Monthly Archives: August 2012

Surviving Brazil’s Hyperinflation in the 1990s

26 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Brazil, Economy and Finance

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Parcel your purchase in three installments without interest on your Credit Card

Minimum Installment R$5.00 (US$2.47 on 08/26/12)

Source: http://www.gramado.onde.ir

 

When I started working at Melon Exporters S.A. in the early 1990s, I earned an impressive seven-figure monthly salary, the equivalent of six minimum salaries at that time. Those were the days when we struggled with hyperinflation. A year later, the Brazilian Central Bank chopped off three zeroes from the cruzeiro in circulation and introduced the cruzeiro real.

One of my challenges as a working solo mom was keeping my two sons in a good school: a safe environment with qualified teachers. At the beginning of every school year, text books, school materials, and school attire stretched my budget to bursting point. Several major retail stores offered in-store credit to customers with a good credit history. I needed a chance to build my credit history. Help came from a work colleague. During our lunch break, she took me to a school supplies retailer where she knew someone in the credit department. With her vouching for my credit worthiness, I obtained approval for my first purchase with payment in three installments.

Payment with installments (pagamento parcelado) is also available using checks and credit cards. The buyer issues pre-dated checks (cheque pré-datado) of equal value, really post-dated checks, in the name of the store or individual with payment-due dates over the three- to six-month period, for example: 08/26/12, 09/26/12, and 10/26/12. Avoiding non-payment of pre-dated checks for insufficient funds was crucial to building a good record.

Credit card companies also offer purchases in three or more equal installments, charged monthly on your credit card account. In the captioned ad, the online store offers three payments without interest charges (sem juros). This is not always the case. Full payment (pagamento à vista) at time of purchase could be cheaper by 15 percent or more, depending on consumer credit interest rates. During Brazil’s period of hyperinflation, the difference could be over 40 percent.

Opening a checking account proved a difficult task. When I approached the desk of the New Accounts Manager at the bank where I maintained a savings account, he sized me up from my shoes to my face. My paycheck was not enough. He wanted to see my Income Tax Return for the previous year.

At the bank across the street, I needed an introduction from a customer of good standing. Happily, the accountant at Melon Exporters was a customer of the bank. Later that week, she went with me to the bank to open my first Brazilian checking account.

Months later, when the company started doing business with the Bank of the State of Ceará (privatized in 2005), the Branch Manager invited me to open a checking account. I did not even have to go into the bank. A year later, he offered me a credit card account.

My work colleagues were good people who looked out for one another. With their guidance, I learned the art of surviving on a fixed wage while living expenses soared daily.

Corruption Corrodes Future of Guyana’s Youth

19 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Guyana, Save Our Children, Social Injustice

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Garbage outside the Stabroek Market – Georgetown – Guyana

Source: Guyana Chronicle News, 3 January 2012 (www.guyanachronicle.com)

 

My love for my native land blossomed at an early age. It found expression in primary school through the patriotic songs I learned and sang with fervor. My favorite song was “My Native Land” by M.A. Cossou. The opening line still evokes that love: “Oh, I care not that others rave over fair lands afar…” At an early age, I believed that I would never leave my native land because there was “none so fair as can compare with my own native land.”(Lyrics available at silvertorch.com/guysongs.)

I delighted in the brilliant red-orange-yellow flowers of the flamboyant trees lining the main avenues of our capital city, Georgetown. Hibiscus hedges, bougainvillea bushes, and croton plants added their vibrant colors to make Georgetown the Garden City of the Caribbean Region.

At high school, I connected with the world through the study of geography. My geography teacher, of Portuguese descent, taught me the importance of using my talents to serve my country and to work towards building a better future for all of our six peoples.

With the end of British colonialism, I believed in our ability to create our own destiny. Our nation’s first Prime Minister, before power and money corrupted his vision, instilled national pride and unity in my impressionable young mind. I sang our National Anthem and looked to our flag with pride.

But the dream I shared with other young people of my generation was all a fairy tale. Corruption soon trickled down from the high ranks of our government and, like the salt air fanning our coastline, corroded our society and destroyed our dream, yet unfulfilled. Garbage dumps across Georgetown, due to lack of funds to pay the garbage collectors, are a visible sign of the prevailing corruptive forces.

In 2011, according to the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International (www.transparency.org), Guyana ranked 134 out of 182 nations with a score of 2.5 (on a scale of 0 to 10), putting our nation among the most corrupt in the world. The Index also reveals that we are the most corrupt among our Anglo-Caribbean sister states. The small island nation of Barbados puts us to shame. It ranks among the top twenty least corrupt countries with a score of 7.8.

Our young people, the future of our nation, cannot thrive in a corrupt environment. With the exception of the few who will choose to milk the corrupt system, our talented and skilled young professionals and entrepreneurs will seek “fair lands afar.” Guyana’s Junior Calypso Monarch 2010, Tennicia De Freitas, then 18 years, expressed well the plight of our less fortunate youth in her prize-winning song, “I don’t want to be born.”

