A redução da desigualdade: Deu no NYT

Enquanto a Folha destaca que a Criação de vagas é a menor em dez anos apenas o IG repercute o artigo de ontem no New York Times.

É vital a análise da relação entre índices de crescimento e sua relação com as taxas de emprego e a redução da desigualdade. Embora haja considerações contrárias por aqui, o avanço em outras questões (além das econômicas) está totalmente ligada a redução da, ainda, enorme desigualdade de distribuição de renda e oportunidades brasileira.

O atual governo, recebe críticas quando acerta e é aplaudido quando erra. A parcela rentista do país que brigava há meses pelo aumento da Selic está exultante. Alguns milhões a mais caem mensalmente em suas contas, sem exigir o menor esforço. Serão, direta ou indiretamente, responsáveis pela redução na criação de vagas? Isto a Folha não analisa.

do IG

TERÇA-FEIRA, 21 DE JANEIRO DE 2014Economia | 14:00

Modelo econômico brasileiro é tema de editorial do ‘NYT’:

Um editorial publicado nesta terça-feira pelo The New York Times usa o Brasil como exemplo para colocar em pauta a polêmica sobre a importância dos índices de crescimento da economia, diante dos avanços na redução da desigualdade social e dos níveis de emprego.

Num longo texto intitulado “Does Brazil have the answer?”, o articulista Joe Nocera conta como se impressionou com o avanço da classe média brasileira e visível ganho no poder de compra no país. Mas admite que, em conversas com economistas, se deparou com uma perspectiva de desaceleração do PIB e com a tese de que faltou o país investir em produtividade. Ao comparar o Brasil com os Estados Unidos, entretanto, ele questiona se os índices econômicos são de fato a melhor métrica para avaliar o ganho alcançado com a política do atual governo.

“É possível, é claro, que a economia do Brasil tenha alcançado um limite e que alguns dos ganhos obtidos até agora sejam revertidos. Uma nova ênfase no investimento e empreendendorismo provavelmente poderiam ajudar. Os protestos espontâneos ocorridos no último verão (no hemisfério norte) foram resultado de uma classe média que quer todo tipo de coisa que uma classe média sempre quer: serviços melhores, mais qualidade nas escolas, menos corrupção”, afirma o texto. “Ainda assim, o exemplo do Brasil nos faz levantar a questão que não colocamos suficientemente no nosso país: de que serve o crescimento econômico se ninguém tem emprego?”

Do NYT

Does Brazil Have the Answer?

JAN. 20, 2014

Joe Nocera

What I saw was no illusion. Though its starting point was quite extreme, Brazil is a country that has seen income inequality drop over the last decade.Unemployment is at near record lows. And the growth of the middle class is quite stunning. By most estimates, upward of 40 million people have been pulled out of poverty in the last decade; extreme poverty, says the government, has been reduced by 89 percent. Per capita income has continued to grow even as G.D.P. growth has slowed.Not long after I got back from my recent trip to Brazil, I called some economists to gain a better understanding of where the country stood economically. To me, Rio de Janeiro felt a little like Shanghai: there was plenty of high-end shopping in neighborhoods like Ipanema — and plenty of poverty in the favelas, or slums. There was also a lot in between. What is most striking to a visitor is how many middle-class citizens there seem to be. Cars were everywhere; traffic jams, I’ve come to believe, are a sign of a growing middle class. It means people have enough money to buy automobiles.

Nevertheless, the economists I spoke to were uniformly bearish about the short-term future of the Brazilian economy. They pointed, for starters, to that slowdown in G.D.P., which they didn’t expect to pick up anytime soon. Despite the country’s enormous economic gains since the beginning of this century, there has been very little accompanying productivity gains. Indeed, several economists told me that the main reason unemployment was so low was that the economy was terribly inefficient. Too much of the economy was in the hands of the state, I was told, and, what’s more, it was a consumption-based economy that lacked necessary investment. And on and on. I got the sense that many economists believe that Brazil had been more lucky than good, and now its luck was running out. In a recent article about the Brazilian economy, The Economist put it starkly: “The Deterioration,” read its headline.

As I listened to the economists, though, I couldn’t help thinking about our own economy. Our G.D.P. growth was more than 4 percent in the third quarter of 2013, and, of course, our productivity has risen relentlessly. But, despite the growth, unemployment only recently dropped below 7 percent. And the middle class is slowly but surely being eviscerated — thanks, at least in part, to those productivity gains. Income inequality has become a fact of life in the United States, and while politicians decry that fact, they seem incapable of doing anything about it. Which made me wonder: Whose economy runs better, really?

A few years ago, Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker wrote a lengthy article about Brazil in which he quoted from an email he received from Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff. “The main aim of economic development must always be the improvement of living conditions,” she told him. “You cannot separate the two concepts.”

In other words, Brazil’s admittedly leftist government doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about growth for its own sake, but rather connects it with alleviating poverty and growing the middle class. Thus, it has a high minimum wage, for instance. It has laws making it exceedingly difficult to fire a laggard employee. It controls the price of gasoline, helping to make driving affordable.

RECENT COMMENTSGerry 12 hours ago

Brazil is no closer to ‘the Answer’ than Ireland was decades ago. The magazine the Economist held up Ireland as the answer to prosperity…

Garrett 12 hours ago

Looks like Brazil is enduring the nightmare of “socialism,” like those poor suckers living in the “socialist” hellscape of Europe. Think…

Bob 12 hours ago

How many people link economic growth to the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many?

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And most striking of all — at least from the point of view of an American — for the last 10 years, Brazil has had a program called Bolsa Família, which essentially hands money to mothers living in poverty. In return, they have to ensure that their children go to school and avail themselves of health care services. There is no question that Bolsa Família has been enormously effective in reducing poverty.

By contrast here in the United States, Congress just refused to extend unemployment insurance. The farm bill envisions cutting back on food stamps. Various other programs to help the poor or the unemployed have been reduced. Even those who oppose such heartless cuts assume that once the economy comes back, all will be well again. Growth will take care of everything. Thus in America, we tend to view economic growth less as a means to an end than an end in itself.

It is, of course, possible that Brazil’s economy could hit the wall and some of the gains made could be reversed. A new emphasis on investment and entrepreneurship could probably help it. The spontaneous protests last summer were the results of the new middle class wanting the sorts of things that the middle class always wants: better services, higher quality schools, less corruption. Still, the Brazil example gives rise to a question we don’t ask enough in this country:

What’s the point of economic growth if nobody has a job?

Correction: January 21, 2014

An earlier version of this column misstated the United States unemployment rate. It is 6.7 percent, not 7 percent.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 21, 2014, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Does Brazil Have the Answer?. Order Reprints|Today’s Paper|Subscribe