MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Mercosur leaders agreed on need for reforms in the midst of Bolsonaro's threat to leave
The presidents of all Mercosur member and associate countries gathered Tuesday in Montevideo for a summit to redefine the bloc's future, in light of recent statements from Brazil's future government that the region will not be among the priorities of Jair Bolsonaro when he becomes president on January 1. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesMercosur espouses democracy and democratic principles within its member states while ignoring the basic human and democratic rights of the Falkland Islanders:
Dec 18th, 2018 - 08:25 pm - Link - Report abuse -1Mercosur – and the Falklands(1 pg):
https://www.academia.edu/37458216/Mersocur_and_the_Falklands
The ONE important issue that the Group will handle successfully:
Dec 19th, 2018 - 08:27 am - Link - Report abuse 0ps://i1.wp.com/www.humorpolitico.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Essa-mamata-vai-acabar.jpg?resize=768%2C645&ssl=1
Is getting rid of the poor!
If that is what takes to transform the Mercosul Trade agreement to its original status, so be it. It has to be about trade, and be good for all, not a political forum for the left to advance its Bolivarian sh*t.
Dec 19th, 2018 - 03:46 pm - Link - Report abuse -1@JB
Dec 19th, 2018 - 11:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Assuming that the Trade Agreements ultimately lean towards reducing/eliminating poverty; the shortest route to do so is to eliminate the poor - directly OR indirectly:
https://i1.wp.com/www.humorpolitico.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Essa-mamata-vai-acabar.jpg?resize=768%2C645&ssl=1
@JB
Dec 21st, 2018 - 01:54 pm - Link - Report abuse +1Re Theresa May in Buenos Aires
““but for some reason you can't get Argentine pesos there”.....becos there's v. little demand for them..”
It's not that. Chilean Pesos were available everywhere, if you ordered them, but the Argentine ones nowhere. Maybe it's a legacy of the currency controls they used to have, that haven't all been removed?
Re redundancy/sacking, can't remember what we were saying exactly. But I know in the US you can lose your job with no notice and for no reason, you just come to work one day and they tell you to go home. I've heard some US companies have taken over smaller ones in Europe intending to gut them, and been dismayed to find they couldn't get rid of their new employees so easily. Sounds like you had protections in Brazil more like Europe.
Thirty consecutive days would include weekends, then, as well as meaning you can't spread your holidays through the year. Flexible is much better IMO, though in the UK most workers would certainly not be allowed to take a whole month off in one go without special permission, it would be too disruptive. Places I have worked there is never any cover and co-workers have to pick up the slack temporarily, or else it waits till you get back.
Divide and conquer is effective, and not used only by Lula. Seems to be a human psychology thing that we want someone to hate, so it doesn't take much.
“Today, he and the PT are against the establishment, simply because it halted their 30 years power project”
And put him and other PT members in jail, and let someone they bitterly oppose win the presidency. And yes, Lula probably feels contempt for the rich, people who grew up in luxury condos ordering the staff around. It's like old people today who say we have everything easy and don't know what real hardship is.
Do the feminists demand longer sentences for these 'machista' murderers? Don't think Russia has the death penalty, but they're not exactly famous for their sexual equality (or any other sort) anyway.
Haven't you heard?
Dec 21st, 2018 - 02:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “Minister of the year awarded to Wellington Moreira Franco”
I'm absolutely SURE that the Cabrals, Culhas, Temers & Co will NEVER ever be left out completely:
https://oilgasnews.info/?p=16412
@DT
Dec 21st, 2018 - 08:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Think we were talking about the excessive rights (imo) of Brazilian employees. Re redundancy/sacking, agree employees need some type of protection, but it should not be so expensive to get rid of one, to the point of inhibiting employers from hiring.
Vacations can now be subdivided, allowing 2 mini-vacations - obviously better if you aren’t going abroad/ don’t need 30 days. Even though my assistants took care of most things, the company “encouraged” accessing one’s web mail while on vacation to at least accompany important issues. It was a pain in the neck, but in the end, I always managed to wangle an extra 3 or 4 days off (personal days), without complaints. Was a kind of ‘quid pro quo’.
Despite leading the life of a maharajah before going to jail, Lula “always” had a chip on his shoulder, long before becoming president. His contempt for the rich probably came from his lack of an education. He shied away from EU leaders, but loved his left-wing South American ‘friends’ ‘n African dictators, with whom he felt at home, created a good rapport, facilitating a lot of the corruption.