When will Guyana’s leaders and adults find the courage and determination to end the endemic corruption corroding the future of its youth?

An Elderly Man Fell on the Sidewalk

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Family Life, Human Behavior, United States

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Elderly Man Walking on the Street

Source: Article on “Walking Speed in Late Life Linked to Dementia Risk: Research” (www.united-academics.org)

 

While I was waiting at a bus stop, an elderly man fell on the sidewalk a block away. Falling face forward, he struggled to get up from the ground. I ran towards him.  When I reached him, he had managed to sit up. Confused and shaken, he asked me to help him up. As he was small in stature and similar in height, I had no difficulty in helping him to his feet.

“Are you okay, sir?” I asked.

“Don’t know what happened.” Clutching a small brown paper bag in one hand, he clung to my arm with his other hand.

“Do you live nearby? Should I call an ambulance?”

“Don’t need an ambulance. I live a few blocks away.” Strands of thinning brown hair hung over his dull, light brown eyes.

“You’re too shaken to walk home alone,” I told him. “I can take you home. Is that okay with you?

He agreed.

With the elderly man clinging to my arm, I set out on the slow walk to his home, stopping twice for him to rest. He had gone to buy nails at the hardware store, over six blocks away from the corner where he fell.

“I used to drive,” he said. “But that woman at DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) refused to renew my driver’s license. My car’s just sitting there in the driveway.”

He lived alone after his wife of over forty years died two years ago. His son resided miles away in another city in Southern California.

“I miss her,” he said. “Life has not been the same without her.”

Five blocks later, I was relieved when we arrived safely at his home on a quiet and deserted cul-de-sac. A lime-green 1960s Chevrolet stood in the open driveway. While I held the paper bag, he fumbled for about five minutes in all of his pants and shirt pockets for the front-door key. After opening the door, he invited me in to see his home. I thanked him, but declined.  “I have a dental appointment. You should call your son and tell him what happened. It’s not good for you to go walking alone.”

On the way to the nearest bus stop, I called the dental clinic to inform them that I would be late for my appointment. Later, at the dental clinic, I explained the reason for my tardiness to the clerk at the front desk. The Latino woman in her forties cautioned me not to do such a thing again.

“You should’ve called the police. What if the man or his son sues you for injuries?”

“People do that?” I asked her.

In the waiting room, I thought of my elderly mother who lived alone in another city over an hour’s drive away. If she should ever fall on the sidewalk, would my mother be left lying on the street?

Brazil: Invisible Barriers to Fresh Fruit Export Sales

05 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Brazil, Working Life

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Workers collect melons harvested on farm in Northeast Brazil

Source: Blogspot Carlos Costa – 30 March 2012 (carlocosta.blogspot.com)

 

As import-export manager at Melon Exporters S.A. (fictitious name), I had a lot to learn about the fresh fruit market. Selling high quality fruits on the overseas markets required much more than a good and bountiful harvest.  Questions raised by a large prospective European client, scheduled to visit our Head Office and melon farm, left me flabbergasted. I passed on the news received from our commercial director in Rotterdam to the owner and president of Melon Exporters S.A.

“Doutor Antônio, the new client wants to know if our farm workers have toilet facilities and if they practice proper hygiene… Do they think we’re backwards?”

“They can come and see,” he told me, unperturbed.

When I first joined the company, I visited the farm and met the farm manager, agronomists, and other personnel with whom I maintained daily contact.  As producers and exporters of fresh melons, our farm operations and working conditions had to comply with Brazilian government requirements and international standards for fresh fruit exports.

Before signing a purchasing contract with our company, two executives from the European company, accompanied by our commercial director, arrived in Fortaleza, capital of the State of Ceará, on a three-day visit. On their visit to our melon farm, over 92 miles away, the commercial director invited me to join the inspection party.

At the farm, in the bungalow-style administrative building, our European guests met our farm manager and other administrative staff. Within the administrative compound, a similar building housed the kitchen and dining hall. They had the opportunity to visit the kitchen and to partake of the meal prepared for all administrative and field workers.

After lunch, we visited the nursery, fruit processing division, and packing plant. Our guests inspected the toilet facilities provided for the field and other farm workers. They recommended the use of antibacterial liquid soap instead of the bar soap provided.

During the inspection of our fruit processing and packing divisions, I paid keen attention to the questions our guests raised and responses made by our farm personnel. Later, the farm manager and agronomist, in two separate open jeeps, drove us through the melon plantation extending for miles across the flat open landscape. We stopped several times in the field to allow our guests to examine the melons under cultivation.

It was a great stride forward for Melon Exporters S.A. when the European company signed a lucrative export sales contract with us.

That visit and subsequent sales contract taught me the importance of going a step further in meeting a client’s sanitary requirements. I had a lot to learn about the invisible barriers to succeeding in the international fresh fruit market.

Learn about the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary & Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsagr_e.htm.