Far-right Brazilian Bolsonaro, ‘free’ market darling

This 30 October 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

Where’s Brazil headed under its new leader Jair Bolsonaro?

‘Pinochet should have killed more people’. That’s just one of the many outrageous statements made by Brazil’s new president. After a divisive campaign, filled with corruption allegations and even a stabbing, Jair Bolsonaro stood victorious.

He’s the first non-centrist or leftist leader since the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship more than three decades ago. So how will he shape the country?

Guests: Julio Morais – Founder of the NGO, the Public Administration Institute Myriam Marques – Co-founder of Defend Democracy in Brazil Elcior Santana – Senior associate at the Centre for Strategic Studies

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Far-right Brazilian President Bolsonaro, darling of the market

The new, far-right president of Brazil is notorious for his controversial statements about LGBTQ people, the military dictatorship and the death penalty. Yet many economists and investors are enthusiastic about Jair Bolsonaro, who promises to liberalize the Brazilian economy. …

The new Minister of Economic Affairs, Paulo Guedes, is known as a Chicago Boy; he studied economics under US Nobel laureate Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago.

Like his mentor, Guedes is a champion of [neo]liberalism and free-market capitalism. …

“The most important promise of the government is a pension reform, which makes investors very happy, but such a reform is politically very complicated,” explains the economist. …

There has been a long-standing proposal to reform the pension system, but so far it has not been possible to pilot this reform through Congress.

The question is whether Bolsonaro will succeed where his predecessor, Michel Temer, failed. In the nearly three decades that Bolsonaro was in the House of Representatives, he did not manage to get any bills worthy of approval approved.

Moreover, the government of former military officer Bolsonaro is heavily leaning on the army. Brazilian military personnel have very favourable pension conditions and it does not appear that the former generals in the cabinet are keen on giving up those privileges.

Maybe Bolsonaro will try to keep pensions for ex-generals high; while ‘reforming’ pensions for ex-privates and civilians downwards to starvation level.