Don’t think people today have it ‘easier’ than I did…it’s all relative, ‘n perhaps today, with the world upside-down, it’s become harder ‘n more nerve-wracking to hold on to a good job. Reminds me of a short story : A self-important college student decided to make it his business to explain to a senior citizen, why it was impossible for the older generation to understand the younger one. After telling the old guy he’d grown up in a different world, and was disconnected from reality etc, he added that he (student) was the generation of space travel, nuclear energy, computers and cellphones. The older guy just look at him and replied, “you’re right, we didn’t have those things growing up, so we invented them. Now what are you going to do for the next generation ?”
In view of so many men killing their female companions, now there’s a specific, harsher law to deal with them.
@JB
Dec 21st, 2018 - 09:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: it should not be so expensive to get rid of one, to the point of inhibiting employers from hiring: TRUE - as long as the employees are not victimized.
REF: leading the life of a maharajah before going to jail: What makes you so sure that in the jail he has no pleasure of leading the same standard of life? If he was really suffering; he would have confessed and coughed up all the illicit wealth looted for nearly 20 or so years; a long time ago.
Bonehead
Dec 21st, 2018 - 10:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“the illicit wealth..” That's why proof is an absolute necessity under a proper legal system. Then you perhaps wouldn't be so easily convinced by such travesty of justice.
@TH
Dec 22nd, 2018 - 11:58 am - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “That's why proof is an absolute necessity under a proper legal system”:
You ARE right - under a “PROPER” legal system.
The legal system which you so vehemently trust; if it had ever existed; there would never have been so much protection, so many benefits and that many privileges to the politicians [literally legalizing corruption]; who have NOTHING to lose even after getting caught RED-Handed!
Perhaps I'm wrong. So please NAME just ONE such crook who upon being accused, convicted & condemned; admitted his guilt, submitted proofs of guilts of the fellow crooks, returned the stolen wealth and to atone, did something which really was worthwhile to the masses + NAME such countries of “PROPER” legal systems.
@:o))
Dec 22nd, 2018 - 02:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“...as long as the employees are not victimized”........do you know of any labour system that obliges the employers to be as generous to the employees, when they are sacked, as in Brazil ?
“...So please NAME just ONE such crook who upon being accused, convicted & condemned; admitted his guilt”....”.
That's an easy one : NONE. The strange thing is that 10s of billions are stolen (from State-owned companies), are unaccounted for, construction firm executives admit having colluded with politicians and political parties to submit overpriced contracts in public tenders, to receive and to pay bribes, yet no one ever received them.....just one question, then why do the executives admit to inexistent crimes ? just to spend a few years in jail ? bunch of masoquists...
@JB
Dec 22nd, 2018 - 02:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: Do you know of any labour system that obliges the employers to be as generous to the employees, when they are sacked, as in Brazil?
If there is no victimization + is affordable to the business.
REF: “That's an easy one: NONE”.
THAT's the reason I ALWAYS stood for legalizing corruption. Why waste more USD+Time in the Farcical Investigations, after knowing that the stolen wealth will NEVER be returned to the victimized+suffering masses?
https://i0.wp.com/www.humorpolitico.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Dinheiro-desviado-em-paraiso-fiscal.jpg?resize=640%2C386&ssl=1
Bonehead
Dec 23rd, 2018 - 12:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“+ NAME such countries of “PROPER” legal systems.”
There are multitudes, as all countries that have legal systems that meet the tenets of the UNHR are so considered, unlike Brazil.
“As the European Court of Human Rights has stated, the law should be adequately accessible to everyone and people ...”
and
“Necessary Condition: Access to Justice”
https://www.usip.org/guiding-principles-stabilization-and-reconstruction-the-web-version/rule-law/access-justice
@TH
Dec 23rd, 2018 - 01:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “There are multitudes”:
INCLUDING Brazil OF COURSE!
https://media1.tenor.com/images/3f9c321a24bad2ed1ba78232c9858194/tenor.gif
go ENTERTAIN yourself!
Bonehead
Dec 23rd, 2018 - 04:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“INCLUDING Brazil OF COURSE!”
Not according to the UNHRC which has roundly condemned Brazil for its numerous violations human rights violation of Lula.
“The trial against Lula is politically motivated and based on flimsy evidence, argues Germany’s former justice minister…That counts for little in Brazil, where even senior judges spoke out against Lula before he had actually been found guilty. Despite claiming ‘judicial independence’, they have undermined the principle of rule of law enshrined in Brazil’s constitution.”
https://soslula. org/2018/01/31/rough-justice-the-trial-against-lula-da-silva-is-politically-motivated-and-based-on-flimsy-evidence-argues-germanys-former-justice-minister/
“The argument used to condemn Lula is a farce and Sergio Moro acted like a Judge from the Inquisition – Geoffrey Robertson QC....” http://www. brasilwire.com/un-investigates-lulas-imprisonment/
“Lula’s conviction rests on the word of an executive, who claims he gave Lula …in return for a contract with …Petrobras. The executive was facing corruption charges …, and made the accusation as part of a plea bargain.
no documents linking Lula or his late wife, nor is there any evidence that they ever spent any time there..”
http://en. mercopress.com/2018/09/04/bye-bye-lula
“Brazil’s Democracy Pushed Into the Abyss
The evidence ..is far below the standards that would be taken seriously in the US
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/opinion/brazil-lula-democracy-corruption.html
”Moro’s justification for not prosecuting members of the PSDB seems suspicious since his wife Rosangela, whose law firm (Zucolotto Associados, ZA) negotiates Lava Jato plea bargains with corrupt businessmen, has also worked as legal advisor to Flavio Arns, Vice-Governor of Paraná for the PSDB. In another apparent conflict of interest, at the outset of the Lava Jato investigation ZA represented petroleum companies who directly benefit from the breakup of Petrobras, including INGRAX and Royal Dutch Shell.”
htt
@TH
Dec 23rd, 2018 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “Not according to the UNHRC”:
Are we pointing at the same; from different directions?
@JB
Dec 23rd, 2018 - 07:19 pm - Link - Report abuse +1There are quite a few countries in Europe with very generous rights for employees, eg when my Danish colleagues were laid off they got a 3 month notice period. I have also read that France has higher unemployment than the UK (but higher wages) because it is so difficult to get rid of employees it makes them reluctant to hire.. There has to be a balance between the rights of employers and employees, both current and prospective.
Being asked to work on holiday is pretty cheeky, but at least it means you're important to the business. A month off at once would be pretty useful if you wanted to travel, but I'm glad I can spread mine through the year. It's also useful for parents to take it during the school holidays, though of course they can't cover them all.
Re Lula, his Presidential salary and payments for lectures (whether given or not), were far from making him the richest man in Brazil. You've mentioned the triplex and a house in Atibaia, but he doesn't seem to have lived a particularly extravagant lifestyle after retiring from the presidency. Even less so before 2003. Why do you think lack of education would give him contempt for the rich?
Lots of people do think we have it easier today, or get all indignant when someone says it's harder. For someone who grew up with rationing, before central heating and indoor toilets, having to share a room with lots of siblings, it's easy to say there's no hardship now. Doesn't mean there's no problems though, just different ones. Similarly for a poor person it looks like the rich have everything easy and handed to them on a plate, and their parents will bail them out if they ever fail.
As for your story, now we've got smartphones, e-books, Wikipedia, online shopping with next day delivery, electric cars, and virtual reality. We've had the first private space mission - with reusable rocket - they've made a walking, humanoid robot, and they're working on self-driving cars.
@TH:
Dec 24th, 2018 - 02:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The Brazilian-Style [so called] “DEMOCRACY” is enviable by many - TOO MANY - countries.
In which SERIOUS democracy, is it absolutely normal for the politicians:
- to get excessive, absurd, unrealistic salaries;
- topped by the excessive, absurd, unrealistic incentives + benefits + special privileges + protection
- to the point that it pays - is acceptable & WORTHWHILE [a status symbol perhaps]
- to be corrupt + it's absolutely normal to DEMAND [EARN?] bribes, launder money & inflate their Overseas Undeclared Accounts [& the best part being the dis-necessity of returning of the stolen wealth]
- under the very nose of the masses who crave to get financially raped - THOROUGHLY - by these crooks?
https://i1.wp.com/www.humorpolitico.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/DEZEMBRO-2018.jpg?zoom=0.8999999761581421&fit=392%2C271&ssl=1
@DT
Dec 24th, 2018 - 08:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Danish employee rights...I believe you, but they are in a slightly different stage of development to the Brazilians...I'm sure salaries 'n taxes on payrolls in Denmark, are not as burdensome as they are to employers in Brazil. To further get things in perspective, Denmark's politicians are treated much like any other employee, while here in Brazil....
Working on a holiday wasn't common, but it happened, especially b4 business trips 'n needed to prepare several presentations.
Sure, Lula's salary wouldn't make him “rich”, even though he didn't spend a cent of it - he and his wife had corporate credit cards, 'n they racked up bills of over R$ 1 million per month...neither would his lectures, at US$ 50,000 to 100,000 a pop, but let's not forget that Emilio Odebrecht (on 31 Dec 2010) 'reserved' US$ 100 million for him, to spend at his discretion...it paid his lectures, as well as any other expense he incurred. When Lula travelled, after 2010, instead of taking a regular flight (not even 1st class), he'd 'hire' a private executive jet, at the cost of R$ 70,000 btwn Sao Paulo and Rio, and R$ 200,000; btwn SP and the Northeast ...where did the money come from ?
