MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Brazil’s development bank “must return” to the Treasury some US$ 25bn
Brazil’s future economy minister wants state development bank BNDES to return 100 billion Reais, some US$25.7 billion, to the nation’s treasury in 2019, a newspaper reported, as the incoming government seeks to cut the nation’s hefty debt load. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesREF: Brazil’s development bank “must return” US$ 25bn
Dec 21st, 2018 - 01:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Is someone so damn stupid to return ANYTHING?
The cost of financing infrastructure around Latin America (excluding Brazil) and Africa........and why not ? I mean, after all, Brazil's infrastructure is already prepared to enter the 22nd century....
Dec 21st, 2018 - 08:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Or am I wrong ???
@JB
Dec 21st, 2018 - 09:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0$ 260B MUST have filled MANY Offshore Accounts! Or were there only a few Offshore Accounts really involved? As USUAL, nobody will ever know & the Group of the individuals involved will earn praises for their deeds!
https://i0.wp.com/blogdoaftm.web2419.uni5.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1839-1-820x615.jpg
@JB
Dec 28th, 2018 - 12:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0The thread on the school named after former President Roca has just closed, so I'm posting this here:
I daresay the Southerners told themselves they weren't fighting for a bad cause (so did the Nazis, communists etc), but plenty of people at the time disagreed. Their only reason for seceding was to continue slavery, which they knew the free states opposed.
And I suppose the city councillors in Charlottesville who voted to remove the statue were elected by the people, but it seems protesters from all over America think their view is more important. Political correctness didn't exist in 1924, but that didn't stop controversy over statues of historical figures. Compare the debate in the UK on erecting a statue of Cromwell between 1895 and 1889:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Oliver_Cromwell,_Westminster#History
“every case we've discussed, has it's own peculiarities, and needs to be seen/judged within its own context.”
That's reasonable, there's no blanket approach. Just because someone raised a statue doesn't mean it has to stay there forever, but on the other hand, we don't have to act on every objection, no matter how stupid. And the concentration camps aren't kept around to glorify the holocaust but to show people what really happened. Since these statues are part of history, if and when they are removed from parks I think they should be put in a museum, so people can know why they were raised and what they represented, without promoting those views.
“In a general sense, isolated attacks, perpetrated by individual extremist nuts cases, can hardly be used to judge the majority who might be sympathetic towards a cause.”
That's just what people say about the Islamic terrorists.
Some of those groups at Charlottesville are exactly the people who will disagree that the holocaust was horrific, or even that it happened, because they want to promote the same sort of ideas that lead to it. I'm quite prepared to judge *them*.
@DT
Dec 28th, 2018 - 10:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Am not aguing the Southerner's motives, nor that their cause was justified, but back then they thought it was. Same as the Nazis. In retrospect, it's easy to judge “correctly”. conclusions.
Regarding the statue of Robert Lee, despite (Wikipedia's) “Charlottesville's vice mayor Wes Bellamy called on Charlottesville City Council to remove the statue and rename Lee Park. He said that the statue's presence ”disrespected“ parts of the community, and that he had ”spoken with several different people who have said they have refused to step foot [sic] in to that park because of what that statue and the name of that park represents. And we can't have that in the city of Charlottesville“.........afaic, it was a reaction of overly-sensitive morons, 'n the fact that the statue had already been vandalized in 2016, 'n spray-painted with ”Black Lives Matter“, plus ”Local NAACP head Rick Turner spoke in support of removal, calling Lee a “terrorist” “ sounds indeed like the pressure from minorities.
Who else did the vice-mayor speak to besides ”several different people“ ? Definitely not to the majority.
Re the concentration camps, that's exactly what I said.
But regarding the statue of Robert Lee, the removal to a museum - somewhere in the South - would have been a far better solution, and perhaps pleased both sides.
Look, I'm against isolated attacks committed by individuals, or by mass murder attacks by larger groups, just as much as you are, but even the isolated attacks by Islamic extremists , are part of a well-identified, widespread movement. They are what they are, and today, it's hard to compare their fanaticism to that of any other group's.
As I've implied several times, rational people will act differently to those who just react when faced with ”emotional” matters, their response will take into account the importance, or the lack of importance of certain issues....and to me, the Charlottsville episode was carried out by a bunch of irrational ones.
Re majorities vs minorities, it doesn't seem right to me. Monuments offensive to the majority (perhaps statues of apartheid figures in South Africa?) should be torn down, even if they have historical value, but we don't care if the monuments only offend a smaller group? Shouldn't the degree of offensiveness also matter?
Dec 29th, 2018 - 04:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I think we shouldn't dismiss other people's opinions without making an effort to understand them. Maybe you wouldn't be convinced, but the city councillors were.
And People being what they are, it's more likely both sides would object to the museum idea, but really a compromise seems like the best solution.
“even the isolated attacks by Islamic extremists , are part of a well-identified, widespread movement.”
ISIS are different because they exist as an organisation, even though some attackers had no personal contact and were only inspired by their propaganda. Let's hope no other terrible 'cause' becomes as popular.
“rational people will act differently to those who just react when faced with ”emotional” matters”
I don't think there's such a thing as a rational person. We all react emotionally to certain things and that's necessary for having goals or any kind of sensible decision making. But who do you think was being irrational at Charlottesville? The people who wanted to remove the statue, the protesters, the counter-protesters, or all of them?
@DT
Dec 29th, 2018 - 06:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's easy to see we can't agree, but I maintain that each case is different, and while complaints from minorities should be listened to, it does not mean they need to be attended....specially when decisions are in the hands of populist politicians.
“I don't think there's such a thing as a rational person”....sure, most people probably do react emotionally to certain issues, but letting one's emotions control your actions, as if that justifies them, is not an accepotable excuse. It's exactly when faced with emotional issues that people need to be rational....being rational - or irrational - may be a relative concept to most, but I think it's pretty clear cut, especially when actions have consequences.
The irrational people at Charlottsville are those who vandalized the statue, who definitely were nor representing the majority.....any one can and should have the right to protest, but there are the proper ways to go about it.
Quite clear we have different views on this matter, which is not surprising, given you live in a relatively civilized environment, and me, in one that isn't.
Re emotions and rationality, years ago I read a very interesting article in the New Scientist about people with brain damage that left them unable to feel emotions. Although they were still intelligent and otherwise normal, they had become unable to make decisions, because for them there was no 'weighting' attached to the different options, no basis to pick one over another. I can't find the article online, but this seems similar:
Dec 29th, 2018 - 10:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroyed-a-man.html
While I was searching for that, I also found this article about how we really make decisions:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228381-800-decision-time-how-subtle-forces-shape-your-choices/
Related to your 'uncivilised environment', one of the things it says is “people living in a society with high mortality rates are more likely to decide to put themselves at risk than someone who has had little experience of danger.”
As for Charlottesville, what is so rational about travelling from some distant state to protest the removal of a statue you never heard of before? What's rational about the KKK and Nazi's, or wanting to 'unite' with them? And violent protests are definitely not the proper way to go about it.
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