MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
In eight years Brazilian officials skimmed 37.7bn dollars from government coffers
Brazilian officials skimmed at least a staggering equivalent of 37.7bn dollars from government coffers in just eight years of corruption cases from 2003-2010, the Rio do Janeiro daily O Globo reported, based on numbers from the country’s Public Accounts ombudsman. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesFOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS of Brasilian's money stolen by the politicians - largely under Lula's period of management.
Oct 26th, 2011 - 09:57 am - Link - Report abuse 0Is there any wonder I get upset!
British lightweights :-)))))
Oct 26th, 2011 - 11:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0MPs' expenses: 'duck island' Conservative is forced to retire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/20/mps-expenses-peter-viggers-conservatives
Considering everything I know of O Globo, I'm inclined to believe that is an invention.
Oct 27th, 2011 - 02:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“largely under Lula's period of management”
Don't be silly, Geoff. Even if one is to take O Globo's numbers seriously, they only analyzed the 8 years period coinciding with Lula's government. So of course it was largely under his government, genius. It is also under his period that there have been the largest amount of prosecutions involving political corruption, whilst in the FHC period corruption was hidden and FHC himself said he didn't want any prosecutions against politicians during his government (he did say that, and I can prove it).
@sticky
Since when do you intellectual dwarf care about Brazilian issues? Are you commenting on here because of me? Have my treatment of your decadent country hurt your feelings?
whilst in the FHC period corruption was hidden and FHC himself said he didn't want any prosecutions against politicians during his government
Oct 27th, 2011 - 03:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0That will mr Geoff never admit and he can't. In his head it's not possible and it only happens under the left wing administration. Again it's an ideologue of the so called “right/right-wing side”... similar like the ideological cooks on the so called “left/left-wing side”.
(he did say that, and I can prove it).
Do that, but even if you do that, he won't read it, because it doesn't make sense in his perspective, though he won't admit that, even if he reads it, he won't admit that you're right, even if he admits he will come up something like this: yeah yeah but lula had more corruption/corruption cases and won't admit that Globo is biased, what isn't a secret at all. Globo, cnn, bbc, fox, sky is good in his head, period. Remember Forget, it's an old brainwashed man from the time that the UK was something. was, not anymore. They don't and cannot change, include thinking.
forget about sticky. he's not intellectual, neither a dwarf, but just worthless as his silly island, the UK. They are fading away, even geoff knows that, what breaks his heart.
Collor and his bag-man treasurer, PC Farias also showed Brasil true corruption. Interestingly, it was the students of Brasil who managed his/their downfall.
Oct 27th, 2011 - 04:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0FHC brought something of a respite from corruption, though the country was by no means clean.
Then Lula.
Then Dilma.
Seems to be a classic roller coaster of corruption
UP . . . DOWN . . . UP . . . DOWN . . . ?
commenting on here because of me?
Oct 27th, 2011 - 05:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You think a lot of yourself dont ya
“FHC brought something of a respite from corruption, though the country was by no means clean”
Oct 27th, 2011 - 06:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0He brought nothing. According to Transparency International's data, impressions of corruption didn't change from his government to Lula's. The only new thing FHC introduced into politics for the first time in our history was the change in the constitution allowing for reelections - an ammedment he managed to pass by buying Congressmen's votes. This is noteworthy: not even the military presidents challenged at any point that a president shouldn't be in office for longer than one term.
Anyway, you tell me, Geoff, do you want me to bring on here FHC's own words saying that he didn't want corruption cases that happened during his government to be investigated, that he thinks everything that occured in the past - when “past” meant FHC, not Lula, administration - should be forgotten? Great respite indeed. If there was a respite, it was on the media's part - respite in overblown, anti-government populist rhetoric: to be more precise, connivence towards right-wing corruption since the FHC government was, more than any other administration in our history, committed to the same goals as our media's: advancing the interests of the financial class.
It might be worth comparing the personal fortunes made by FHC and family compared to Lula da Silva and family.
Oct 27th, 2011 - 06:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Any corruption personally attached to Lula?
Or did it all pass him by, unnoticed? ('There are none so blind as those that will not see´)
Any corruption personally attached to FHC? (that president and member of the Far Right - joke)
Any corruption personally attached to Collor & PSF?
Any corruption attached personally and presently attaching to Rousseff?
Yes, Forgetit, it IS time you brought the evidences so we can weigh them and test my assertion in #5.
Do it and be damned!
You tell me, Geoff. If you have something material on Lula, or any of Lula's relations, becoming rich during his presidency, just say it. But afaik, it wasn't Lula who, at the end of his presidency, immediately left the country to pass some relaxing in his Paris condo.
Oct 27th, 2011 - 08:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0$Real 400,000,000,000 (400 billion) stolen over the decade
Oct 28th, 2011 - 01:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0and not a centavos accruing to Lula?
Pull the other one!
I'm sure that, as an adult over the last decade, you have knowledge of corruptions and allegations over four administrations, and you should have a historical knowledge of Collor/PSF´s naughtinesses.
Go on, put pen to paper.
