[wardaddy]

I see Brasil in our future too and it is a horrible place to live compared to here.

as you know I know this from having lived there when it was actually better

[Clemenza]

The ironic thing is that although crime has gotten worse and more violent, the economy has improved since Cardoso's reforms in the 1990s. What you have is many in the working poor moving into the lower middle class. The "underclass" that is left behind, however, is far more brazen than what we have here (and larger, in terms of % of the population, to boot).

I still wonder if the demographic shifts and the respective effects on politics will cause a turn away from ideology to politics based on personality (as is the case in Brazil and, interestingly enough, New York City).