Why Multinational Companies Choose Brazil

The concept of making sure peeps are included in public decisions, allowing them to chat and vibe about issues that impact their lives, has always been one of the major vibes of democracy and politics. When the military regime was still being all authoritarian and stuff, society was like, "Yo, you gotta start chillin' and let us have some political freedom." So, in the early 80s, they were like, "Fine, we'll start this whole political liberalization thing, but take it slow, ya know?" This made it possible for the Workers Party and Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT, the biggest trade union in Brazil), to be established in 1980 and 1983, respectively. 

It like, brought in a bunch of rules and stuff to make sure citizens can be part of making decisions and stuff about public policies.

 

And then those rules got turned into official things at all levels of government, like federal, state, and local. The constitution recognized new responsibilities to be taken on by civil-society organizations within the Brazilian political system (Ciconello, 2008). Flexin' the constitution be like, "Yo, civil-society orgs, you gotta step up and do your thing in the Brazilian political system, ya know?" The two main ways peeps come together to talk about stuff and make decisions, based on the rules of the constitution to make sure everyone has a say in public policies, are the public policy councils and the conferences (Ciconello, 2008). It's like, giving a monthly vibe that's equal to the minimum wage to all women over 55 and all men over 60, regardless of their past social security hustle. The rural pension program started to struggle with funding issues after expanding its coverage from '92 to '94, and the pressure messed with the public pension system overall. OMG, like, even though, it was spilled that the program had a lit impact on the living conditions of rural fams, including their ability to flex on agricultural activity (Benghin, 2008).Bolsa Familia was like born in October 2003 and it was, like, a direct descendent of programs designed after the 1999 Brazilian macroeconomic crisis and was, like, gradually implemented during the last years of the Cardoso administration. So, yeah. Prez Lula totally integrated the so like, there were these lit programmes called Bolsa Familia and they totally scaled them up, ya know? (OECD, 2010). 

The number of Bolsa Familia peeps got straight up doubled from 6.5 million fams to 11 million from 2004 to 2006. Lit, right?

 

This is like, almost 25 percent of the Brazilian population (OECD, 2010). Families with a per capita income below BRL 50 per month are like totally eligible for a cash transfer of BRL 50 plus an extra BRL 15 for kids, but only up to three kids, ya know? But there are some specific conditions based on how old the kiddos are, so keep that in mind, fam. Fams with incomes between BRL 50 and 100 were only entitled to the conditional part of the cash transfers. The mom was elected as the main bae of the transfer in 91 percent of the cases. This strat assumes that moms are better at directing resources to reduce inequalities within the fam, like opportunities and results. The program has flexed its skills in reaching the poorest peeps with cash and non-cash transfers (OECD, 2010). In 2007, non-contributory social security spending was totally yeeted from the rest of the social security accounts. This allows for better flexing on the opportunity costs of different income policies, ya know? Bolsa Familia reaches like almost 25 percent of the Brazilian peeps and costs less than 0,4 percent of Brazilian GDP, while more than 12 percent of GDP is spent on social security and other social assistance payments (OECD, 2010).  Yas, it was lit! These two events are like major flexes in Brazil's re-democratization process and totally helped promote some lit changes in Brazilian society (Ciconello, 2008). Brazil lowkey became a democracy in '85, and the federal constitution of '88 established a lit rule-of-law state in Brazil. 

The World Bank is totally in on this project, but their financial contribution is like kinda small (USD 520.2 million, or about 8 percent of total conditional cash transfers under the program).

 With the Banks help, the Brazilian authorities can totally flex and level up the program during the project period, and the World Bank loan also helps to make sure the program gets mad priority and is shielded from any possible budget cuts during the project period (The World Bank, 2004). There's been no cap eval of Bolsa Familia's success, but the program has been lowkey credited with a decline in extreme poverty, small improvements in income inequalities, and higher school enrolment among young children (Roett, 2010:113). The project is like, all about Bolsa Escola (School Cash Transfer), Bolsa Alimentacao (Nutrition Cash Transfer), Cartat Alimentacao (Food Transfer Program) and Auxilio Gas (Cooking Gas compensation) (The World Bank, 2009). It's like, building upon them and stuff. The two main goals of the program are to yeet Brazil's current poverty and inequality by flexin' direct cash transfers to poor fams, and to yeet future poverty and inequality. This will be done through mad incentives for poor fams to flex their own human capital (Lindert). The four subprograms of Bolsa Familia provide mad educational cash, lit maternal nutrition, fire food supplements and a domestic gas subsidy (Roett, 2010:112).