Brazil SA
Housing / Real Estate
Dearborn-on-Amazon
By BEN MACINTYRE | The New York Times
The Amazon has always proved fertile soil for extravagant utopian fantasy. Victorian explorers, American industrialists, ideologues and missionaries all projected their dreams and ideas onto this terra incognita, this untamed wilderness of exotic possibility.
For Europe and North America, the vastness of South America was a focus for romance, discovery and potential profit, and also a canvas on which to paint a new world according to individual belief. Elisabeth Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher, plunged into the jungles of Paraguay in 1886 intent on creating her own vegetarian Aryan republic, spurred on by the anti-Semitic effusions of Richard Wagner. Theodore Roosevelt predicted the great river system could be harnessed to create "populous manufacturing communities." Nelson Rockefeller thought the 4,000 miles of the Amazon might be cut into canals.
The British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett plunged into the jungle in 1925, convinced he would find an ancient city that had once flourished there, and was never seen again. Scores of would-be rescuers followed his trail and vanished too. The Amazon had a way of swallowing up dreams. Elisabeth Nietzsche left her flyblown, half-starved New Germany to rot, and scurried home to distort her brother's philosophical legacy. Roosevelt returned from his Amazon expedition of 1914 declaring the jungle to be "sinister and evil," a place inimical to man. Alongside the myth of the Amazon's boundless opportunities grew another: the jungle as impenetrable nature, immune to modernity, a world savage and primeval where each successive conquistador arrives puffed with pride, and is conquered.
With "Fordlandia," Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University, tells a haunting story that falls squarely into this tradition: Henry Ford's failed endeavor to export Main Street America to the jungles of Brazil. Fordlandia was a commercial enterprise, intended to extract raw material for the production of motor cars, but it was framed as a civilizing mission, an attempt to build the ideal American society within the Amazon. As described in this fascinating account, it was also the reflection of one man's personality — arrogant, brilliant and very odd. >>> Go to Full Story >>>
Risky Business: An Entrepreneur's Perspective on the Brazilian Housing Market
Rafael became an entrepreneur when he moved to Brazil about a year ago to work in the country's nascent housing market. Before that, he was a successful portfolio manager at a hedge fund in London where he had been saving his bonuses and waiting for the right moment to strike out on his own.
Rafael indentified an opportunity in the Brazilian real estate market, since all market drivers had forecasted a boom in this industry. The economy was growing at a 5.4% rate -- thanks to its soaring agriculture, energy and agricultural industries -- and was further aided by an escalation in the prices of commodities. Inflation finally seemed to be under control: It had decreased from 19.75% in 2003 to 13% in 2006, the government had been able to absolve most of its foreign debt, and the Brazilian real had appreciated more than 20%.
Brazil was also seeing very positive changes in demographics and income trends, especially in the middle class sector. Under Lula's populist government, redistributive initiatives such as Bolsa Familia helped fuel the growth of Brazil's middle class as the average income of Brazil's poor went up 9% between 2001 and 2006. For the first time in history, the middle class now makes up more than half of the population. Indeed, it has grown from 44% to 52% over the last six years. >>> Go to Full Story >>>
