<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5">
<div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <b><small><small><small><a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/brazilian-coup-threatens_b_9694928.html"
id="reader-domain" class="domain"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/brazilian-coup-threatens_b_9694928.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/brazilian-coup-threatens_b_9694928.html</a></a></small></small></small></b>
<h1 id="reader-title">Brazilian Coup Threatens Democracy and
National Sovereignty</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Mark Weisbrot - April
14, 2016<br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="content">
<div style="display: block;" id="moz-reader-content">
<div
xml:base="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/brazilian-coup-threatens_b_9694928.html"
id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div class="entry__content js-entry-content">
<div class="entry__body js-entry-body">
<p>Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is now threatened
with impeachment, but there is no evidence that she is
linked to the “<a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/20/brazil-corruption-impeachment-probe"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":0}}">Lava
Jato</a>“ scandal, or any other corruption. Rather,
she is accused of an accounting manipulation that
somewhat misrepresented the fiscal position of the
government — something that prior presidents have
done. To borrow an analogy from the United States,
when the Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling
in the U.S. in 2013, the Obama administration used a
number of accounting tricks to postpone the deadline
at which the limit was reached. Nobody cared. </p>
<p>The impeachment campaign — which the government has
correctly labelled a coup — is an effort by Brazil’s
traditional elite to obtain by other means what they
have not been able to win at the ballot box for the
past 12 years. Former president Lula is accused of
receiving money from corporations for speeches, and
for renovations to a property that he claims he did
not own. But even if these accusations are true, there
is no evidence of a crime or even a link to
corruption. The alleged events took place after Lula
left the presidency — and again, as in the U.S.,
former officials can legally get paid for speeches.
Yet Judge Sergio Moro, who is leading the
investigation, has led a well-executed smear campaign
against Lula. He had to apologize to the Supreme Court
for releasing wiretapped phone conversations between
Lula and Dilma, Lula and his attorney, and even Lula’s
wife and their children. </p>
<p>Of course the Workers’ Party would not be vulnerable
to this coup attempt if the economy were not mired in
a deep recession. But here too, the media is patently
wrong, agitating for further spending cuts and high
interest rates that only worsen and prolong the
downturn. To the contrary, Brazil needs a serious
stimulus to jump-start the economy. Fortunately, the
country has about $353 billion in international
reserves, and is therefore not constrained by the
balance of payments. </p>
<p>The main obstacle to recovery is the power of the big
banks, which are like Wall Street in the U.S., but on
steroids. Brazil is paying nearly seven percent of GDP
in interest on its public debt — more than Greece at
the height of its debt crisis. But Brazil has no debt
crisis, nor any significant threat of default. Its
usurious interest payments are a result of the
political power of its own banks, who currently enjoy
a record-breaking 34 percent spread between their
borrowing and lending rates. Just reducing Brazil’s
public debt service to its level of a few years ago
would allow for a major stimulus — about 3.5 percent
of GDP — that could pull the country out of recession.</p>
<p>The U.S. government has been quiet about this coup
attempt but there is little doubt here about where it
stands. It has always supported coups against left
governments in the hemisphere, including — in just the
21st century — <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/washington-fernando-lugo-ouster-paraguay"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":1}}">Paraguay</a>
in 2012, Haiti in <a target="_hplink"
href="http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/for-us-in-haiti-black-votes-don-t-matter"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":2}}">2011</a>
and <a target="_hplink"
href="http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/regime-change-in-haiti-a-coup-by-any-other-name"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":3}}">2004</a>,
<a target="_hplink"
href="http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/top-ten-ways"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":4}}">Honduras</a>
in 2009, and <a target="_hplink"
href="http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/venezuelas-election-provides-opportunity-for-washington-to-change-course#U.S.%20Support%20for%20the%20Coup"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":5}}">Venezuela</a>
in 2002. President Obama went to Argentina to lavish
praise on the new right-wing, pro-U.S. government
there, and the administration reversed its prior
policy of blocking multilateral loans to Argentina. It
could be a coincidence that the scandal at Petrobras
followed a major <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":6}}">NSA
spying operation</a> that targeted the company — or
not. And within Brazil today, the opposition is
dominated by politicians who favor Washington. It
would be an added shame if Brazil lost much of its
national sovereignty, as well as democracy, from this
sordid coup. <br>
<em><a target="_hplink"
href="http://cepr.net/about-us/staff/mark-weisbrot"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":7}}"><br>
Mark Weisbrot</a> is co-director of the <a
target="_hplink" href="http://www.cepr.net/"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":8}}">Center
for Economic and Policy Research</a> in
Washington, D.C., and the president of <a
target="_hplink"
href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":9}}">Just
Foreign Policy</a>. He is also the author of the
new book “<a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.cepr.net/publications/failed-what-the-experts-got-wrong-about-the-global-economy"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":10}}">Failed:
What the ‘Experts’ Got Wrong About the Global
Economy</a>“ (2015, Oxford University Press).</em></p>
<p><em>This op-ed was originally published in Portuguese
by Folha de Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest-circulation
newspaper, on April 14, 2016.</em></p>
</div>
<div
data-beacon="{"p":{"mlid":"sidebar_right"}}"
class="right-rail">
<div
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"mod_follow"}}"
class="follow-us">
<section class="follow-us__window"><br>
</section>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>