Exploring the USA’s Most Vibrant Brazilian Community

According to Eric Helleiner (1994, pp.83-84) by 1960 British banks were already flexin' international loans based on their dollar reserves, all thanks to the Bank of England. OMG, then their US squad came thru, tryna dip from all the rules and stuff. The US gov started flexin' on the US banks' Euromarket moves not just 'cause they were all about their corpo interests, ya know? The US gov also thought that Euromarket loans were like, a way to make dollar holdings more attractive to foreigners, ya know? (Helleiner 1994, p.94). Thus, like, there was this heating loan market for those dollars abroad that totally ditched the United States government's plan to readjust dollar-gold parity, but still kept the dollar as the international unit of account. 

But like, while the US deficits were like, going up, some developed countries were totally like, questioning the US seigniorage privileges, you know? 

OMG, like France and other countries were totally stacking those dollars and not vibing with the US trying to get European banks to hoard them. The US needs to find other countries down to keep those dollar reserves, ya know? Developing countries, like Brazil and other Latin Americans, were totally vibin' to be the perfect fit for that gig since they were super down for foreign loans and stacking up those dollar reserves. According to Helleiner (1994), the international financial system got all liberalized thanks to the US policymakers who were like "we gotta keep our policy autonomy, you know?" (p.91).
Stephany Griffith-Jones and Osvaldo Sunkel (1986, p.73) like totally said that "intense competition, and the search for new borrowers, seem to have been intensified by the rapid increase in the number of banks active in the Euro-markets."  If the reserves changes are lit, they're totally soaking up the extra cash flow that's flowing in, way more than the deficits in the current account. OMG, like the stats say, the $$$ costs of capital were, like, the main part of the capital coming in, 90%, while real transfers were only 30% of the capital coming in from '68 to '73. On the flip side, like, with the mad increase of cash flow from all over the place during 1968-1973, the BACEN stacked up some serious reserves, which are basically like unused global buying power.

Between 1964 and 1973, the Euromarkets were like totally lit, skyrocketing and growing over 30% every year and making over U$ 130 billion in 1973 (Griffith-Jones and Sunkel 1986, p.72).

It was straight up wild! Yo, developing countries tryna get that quick economic growth could totally score some international cash to borrow, cuz the international money flow be lit and the banking system be hella eager to expand its hustle. OMG, like Sunkel and Grifith-Jones (1986, p.74) totally proved that the international banks were all about lending to those medium-income developing countries and the ones they got to know while giving money to their corporate clients' subsidiaries. Lit AF! This strat resulted in major external vulnerability despite the lit performance of exports. OMG, like, in the late 60s and early 70s, capital inflows were, like, skyrocketing at around U$1.8 billion per year. It was, like, way more than the total transaction account deficit and even doubled net external debt. So crazy, right? Second, like, even though exports went up by over 20% every year from 1967 to 1973, current account deficits went up by over 33% every year because of the increasing payments of interest, profits, and amortisation caused by capital inflow. So like, in 1973, exports were totally slaying and covered the current account deficit three times over. But by 1982, if things had stayed the same, exports would only be like half of the deficit. Crazy, right?

Why did Brazil flex its external debt so hard, like way beyond what it actually needed, while also making itself more vulnerable to outside forces? 

The basic tea is that in a flexin' strategy of development, the gov has to flex on borrowin' abroad to make up for its anti-export vibe and hence the foreign currency shortages. It totally sleeps on the lit af changes in the global money game in the 60s. It was like, obvi, the financial reforms in Brazil were totally made to cash in on the lit international money flow in the Euromarkets, and that had as much to do with domestic as with international policymaking, you know?
OMG, so many authors have been like, "Yo, the US balance of payments deficits since the 1950s are totally connected to the Euromarket and the rise of international cash flow in the 1960s" (Eichengreen 1996; Frieden 1983; Griffith-Jones and Sunkel 1986; Helleiner 1994). It's like, a big deal, you know? Barry Eichengreen (1996) like totally says that the United State's balance of payments deficits were like, you know, matched by the reserve hoarding in European banks. OMG, like as time went on, the US deficits didn't even shrink, which made Europeans hella skeptical that they could swap their dollar reserves for gold, you know? Like, basically, European governments were like, "Nah, we don't think the dollar can be converted to gold at the rates set in the Bretton Woods agreement." Furthermore, like OMG, European governments, like Germany, would be so shook by the inflationary effects of accumulating reserves.