While Lula probably didn't have many extravagant tastes, he certainly lived beyond his “legally acquired” means. Talking of extravagant, when Lula left the Alvorada Palace, he emptied the palace's wine cellar, 100s of bottles of wines such as Chateâu Petrus, Echezeaux, Gevray Chambertin ; in fact when he arrived in 2013, he had a few suitcases...8 years later, he left with 11 x 20' contr loads (furniture, amongst which the Palace's music system).
His contempt for the rich came from several things - lack of education, not being able to talk to them as equals, 'n an inferiority complex. It's complicated, but was easy to see.
Smartphones etc, are current day inventions, 'n the people who made them reality deserve credit, but all made possible due to the breakthrough of technology, decades ago.
JB
Dec 24th, 2018 - 08:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“he and his wife had corporate credit cards, 'n they racked up bills of over R$ 1 million per month...”
No they didn't otherwise you would provide the proof. So its just another of your innumerable porkies.
Provide YOU with proof ? Search for it yourself you lazy twit...or, did you think I was going to do your work, for you ? think again, numb nuts !
Dec 24th, 2018 - 10:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Ah, I forgot you don't understand one bloody word of Portuguese, so here goes :
Google (and translate) : - “Escândalo dos cartões - ISTOÉ Independente”.........Sorry, not 1 million per “month”, but per “year”.....got carried away when I realized I was being robbed ....still disgraceful....the toad even reformed his SBCampo flat with taxpayer money....
There numb nuts, all the “proof” anyone can need...even you...whata twit !.
JB
Dec 24th, 2018 - 11:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“Provide YOU with proof ? Search for it yourself” Thats not my obligation but it is yours of meeting your obligatory burden of proof. ”ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat (cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probation nulla sit)-the burden of proof lies upon him who affirms, not on him who denies, (since by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof). The claimant is always bound to prove: the burden of proof lies on him. Upon the one alleging, not upon him denying, rests the duty of proving. Upon the plaintiff rests the proving or the burden of proof,”
Soma's Dictionary of Latin Quotations, Maxims and Phrases: A Compendium of ...
So you won't meet your required obligation they didn't otherwise you would provide the proof. So its further confirmation of more of your innumerable porkies.
Always READY to get GANGBANGED:
Dec 25th, 2018 - 11:46 am - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.debatenews.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web-charge-1883-678x381.jpg
I have no obligation to do anything numb nuts, as I'm not trying to prove anything, and your 'sermon' in Latin won't help you either. But instead of just carrying on with your verbal diarrhea, you could always google the article I mentioned...it's all there....or is it above your brain-grade ?
Dec 25th, 2018 - 08:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0JB
Dec 25th, 2018 - 09:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“I have no obligation to do anything” Oh yes you do pillock, otherwise anything you claim under argumentative theory is summarily dismissible.
“Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; States of Affairs; First published Tue Mar 27, 2012
Philosophers connect sentences with various items, such as thoughts, facts and states of affairs. THOUGHTS ARE EITHER TRUE OR FALSE IN AN ABSOLUTE SENSE, NEVER BOTH OR NEITHER.”
Since you have failed to meet your obligation to prove, and thoughts are either true or false. Therefore, by a argumentum a fortiori your claim is thus irrefutably false, and you are revealed as an utter liar.
Lol, I think Terry was technically right for once, but he was too busy repeating his crap about burden of proof to notice. US$250,000 per year may be a little excessive for a head of state, but only a little. Our politicians also renovated their houses at taxpayers' expense, and most of them got away with it. And when I googled 'Lula private jet', I only found this story:
Dec 27th, 2018 - 12:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/04/08/strange-bedfellows-what-trump-and-brazils-lula-have-in-common/
I don't think it's so strange, they both try to appeal to the 'common people' and blame the 'elites' for problems. Neither showed the least interest in 'draining the swamp' once in power.
And damn, taking all the wine and sound system is such a poor-person thing to do. It's hard to get rid of that mindset. Do you envy him the wine? I'd like the private jet, I've never travelled anything but economy.
“all made possible due to the breakthrough of technology, decades ago.”
Yes, but that was the case for earlier inventions too. Computers relied on electricity, cell phones on radio waves among *many* other things, space travel on rocket powered weapons which were based on other chemical research, and nuclear energy on the atom bomb. And all the latter required computers to control them. We're not likely to find anything really new now, it's really amazing that radioactivity wasn't discovered until 1896, a whole new area of physics to investigate and exploit! But damn, I wish we would. It was pretty disappointing when the LHC found the Higgs boson exactly as predicted.
DT
Dec 27th, 2018 - 01:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0“repeating his crap about burden of proof to notice.” Burden of proof is of course only needed as your bosom bud fails to support his claim as required. “repeating his crap” is exactly what JB does, he is both proof less and truth less. As I have proved according to the appropriate presumption.
“I only found this story” By a writer who writes about market conditions who may well be punching well above his weight. “I write about business and investing in emerging markets. ..Kenneth Rapoza covered Brazil for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal ...is an In These Times columnist who writes about the news business. His work has also appeared in The American Prospect, The Nation and at Salon.com”
https://www.otempo.com.br/image/contentid/policy:1.2083701:1545425484/CHARGE-O-TEMPO.jpg?f=3x2&w=620&$p$f$w=417f229
Dec 27th, 2018 - 03:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Are The Brazilians Ready, Able, Willing and Eager to get thoroughly gangbanged by their own candidates?
@DT
Dec 27th, 2018 - 04:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Regarding “The Snowman”, can imagine how it fascinated you as a kid....even I wanted to see how it ended.
Regarding the Forbes article, didn't mention the “Aerolula” - the Airbus jet he bought for the “Presidency” soon after elected, or his hire of executive jets to move around, after 2010.
But a few things called my attention.
“...an elite that didn't like the poor getting richer...”
First, the poor were not getting “richer”....perhaps less poor, being able to eat - all good - but to the extent of climbing the social ladder, and staying there ?
Second, the argument that the “elite didn't like the poor getting richer” sounds illogical....why wouldn't the “elite” - business owners - not want the poor to be better off and become effective consumers ? it's a win/win situation.
Do you think someone living in an expensive luxury condo likes the idea of being surrounded by slums, as in the 'once-chique' neighbourhood of Morumbi ? I, as many of them I suspect, would far rather the poor were better off 'n not so prone to resorting to crime.
“Pictures of Lula surrounded by the huddled masses this weekend as if he were Jesus going into Galilee on Palm Sunday” is just an example of why I say “Lulupetismo” is a cult…it’s not rational, just an exaggerated need to ‘believe’. Much like the João de Deus’ followers - who even after more than 500 women, who live in several States and even other countries and have never met, have come forward, accusing him of abuse - still believe he is innocent.
“…dozens of Brazilian politicians have been ousted or jailed, not just Lula…”, with many more to come as they lose immunity as of Jan 1st, supports what I’ve already said. It’s obvious that the toad, being the figure he is, would command the most attention. Then again, look at his “friends”….Chavez, Castro, CFK, Evo, Maduro, Teodoro Obiang etc, says a lot.
Poor Terry, he thinks he can 'oblige” me to submit proof....but when I do, he ignores it...too bad.
Jack Bauer aka Proof-less and Truth-less
Dec 27th, 2018 - 05:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“he thinks he can 'oblige” me to submit proof....but when I do,” Heres a drum roll, when or wherever have you submitted a proof? You haven't so we can chalk up another additional lie by you.
“executive jets to move around, after 2010.” Post his presidency, he was a very marketable commodity.
Nitwit,
Dec 27th, 2018 - 05:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“Escândalo dos cartões - ISTOÉ Independente”.....and others.
PQP, é burro, hein !
Jack Bauer aka Proof-less and Truth-less
Dec 27th, 2018 - 07:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0See I'm right you have no proof, dipshit.
Haha, you both object to the article for opposite reasons. There IS a certain similarity between JB telling me the CIA and FBI are full of Obama loyalists and can't be trusted on Trump, and Terry saying the corruption investigations are all a conspiracy to stop Lula becoming President again. Plus both Presidents appeal to similar demographics - the poor and ignorant - and their hardcore supporters believe that each can do no wrong. There is a certain cultishness there.
Dec 27th, 2018 - 11:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Wikipedia says Brazil had a 707 for the President before Lula replaced it with the Airbus. Is it really that excessive for the ninth richest country in the world? And what did Lula hire the executive jets for? Weren't there questions at the time about how he could afford it?
Re the poor getting richer, they really were. Many/most of them may be poorer again now, but they were getting richer then. And maybe the rich *should* want the poor to be better off, but do they really? Businesses want cheap labour, rich people apparently want servants they can look down on and abuse. (In America they have to get illegal immigrants for that.) If there are slums nearby they can move, or just live behind gates in a condo with everything provided on site.
DT
Dec 27th, 2018 - 11:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0On the one hand you have speculation, on the other the reality of Lula's claim.
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