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Canadian Dimension Blog

In Latin America, if we exclude Cuba, we can point to three general categories of governments. First, the governments of the right, the allies of Washington, that play an active role in the region and occupy a strategic position: these are the governments of Álvaro Uribe in Colombia, Alan García in Peru and Felipe Calderón in México.

Second, we find supposed “left” governments that implement a neoliberal policy and support the national or regional bourgeoisies in their projects: Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua and the government of Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, from Argentina’s Peronists. They are governments that implement a neoliberal policy that favour grand capital, covered up with some social assistance measures. In effect, they make it a bit easier to swallow the neoliberal pill by applying social programs. For example, in Brazil poor families receive a bit of help from the government, which assures them popular support in the poorest region of the country.

Some of these governments are attempting to improve their relations with Washington, especially with the establishment of free trade agreements with the United States. Chile signed one and Lula, in Brazil, is also seeking an agreement with Washington around a series of political issues. But at the same time great differences of opinion persist between the government of Lula and the United States. These differences include defence of the interests of the Brazilian bourgeoisie in agriculture and a series of industrial sectors, especially those that export, who do not accept the protectionism of the United States.

In the third category of countries we find Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which are confronted by the active opposition of important sectors of the local capitalist class and Washington. Cuba is, by itself, a fourth category.

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The Australian.

“We’re talking about the whole BRIC story, the $27trillion that’s going to be spent on infrastructure in the emerging world over the next 10 years, largely funded by internally generated revenues — that’s a fact,” Sosa says. “It’s not going to stop because we’re having a bit of a housing slump in the US and some other countries: the BRIC countries don’t export houses.”

The major parts of the BRIC story are absolutely intact: the massive growth in the middle class, particularly in India and China, which have very young populations, and those populations are moving into urban areas and earning more money. We think that underlying story is unstoppable, from every perspective, and that’s going to continue. If anything it’s going to accelerate: if you think that oil prices and fertiliser prices are going up, that simply provides further impetus to move into an urban area — to quit farming jobs.

“So this crisis is ultimately not going to affect India and China, it is a short-term blip. Now, if we talk about oil going to $US200-250 a barrel and staying there, that is a whole different story. A spike in oil to $150-200 a barrel in the near future is certainly not out of the question, but those kinds of prices build in their own fall, because global economic growth contracts.”

The question that investors have to ask themselves, says Sosa, is whether they can see the benefit in investing in the BRIC countries, which have young populations, and have tremendous internal markets, and which are growing at three to four times the rate of most G7 countries

EcoDiario.es.

“My immediate response is it doesn’t pass the ‘laughtest’,” a senior Indian official told Reuters.

Brazil said it wanted deeper cuts. “This is only the secondday of the talks here, so we imagine there is room formanoeuvre to reduce them further,” a Brazilian diplomat said.

Brazil and India are key to the negotiations because theUnited States and the European Union want big developing economies to open up their markets in industrial goods as well as farm products in return for their agriculture reforms.

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Reuters.

By the time he was 29, Calderaro was worth well over a million reais ($630,000) thanks to big bets on steel, mining and banking stocks just as Brazil’s economy was taking off after decades of lackluster growth. Since then, his fortune has swelled even more, cementing his status as a full-fledged member of Brazil’s new rich.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” said Calderaro, who is now 31 and teaches seminars on the stock market when he is not managing his own expanding portfolio. “All this was possible because of the economy.”

Thanks largely to a commodities and credit boom, Brazil is seeing a burst of economic growth that is lifting millions out of poverty in a country long known for its stark inequality. On top of that wave, riding a stock market that tripled in four years, is a breed of millionaires like Calderaro being created at a breakneck pace — at least 23,000 last year.

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IT major, Satyam Computer Services Ltd, plans to set up IT and BPO development centers in Mexico and Chile or Uruguay shortly, a top company official said.

After opening IT and BPO development centres in Egypt, Brazil and a second center in Australia, we are now looking at setting up the same in Mexico and either in Chile or Uruguay, Satyam Computer’s President, Ram Mynampati, told reporters on the sidelines of a press meet here today.

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Fuel Consumption by country

A little dated but compelling visualization that brings to life the fact that California uses more fuel than India. For the US as a whole it is 136 billion gallons. Given that the population of California is about 35 million, and India’s 1.1 billion - 1 Californian’s fuel consumption exceeds that of 30 Indians! Sadly, the outskirts of India’s major cities are adopting a California-sprawl model of development.

California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)  That’s according to the California Energy Commission’s State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it’s a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future.

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livemint.com
The global food versus fuel debate will be rendered irrelevant by its biofuel business model, claims Reliance Life Sciences or RLS.
“Our model is unique in the sense that it reverses the whole argument of fuel versus food, which the Western world is currently battling with, as it leads to fuel with food, with the promotion of food intercrops,” says K.V. Subramaniam, CEO and president of RLS, part of the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd or RIL group. The company says it is currently testing intercropping of jatropha and pongamia non-edible fuel crops along with a diverse set of food crops including corn, mango, medicinal plants and vegetables in its research and development farms at Gandhar in Baruch, Gujarat, and Nagothane in Raigad, Maharashtra.

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The Economic Times
Opposite Suresh Photo Studio, adjacent to a temple, 38-year old Kamla sells roses, marigold and orchid garlands. Back home in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Kamla’s mother now receives Rs 200 (about $5USD) every week on her mobile sent by Kamla.

India is witnessing a new dawn of banking with mobile phone. From a rickshaw puller, a florist, a pan shop vendor to a truck driver, cash transactions are going mobile for all and sundry. “Our target is to achieve 10 million mobile subscribers hooked onto mobile banking by end of this fiscal year,” says Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli.

Four banks, SBI, HDFC, ICICI and Corporation Bank, have partnered with India’s largest operator Bharti Airtel to offer m-banking. RCOM has tied up with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank. Bharti Airtel has launched its mobile banking late last month and plans to rope in about 100 major banks in India by end 2008.

“Over the coming months, customers will be available to open their bank accounts at authorized Airtel outlets just by submitting a photo ID proof. Subscribers can now deposit, withdraw, transfer, pay bills or remit money through their mobile phones,” Mr Kohli adds.

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Mercopress
Panama continues to be the fastest-growing tourism market in Latin America, but Uruguay is the winner when it comes to growth in receipts. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic is the country with the region’s highest receipts as a percentage of GDP, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of new data from the World Tourism Organization.

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This has no immediate relevancy but I came across this today, and I was inspired to post it. Don Quijote is one of the greatest novels ever written.

“La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos. Con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre; por la libertad, así como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida.”

“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens [God] gave men. It cannot be equated with the treasures that the earth locks up or that the sea conceals; for freedom, just like honor, can and should venture [guide] life.”

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra