Opinion – Rodrigo Zeidan: We are starving, but full of chloroquine

Which country will this government leave? Unfortunately, something close to chaos. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians dead, recession, inflation, unemployment, hunger and deforestation. It was a geopolitical isolation that has already cost us a lot and will cost us even more.

The pandemic does not explain the economic disaster that this government was. The best way to see this is through the Central Bank’s Focus report, which aggregates market expectations about the performance of the Brazilian economy.

On the day the president took office, long-term expectations could not have been clearer: GDP would grow by at least 2.5% a year, inflation would remain within target, the government would eliminate the primary deficit, and the country would receive almost US$ 90 billion of foreign direct investment at the end of the government.

But what does the most recent report, published this Monday, say? Brazil should grow a magnificent 0.3% this year, 1.5% next year, and maybe it will reach 2% in 2025. Foreign investments? 20% smaller. Inflation? Basically, the president not only filled us with chloroquine and left Brazilians starving, but he destroyed the country’s future.

And therein lies one of the main dilemmas for the next president. How to get Brazil out of the hole, since the next president is going to receive a broken country? The answer I have for this is counterintuitive: as strange as it may seem, there is no need for a grand nation project at this point.

A government that undoes the main blunders of this government, fights deforestation, resumes a thriving Bolsa Família, invests in basic education, and worries about improving society little by little, without big nonsense policies, will guarantee sustained growth for years.

We have been with demand and supply repressed for ten years. There are millions of business projects in the drawer, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, billions, which only need a predictable institutional environment to get off the ground. The government’s job would just be not to get in the way.

It’s not for having a business grant. It’s not to take taxes off white goods, it’s not for billion dollar programs. A government that normalizes relations with our main commercial partners, seeks efficiencies in the management of the public machine, makes the possession of weapons illegal, accelerates vaccination, strengthens IBAMA and takes other actions that cost little, but count a lot, is already a good size. .

We moved from the populism of the Dilma government to the extreme right. Our last normal government, without megalomanias or denialism, ended in 2006. Today, our electoral options are left or right populist, or the social extermination of the extreme right getting reelected.

Ciro and Moro are the new face of cheap populism, simple solutions to complex problems, megalomaniacal nation projects, empty promises and the inability to govern a continental country with a minimum of institutional security. And these are the least worst among the poll leaders.

It is necessary to understand that we have gigantic and deep problems. And that no president, no matter who he may be, will be able to get everything needed in the country in one government. Let’s focus on what matters, which is delivering money into the hands of those who need it. And hit what you can, on the sidelines. No surprises. And without chloroquine.