Posted on 03/08/2015 11:38:31 AM PDT by Lorianne
Rising inflation, slowing growth, a weakening currency, surging debt and a deepening corruption scandal - Brazil is suddenly looking vulnerable ___ The more you look at Brazil’s fundamentals, the more shaky the country looks. And we are not talking about the defensive prowess of David Luiz here. It is the country’s economic backline that risks tumbling down like a set of dominoes.
When a Latin American economy is in trouble a good place to start is its inflation rate. Brazil’s is today running at 7.5%. While this is nowhere near the 2,000-3,000% of the early 1990s, when the price of everything went up several times a week, it is far higher than the central bank’s mid-point target of 4.5%.
On Wednesday, in an effort to bring inflation down, Brazil’s central bank raised interest rates to 12.75%, a six-year high.
The problem is that the country is hiking interest rates – and trying to curb high prices – at a time in which its economy is on the brink of recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The United States of America is precisely in line with Brazil's situation.
The list of those on the brink or in total collapse is much larger than the ones doing well.
That makes at least three basket cases in South America.
1) Venezuela
2) Argentina
3) Brazil
At some point the boat takes on so much water that you can’t bail it out fast enough.
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