Read it again. According to O Globo - again, no reputable source -, it was 37 billion dollars. It wasn't 400 billion (go check the exchange rate), or do you think that in less than a decade people could've just taken Argentina's GDP away from national coffers? Where are those new billionairs, btw? For if those numbers are true, Brazil must have the highest billionaire per capita rate of any country in the world.
Oct 28th, 2011 - 06:13 am - Link - Report abuse 0And please, Geoff, whatever the number is, it is no proof that the president benefited from it. Your hostility against him is so overblown, you're willing to libel him over such flimsy grounds.
“Veja on Sunday cited the influential Sao Paulo chamber of industries as saying a jaw-dropping more than 400 billion dollars are thought to have been stolen from the government and taxpayers in the past 10 years.” (Verbatim, this article)
Oct 28th, 2011 - 12:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Libel?
Even pro rata, the Veja-quoted theft from the people by 'Brasilian officials' over Lula´s terms as President (8 years) works out at 320 billion dollars :- @ median exchange rate = 1,500 billion Reais = 1.5 trillion Reais!!!
And the Lula´s PT(coalition) process of - allegedly - institutionalising state corruption makes 'pro rata' a distinct *under*-estimate!
No, the question stands -
with this level of corruption (accepting a generous +/- 10%), is it likely that the only person to have NOT benefited from this theft of the people´s money in the guy on the top of the money-heap?
For it is the common talk around Bahia that Lula is the largest cattle -baron in Brasil (and don´t say the cattle-count with the Lula brand does not support the assertion - you know how these things are done).
Accrued as a union official? (Unlikely, even for a Hoffa).
Accrued as a public speaker? (Even Clinton and Blair don´t earn that sort of millions/billions).
How gullible do you think people are? . . . . And this is the guy some people want back as a permanent president !!
As they say in the UK - 'Pull the other one!'
” (Verbatim, this article)“
Oct 28th, 2011 - 05:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I didn't find that number on google. That must've been a Mercopress's typo. We know Mercopress isn't above that. And even if it isn't, you shouldn't ignore this: there's more than an order of difference between Veja's and O Globo's numbers. And those are rags that tend to agree on a lot of things, specially regarding the PT. So curb your enthusiasm, Geoff. If numbers are so different, then something doesn't smell right. Some background on Veja from a source you seem to respect, a US diplomat: http://tinyurl.com/6322hgh
”@ median exchange rate = 1,500 billion Reais = 1.5 trillion Reais!!!“
It seems you yourself can't even believe those numbers. Hence the multiple exclamation numbers. I understand, I don't believe them either. And as I said, if those numbers were true - where are all those Brazilian trillionaires? BTW, you got your exchange rate awfully wrong. C'mon Geoff, I know you suck at economics, but it isn't as if Google couldn't help you out with the correct number! For the 320 billion dollars to equal more than 1.5 real, the exchange rate would have to have averaged 1BRL = 0.2 USS. But nowhere in the past decade has this been the case.
”For it is the common talk around Bahia that Lula is the largest cattle -baron in Brasil”
I can imagine who in Bahia says that: ACM-controlled newspapers, trying to divert attention away from itself. Anyway, the ACM family regarded as barons and coronéis everywhere in the country, save, perhaps, for Bahia. By contrast, I've never heard anything like that on Lula, and I live in his birth state, Pernambuco: itself a state with some tradition in coronelismo. As of March 2011, Lula's net worth is of 1 million Reais: an unimpressive value, and one that is on a par with those declared by Dilma and Serra during last years presidential campaign. http://tinyurl.com/6322hgh
Ha, ha, ha.
Oct 28th, 2011 - 08:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I wouldn't declare my true worth either - if I had any - that's what rich people own accountants for.
I am quite at ease with the Veja-quoted figures. 2.3% of annual GDP is quite easy to accept;
drop this by an order, and 0.23% would seem to be a remarkably small figure considering the 10% skimming common up many Brasilian trading/financial 'food chains'.
”1.5 trillion Reais!!!“
'. . . .if those numbers were true - where are all those Brazilian trillionaires?'
Well, Forgetit,
if there are 1.5 of them, one is definitely dead and the other one may have passed over during the decade ;-)
“I wouldn't declare my true worth either”
Oct 28th, 2011 - 10:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Nice to know that. I'll remember that, next time you start with your self-righteous rants yet again.
“I am quite at ease with the Veja-quoted figures.”
Your being at easy proves nothing. I mean, it proves your ideologically predisposed to embrace Veja's mud-slinging. But your feelings prove nothing about material reality.
“ 2.3% of annual GDP is quite easy to accept”
No, it isn't. It's a very large portion of budget approved each year. And if those numbers were true, then Brazil would be a factory of new billionaires.
“drop this by an order, and 0.23% would seem to be a remarkably small”
It isn't if you consider our total GDP.
So no comment in retraction of your miscalculation of the Real-to-Dollar exchange rate? Won't you say anything regarding the US diplomat's comments on Veja, on its habit, disguised as bold journalism, of character-assassinating selected targets?
Brasil's total GDP is big and supports a massively top-heavy control and admin infrastructure, as you know.
