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Originally Posted by Loki
This week a Brazilian congressman was arrested. Since 1988 constituent assembly, this is the first time a congressman is indeed put behind the jails. We are (slowly) improving :D
http://br.noticias.yahoo.com/donadon...004055706.html
Maybe Brazilians are annoyed by the same thing. Their unemployment rate is ~ 15%, their healthcare system is cracking, and many people (reportedly) go to sports stadiums to get first aid because their clinics/hospitals are overwhelmed and underfunded. :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Something like 1/3 of their legislators are under indictment for some crime or other, but they're the ones appropriating money for these public projects....when people need/want better schools, clinics, transportation. Seems like a crazy idea to take a nation struggling in post-boom economic times, rife with political corruption, and build sports venues in order to win the bid for the Olympics. It didn't work for Greece, either, and now they've got huge venues they can't maintain.
Because state tax dollars were used in building those stadiums, and to expand infrastructure (with hikes in police and fire manpower), they often have a legal obligation to share access. But I think they still exchange money to borrow the spaces for summer sport camps or graduation ceremonies at a professional stadium, or small pro teams using school stadiums.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
We usually don´t use stadiums here for such things, mainly for music shows or for religious events. We have very active (and profitable, since they don´t pay any tax to government) evangelic churches. But it could work for big cities, like Rio or São Paulo, but not for the others, there is no such demand to justify these huge costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
The Brasilia city (country capital) stadium is costing around 0,8 billion dollars and there is ZERO city teams in the main football league. Why I would spent 0,8 billion dollars of state tax dollars to build a white elephant ? Lot of reasons: Incompetency, demagogy, lack of priorities and so on...
Brazil has money to improve overall, we work 5 months in a year only to pay taxes, so the money is not the problem. The main question is that this money is not well spent.
Welcome to the World.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerberos2002
The difference being that Brazil has first world taxes and third world services.
:up: well saidQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
yesterday was federation cup final, spain x brazil, very few attention from our media about protests around the stadium while the game was happening, some photos :
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOBxvRHCUAAUkO5.jpg
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOB4PsPCMAIuWJO.jpg
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOCcPzPCAAEHphB.jpg
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOC3SXaCIAANvgG.png
rubber bullets and tear gas
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOCnpCNCEAA75rp.jpg
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOC5Vx3CMAAMzzg.jpg
the police did a circle of 2km radius around the stadium, only people with tickets could get into.
The economy is deteriorating, population is sick of excuses and will-be-better promises.
This will be kinder spiele compared with the mess that will come on World Cup.
Yeah, and it was a bad decision to raise bus fares (for those who can't afford it) in order to build sports arenas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
It's a symptom of a much bigger disease. Brazil extracts 34% of GDP in taxes (incidentally, Turkey isn't far behind). That's 7% higher than in the US, and only a few percents lower than most of the welfare states in Europe. For that money, Brazil has an infant mortality rate more than 3 times higher than that of the US, and more than double of Brazil's neighbors. Brazil is 85th in the UN HDI ranking (Turkey is 90th), behind such great countries as Georgia, Mauritius, and Iran.
Brazil was also considered a growing economy, worthy of 'investment', along with Russia, India, China (BRIC). But that was during boom times, before the global financial crisis and Great Recession.
The global bank I used to work for was investing heavily in Brazil when I left two years ago. Much of their centralised off-shore operation was being moved from India to Brazil too.
I wonder if they're still as enthusiastic.
Which is irrelevant to the points being made in this thread, but carry on as usual.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
It was a comparison to your bleak factoids, and a reminder that Brazil was a booming economy that attracted international investors (as Tim also pointed out). But when a boom turns sour, or proves too fragile to recover from a global recession and financial crisis, it's not a good idea for government to ignore millions of disgruntled citizens. That is totally relevant to social unrest, occupy movements, Arab Springs. :donkey:
Maybe if Brazil cut its tax rates it could get some more investments and growth. :o
at the same time is necessary to lower federal expenditures, most of taxes are to cover such costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
So maybe cut subsidies to organisations and let them charge proper costs to users - eg bus users can pay more on their tickets rather than general taxation ;)
Egypt one-upped Brazil I guess. :eek: