http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/opinion/nocera-does-brazil-have-the-answer.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
In this link Joe Nocera talks about the economy of Brazil and how in the last decade it has improve through many projects. Over a decade ago there was a huge poverty problem that Brazil had and within the decade the "extreme poverty" was reduce by 89%, which is around 40 million people being pulled out of poverty. This leads to a more stable economy because there more of a middle class rather just have a huge gap between the rich and poor.
Further down the article Joe goes on to compare Brazil and Americas' GDP and Unemployment rate. He says how America's GDP and Unemployment rate is slowing getting better. On the other hand is cutting down on food stamps and other programs helping out the poor. While Brazil was making rapid improvements. He explain these improvement by talking about certain projects like Bolsa FamÃlia, which is basically hands out money to mothers in poverty. This isn't the only project that Brazil is doing for poor. As well has kept the minimum wage high, but also making laws to make it very hard to fire a employe that are falling being others. On top of that, the government controls the prices of gasoline so it is affordable for the people to get around.
In the End Joe believes that Brazil will hit a wall because of the improvement can be easily reverse because the middle class will always want better "better services, higher quality schools, less corruption."
In the third paragraph of the article, the author describes what he has heard from other economists concerning Brazil's economy. One of the problems the economists state is high inefficiency. Recalling lessons from Econ 110, I think it would be interesting to see the effects of removing many of the state controls, which bring inefficiency. In my opinion, allowing the market to reach equilibrium in the market for labor, fuel, etc. would help the economy overall.
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