Oct 29th, 2011 - 11:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0If there are just 4 heirarchical levels of control, and 'Mr 10%' skims his 'due', distributing among the three other levels to keep the dung heap 'rewarded' and shtum;
and if Mr. 10% exists in all areas of public service - as we observe daily - as well as the private and public industries which underpin the economy, then the corrupt personal pocketing of 2.3Reais out of every 100Reais circulating in the economy seems to be at very much the lower end of probabilities.
No, whatever the exchange rate changes over the last 10 years, 1.5 trillion Reais embezzlement and theft seems entirely of the right order. This allows for 1500 billionaires, or 1,500,000 millionaires, or 1,500,000,000 people who have, over the ten years, 'won' 1000 Reais = 100 Reais per year. Split this according to the real number of people dipping into the pot, and the differential 'take' according to position, and you can see that you get a lot of very naughty millionaires.
The fact that there are a lot of them, and that they are in positions of power, they want to remain there, and they want to maintain this 'income flow', and you see how difficult it is to stop it.
Dilma cannot do it on her own. She needs people like YOU to speak out and to help her make this the country it COULD be.
Nothing factual, not a single evidence; nothing but “I think”, “I feel”, “it seems to me”, as if your personal impressions are of any relevance to anyone but yourself, as if they are any basis over which one can discover the truth. And you manage to fill the entire posting space with such trifles.
Oct 29th, 2011 - 06:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Geoff, go ask Veja to publish your conjectures, demanding that they retract their previous figure of 400 bn reais and publish instead your figure, that of 1.5 trn, which you discovered through the sophisticated Hegelian method of sitting in front of a PC and pulling things out of your ass. I'm sure Veja journalists have employed the same sort of investigation before.
Forgetit,
Oct 29th, 2011 - 10:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I know you are a bit upset, but I find it hard to sympathise.
Your accurate reading of English is letting you down, and perhaps your logic and ethics likewise:
#17: 400 billion DOLLARS,
I only quote this press agency, citing Veja and the Sao Paulo chamber of industries.
I am sure you can work out the equivalent in Reais in today's money - think of it in banks, compounding and investing and growing as family fortunes, dg/dt etc,
- and even if you can't work it out, we are not arguing over the accuracy of the figure but the principle and the malpractices that brings about figures such as these.
You seem much more inclined to argue about the Mote, whilst refusing to see the Beam.
You don't have to be a gymnast to tackle the beam - all you have to be is a concerned human being and SEE the beam for what it is.
Instead of running with the economic tide and DEVELOPING, this 'beam' is acting like a sheet-anchor and is a HUGE drag on national progress and development.
Go on, give it a try - try discussing the scale of Brasilian corruption and how YOU think it should be tackled, if indeed you think it should.
It may not be too late for you to become one of the first of Brasil's new breed of honest politicians.
But you have to BELIEVE what you say, not just practice making the sounds.. . . and then you have to live by your beliefs.
Really scarey,
but win you over from the Dark Side, we will.
Do not mistake my contempt for your weak arguments on this thread with being upset. I won't read your post. I know by now that arguing on the basis of evidence, instead of flights of imagination enabled by billious hostility against certain figures, is not your strong.
Oct 30th, 2011 - 12:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0Go on, give it a try - try discussing the scale of Brasilian corruption and how YOU think it should be tackled, if indeed you think it should.
Oct 30th, 2011 - 12:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It may not be too late for you to become one of the first of Brasil's new breed of honest politicians.
But you have to BELIEVE what you say, not just practice making the sounds.. . . and then you have to live by your beliefs.
Really scarey,
but win you over from the Dark Side, we will.
I don't want to be a politician, not at all. I'm not so narrow minded as to become consumed with an ideology and hostile to all of its competitors; I lack the ability displayed by politicians in modern democracies to feign indignation at any mistakes or wrongdoings by an opponent party whilst posing as a beacon of virtue and reason; and I despise the fact that political discourse nowadays is composed of one-liners and slogans instead of deep thought (such a debasement is perhaps a consequence of democracy itself). Only at a distance can politics be something of interest.
Oct 30th, 2011 - 03:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Go on, give it a try - try discussing the scale of Brasilian corruption and how YOU think it should be tackled, if indeed you think it should.
Oct 30th, 2011 - 08:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Win you over from the Dark Side, we will.
Go back to your country, Geoff. It is not flawless and is in fact becoming more flawed as time passes. If you love it so much, you should go back to your country.
Oct 31st, 2011 - 04:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Come on, Forgetit, you are backed into the same corner . . . again
Nov 02nd, 2011 - 12:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0- try DISCUSSING Brasilian corruption.
and how YOU think it should be tackled.
There is no shame in it that attaches to you, I think.
Win you over from the Dark Side, we will.
I've never been backed into a corner by the likes of you. You don't have the brains to do that.
Nov 02nd, 2011 - 05:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0So why are you holding up your hands in defeat?
Nov 02nd, 2011 - 09:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Do you really think it's good enough using your mantra of denial:
“I WON'T discuss Brasilian corruption, go away, I've got my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed.
I won't, I won't, I won't . . . . and I'll, I'll . . . stamp my foot!”
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