President of Brazil
The President of Brazil the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil or the President of the Republic, is both the head of state and the head of government of Brazil. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces; the presidential system was established in 1889, upon the proclamation of the republic in a military coup d'état against Emperor Pedro II. Since Brazil has had six constitutions, three dictatorships, three democratic periods. During the democratic periods, voting has always been compulsory; the Constitution of Brazil, along with several constitutional amendments, establishes the requirements and responsibilities of the president, their term of office and the method of election. Jair Bolsonaro is the current President, he was sworn in on 1 January 2019 following the 2018 presidential election. As a republic with a presidential executive, Brazil grants significant powers to the president, who controls the executive branch, represents the country abroad, appoints the cabinet and, with the approval of the Senate, the judges for the Supreme Federal Court.
The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Presidents in Brazil have significant lawmaking powers, exercised either by proposing laws to the National Congress or by using Medidas Provisórias, an instrument with the force of law that the president can enact in cases of urgency and necessity except to make changes to some areas of law. A provisional measure comes into effect before Congress votes on it, remains in force for up to 60 days unless Congress votes to rescind it; the 60-day period can be extended once, up to 120 days. If Congress, on the other hand, votes to approve the provisional measure, it becomes an actual law, with changes decided by the legislative branch; the provisional measure expires at the end of the 60-day period, or sooner, if rejected by one of the Houses of Congress. Article 84 of the current Federal Constitution, determines that the president has the power to appoint and dismiss the ministers of state; the Constitution of Brazil requires that a President be a native-born citizen of Brazil, at least 35 years of age, a resident of Brazil, in full exercise of their electoral rights, a registered voter, a member of a political party.
The president of Brazil serves for a term of four years
Oligopoly
An oligopoly is a market form wherein a market or industry is dominated by a small number of large sellers. Oligopolies can result from various forms of collusion which reduce competition and lead to higher prices for consumers. Oligopolies have their own market structure. With few sellers, each oligopolist is to be aware of the actions of the others. According to game theory, the decisions of one firm therefore influence and are influenced by decisions of other firms. Strategic planning by oligopolists needs to take into account the responses of the other market. Entry barriers include high investment requirements, strong consumer loyalty for existing brands and economies of scale. In developed economies oligopolies dominate the economy as the competitive model is of negligible importance for consumers. Oligopolies differ from price takers. Instead, they search for the best price-output combination. Oligopoly is a common market form; as a quantitative description of oligopoly, the four-firm concentration ratio is utilized.
This measure expresses, as a percentage, the market share of the four largest firms in any particular industry. For example, as of fourth quarter 2008, if we combine total market share of Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, we see that these firms, control 97% of the U. S. cellular telephone market. Oligopolistic competition can give rise to both diverse outcomes. In some situations, particular companies may employ restrictive trade practices in order to inflate prices and restrict production in much the same way that a monopoly does. Whenever there is a formal agreement for such collusion, between companies that compete with one another, this practice is known as a cartel. A prime example of such a cartel is OPEC, which has a profound influence on the international price of oil. Firms collude in an attempt to stabilize unstable markets, so as to reduce the risks inherent in these markets for investment and product development. There are legal restrictions on such collusion in most countries. There does not have to be a formal agreement for collusion to take place –for example, in some industries there may be an acknowledged market leader which informally sets prices to which other producers respond, known as price leadership.
In other situations, competition between sellers in an oligopoly can be fierce, with low prices and high production. This could lead to an efficient outcome approaching perfect competition; the competition in an oligopoly can be greater when there are more firms in an industry than if, for example, the firms were only regionally based and did not compete directly with each other. Thus the welfare analysis of oligopolies is sensitive to the parameter values used to define the market's structure. In particular, the level of dead weight loss is hard to measure; the study of product differentiation indicates that oligopolies might create excessive levels of differentiation in order to stifle competition. Oligopoly theory makes heavy use of game theory to model the behavior of oligopolies: Stackelberg's duopoly. In this model, the firms move sequentially. Cournot's duopoly. In this model, the firms choose quantities. Bertrand's oligopoly. In this model, the firms choose prices. Profit maximization conditions An oligopoly maximizes profits.
Ability to set price Oligopolies are price setters rather than price takers. Entry and exit Barriers to entry are high; the most important barriers are government licenses, economies of scale, access to expensive and complex technology, strategic actions by incumbent firms designed to discourage or destroy nascent firms. Additional sources of barriers to entry result from government regulation favoring existing firms making it difficult for new firms to enter the market. Number of firms "Few" – a "handful" of sellers. There are so few firms. Long run profits Oligopolies can retain long run abnormal profits. High barriers of entry prevent sideline firms from entering market to capture excess profits. Product differentiation Product may be differentiated. Perfect knowledge Assumptions about perfect knowledge vary but the knowledge of various economic factors can be described as selective. Oligopolies have perfect knowledge of their own cost and demand functions but their inter-firm information may be incomplete.
Buyers have only imperfect knowledge as to price and product quality. Interdependence The distinctive feature of an oligopoly is interdependence. Oligopolies are composed of a few large firms; each firm is so large. Therefore, the competing firms will be aware of a firm's market actions and will respond appropriately; this means that in contemplating a market action, a firm must take into consideration the possible reactions of all competing firms and the firm's countermoves. It is much like a game of chess, in which a player must anticipate a whole sequence of moves and countermoves in order to determine how to achieve his or her objectives. For example, an oligopoly considering a price reduction may wish to estimate the likelihood that competing firms would lower their prices and trigger a ruinous price war. Or if the firm is considering a price increase, it may want
Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento
The Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento, better known as PAC, is a major infrastructure program of the Federal government of Brazil. The program was launched on January 28, 2007, by the Lula da Silva administration, consisting of a set of economic policies and investment projects with the objective of accelerating economic growth in Brazil; the program had a budget of $503.9 billion reais for the 2007-2010 quadriennium. The Rousseff administration has continued the program under the name PAC-2; the Growth Acceleration Program forecasts investments by the Federal government, state enterprises and the private sector in construction, energy and logistics. The program had an estimated budget of $503.9 billion reais for the 2007–2010 quadriennium. PAC 2 was launched in March 2010 by President Dilma Rouseff, it was set up as a continuation of the original PAC, designed to last only four years. PAC 2 had a budget of R$1.59 trillion, focused on the development of social and infrastructure sectors such as transportation, health care and housing.
Avança Brasil Official website
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Founded in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise nine undergraduate and graduate schools, among which are the School of Foreign Service, School of Business, Medical School, Law School. Located on a hill above the Potomac River, the school's main campus is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark. Georgetown offers degree programs in forty-eight disciplines, enrolling an average of 7,500 undergraduate and 10,000 post-graduate students from more than 130 countries. Georgetown is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit-affiliated institution of higher education in the United States; the Jesuits have participated in the university's academic life, both as scholars and as administrators, since 1805. The majority of Georgetown students are not Catholic. Georgetown's notable alumni include U. S. President Bill Clinton, U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, CIA Director George Tenet, King Felipe of Spain, as well as the royalty and heads of state of more than a dozen countries.
In 2015, Georgetown had 1190 alumni working as diplomats for the U. S. Foreign Service, more than any other university. In 2014, Georgetown ranked second in the nation by the average number of graduates serving in the U. S. Congress. Georgetown is a top feeder school for careers in consulting and investment banking on Wall Street. Georgetown is home to the country's largest student-run business, largest student-run financial institution, the oldest continuously running student theatre troupe, one of the oldest debating societies in the United States; the school's athletic teams are nicknamed the Hoyas and include a men's basketball team that has won a record-tying seven Big East championships, appeared in five Final Fours, won a national championship in 1984. The university has a co-ed sailing team that holds thirteen national championships and one world championship title. Jesuit settlers from England founded the Province of Maryland in 1634. However, the 1646 defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil War led to stringent laws against Roman Catholic education and the extradition of known Jesuits from the colony, including missionary Andrew White, the destruction of their school at Calverton Manor.
During most of the remainder of Maryland's colonial period, Jesuits conducted Catholic schools clandestinely. It was not until after the end of the American Revolution that plans to establish a permanent Catholic institution for education in the United States were realized; because of Benjamin Franklin's recommendation, Pope Pius VI appointed former Jesuit John Carroll as the first head of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States though the papal suppression of the Jesuit order was still in effect. Carroll began meetings of local clergy in 1783 near Annapolis, where they orchestrated the development of a new university. On January 23, 1789, Carroll finalized the purchase of the property in Georgetown on which Dahlgren Quadrangle was built. Future Congressman William Gaston was enrolled as the school's first student on November 22, 1791, instruction began on January 2, 1792. During its early years, Georgetown College suffered from considerable financial strain; the Maryland Society of Jesus began its restoration in 1805, Jesuit affiliation, in the form of teachers and administrators, bolstered confidence in the college.
The school relied on private sources of funding and the limited profits from local lands, donated to the Jesuits. To raise money for Georgetown and other schools in 1838, Maryland Jesuits conducted a mass sale of some 272 slaves to two Deep South plantations in Maringouin, Louisiana from their six in Maryland, ending their slaveholding. President James Madison signed into law Georgetown's congressional charter on March 1, 1815, creating the first federal university charter, which allowed it to confer degrees, with the first bachelor's degrees being awarded two years later. In 1844, the school received a corporate charter, under the name "The President and Directors of Georgetown College", affording the growing school additional legal rights. In response to the demand for a local option for Roman Catholic students, the Medical School was founded in 1851; the U. S. Civil War affected Georgetown as 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in one army or the other, the Union Army commandeered university buildings.
By the time of President Abraham Lincoln's May 1861 visit to campus, 1,400 troops were living in temporary quarters there. Due to the number of lives lost in the war, enrollment levels remained low until well after the war. Only seven students graduated in 1869, down from over 300 in the previous decade; when the Georgetown College Boat Club, the school's rowing team, was founded in 1876 it adopted two colors: blue, used for Union uniforms, gray, used for Confederate uniforms. These colors signified the peaceful unity among students. Subsequently, the school adopted these as its official colors. Enrollment did not recover until during the presidency of Patrick Francis Healy from 1873 to 1881. Born in Georgia as a slave by law and mixed-race by ancestry, Healy was the first head of a predominantly white American university of acknowledged African descent, he identified as Irish Catholic, like his father, was educated in Catholic schools in the United States and France. He is credited with reforming the undergraduate curriculum, lengthening the medical and law programs, creating the Alumni Association.
One of his largest undertakings was the construction of a major new building, subsequently named Healy Hall in his honor. For his work, Healy is known as the school's "second fo
Pedro Malan
Pedro Sampaio Malan is a Brazilian economist and former Minister of Finance of Brazil. He is the father of correspondent Cecília Malan. Pedro Sampaio Malan was born in 1943 in Petropolis, a town named in honor of Dom Pedro II to the north of Rio de Janeiro. Malan was educated in a Jesuit school before studying electrical engineering at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. While working as a research associate at Rio's Institute of Applied Economic Research he first met the U. S. economics teacher Albert Fishlow, who would in 1973 be his adviser for his doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. His thesis was Brazil's Place in the International Economy. Malan continued to live in the USA working for various multilateral agencies until 1993. Malan returned to Brazil in 1993 at the request of the finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who asked him to head the Central Bank. Malan was President of the Brazilian Central Bank, from September 9, 1993 to December 31, 1994.
Malan was the Minister of Finance for Brazil, from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2002, during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Along with Marcílio Marques Moreira, Malan worked for the Fernando Collor de Mello administration as an official negotiator of the foreign debt of Brazil with the International Monetary Fund, he is credited with reforming the nation's banking system, saving Brazil from the negative effects of 1997's Asian market crisis. He was one of the architects of the Plano Real. Pedro Malan is a former Chairman of the Board of the Unibanco bank and continues to sit as Chairman of the International Advisory Board of Itaú Unibanco. Pedro is a member of the Boards of utility company EDP - Energias do Brasil and construction and industrial maintenance company Mills Estruturas e Serviços de Engenharia S/A, he is a Trustee of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and a member of the Temasek International Panel. Pedro served on the Board of Souza Cruz S. A, a subsidiary company of British American Tobacco, until his appointment to the Board of British American Tobacco p.l.c.
Dr. Pedro Malan was appointed to the Board of British American Tobacco p.l.c. as a Non-Executive Director in February 2015. He is a member of the Corporate Social Nominations Committees. Official biography from the Brazilian Ministry of Finance
Amazon rubber boom
The Amazon Rubber Boom was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related to the extraction and commercialization of rubber. Centered in the Amazon Basin, the boom resulted in a large expansion of European colonization in the area, attracting immigrant workers, generating wealth, causing cultural and social transformations, wreaking havoc upon indigenous societies, it encouraged the growth of cities such as Manaus, Porto Velho, Belém, capitals within the respective Brazilian states of Amazonas, Rondônia and Pará. The rubber boom occurred between 1879 and 1912. There was heightened rubber production and associated activities from 1942 to 1945 during the Second World War. Natural rubber is an elastomer known as tree gum, India rubber, caoutchouc, which comes from the rubber tree in tropical regions. Christopher Columbus was the one of the first Europeans to bring news of this odd substance back to Europe, but he was not the only one to report it.
Around 1736, a French astronomer recalled how Amerindians used rubber to waterproof shoes and cloaks. He brought several samples of rubber back to France. Rubber was used as an eraser by scientist Joseph Priestley in England, it was not until the 1800s that practical uses of rubber were developed and the demand for rubber began. A rubber factory that made rubber garters for women opened in Paris, France, in the year 1803. However, the material still had disadvantages: at room temperature, it was sticky. At higher temperatures, the rubber became softer and stickier, while at lower temperatures it became hard and rigid; the South Amerindians first discovered rubber. The Amerindians in the Amazon rainforest developed ways to extract rubber from the rubber tree, a member of the Euphorbiaceae family. A white liquid called latex is extracted from the stem of the rubber tree, contains rubber particles dispersed in an aqueous serum; the rubber, which constitutes about 35% of the latex, is chemically cis-1,4-polyisoprene.
Latex is a neutral substance, with a pH of 7.0 to 7.2. However, when it is exposed to the air for 12 to 24 hours, its pH falls and it spontaneously coagulates to form a solid mass of rubber. Rubber produced in this fashion has disadvantages. For example, exposure to air causes it to mix with various materials, perceptible and can cause rot, as well as a temperature-dependent stickiness. Industrial treatment was developed to remove the impurities and vulcanize the rubber, a process that eliminated its undesirable qualities; this process gives it superior mechanical properties, causes it to lose its sticky character, become stable - resistant to solvents and variations in temperature. The rubber boom and the associated need for a large workforce had a significant negative effect on the indigenous population across Brazil, Peru and Colombia; as rubber plantations grew, labor shortages increased. The owners of the plantations or rubber barons were rich, but those who collected the rubber made little as a large amount of rubber was needed to be profitable.
The rubber barons forced them to tap rubber out of the trees. One plantation started with 50,000 Indians but, when discovered, only 8,000 were still alive. Slavery and systematic brutality were widespread, in some areas, 90% of the Indian population was wiped out; these rubber plantations were part of the Brazilian rubber market, which declined as rubber plantations in Southeast Asia became more effective. Roger Casement, an Irishman traveling the Putumayo region of Peru as a British consul during 1910–1911 documented the abuse, slavery and use of stocks for torture against the native Indians: "The crimes charged against many men now in the employ of the Peruvian Amazon Company are of the most atrocious kind, including murder and constant flogging." According to Wade Davis, author of One River: "The horrendous atrocities that were unleashed on the Indian people of the Amazon during the height of the rubber boom were like nothing, seen since the first days of the Spanish Conquest."Rubber had catastrophic effects in parts of Upper Amazonia, but its impact should not be exaggerated nor extrapolated to the whole region.
The Putumayo was a horrific case. Many nearby rubber regions were not ruled by physical violence, but by the voluntary compliance implicit in patron-peon relations; some native peoples benefited financially from their dealings with the white merchants. Others stayed away from the main rivers; because tappers worked in near complete isolation, they were not burdened by overseers and timetables. In Brazil tappers could, did, adulterate rubber cargoes, by adding sand and flour to the rubber "balls", before sending them downriver. Flight into the thicket was a successful survival strategy and, because Indians were engaged in credit relations, it was a common practice to vanish and work for other patrons, leaving debts unpaid. For the first four and a half centuries following the discovery of the New World, the native populations of the Amazon Basin lived in isolation; the area was vast and impenetrable, no gold or precious stones had been found there, as neither colonial Brazil nor imperial Brazil was able to create incentives for development in the region.
The regional economy was based on use of diverse natural resources in the region, but development was concentrated in coastal areas. The Industrial Revolution in Europe led to demand for uses that
Brazilian Miracle
The Brazilian Miracle was a period of exceptional economic growth in Brazil during the rule of the Brazilian military government. During this time the average annual GDP growth was close to 10%; the greatest economic growth was reached during the tenure of President Emílio Garrastazu Médici from 1969 to 1973. Perception of the so-called Golden Age of Brazilian development was strengthened in 1970, when Brazil for the third time won the FIFA World Cup, the official adoption of the slogan "Brasil, ame-o ou deixe-o" by the Brazilian military government. During the presidency of João Goulart, the economy was nearing a crisis, the annual inflation rate reached 100%. After the 1964 coup d'état, the Brazilian military was more concerned with political control and left economic policy to a group of entrusted technocrats, led by Delfim Netto. Brazil became an urban society, with 67% of its people living in cities; that was caused by a population shift from the poorer countryside to the booming cities, with São Paulo growing faster than the others.
The government became directly involved in economy, as it invested in new highways and railroads. Steel mills, petrochemical factories, hydroelectric power plants, nuclear reactors were built by the large state-owned companies Eletrobras and Petrobras. To reduce reliance on imported oil, ethanol industry was promoted. By 1980, 57% of Brazil's exports were industrial goods, compared with 20% in 1968. To fuel its economic growth, Brazil needed more imported oil; the early years of the Brazilian Miracle had sustainable borrowing. However, the 1973 oil crisis made military government borrow from international lenders, the debt became unmanageable. By the end of the decade, Brazil had the largest debt in the world: about $US92 billion. Economic growth ended with the 1979 energy crisis, which led to years of recession and hyperinflation
