil Hails New Leader (The Telegraph)
http://tinyurl.com/2a3a
Brazil Elects Lula in a Landslide
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28325-2002Oct27.html
Brazilian Elections
http://online.wsj.com/page/0,,2_0862,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)
Brazil Real Soft After Lula Wins Vote, Stocks Dive (Reuters)
http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2002/10/28/rtr768923.html
Markets Slump On Lula Speech
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2368179.stm
Leftist Brazilian Victor Moves to Calm Nervous Markets
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/international/americas/29BRAZ.html
Hunger Has Younger Face
http://nydailynews.com/front/story/30752p-29128c.html
Nearly 20 Percent Of Bellevue Kids Now Get Lunch Aid (Seattle Times)
http://tinyurl.com/2a3c
