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Brazillionaires: The Godfathers of Modern Brazil
Wealth and power on the trail of the super-rich
In 2012, Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista was the eighth richest man in the world, his $30bn fortune built on Brazil's incredible natural resources. By the middle of 2013 he had lost it all, engulfed in scandal.
Brazillionaires is a fast-paced account of Batista's rise and fall: a story of helicopter flights, beach-front penthouses and high-speed car crashes. Along the way, it tells the parallel story of Brazil itself, a country caught in the cycle of boom and bust, renewed hope and dashed promise; a country where the hyper-rich are at the heart of the economy - and where their wealth can buy immense political power.
Stefan Zweig said in 1941 that Brazil was the country of the future; Brazilians joke that it always will be. Today, rampant corruption and endemic inequality threaten to derail the new Brazilian Dream. The brazillionaires are the key to understanding that dream; through them Brazillionaires tells the story of their country's past, present and future.
Translated from the Portuguese.
346 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2016
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September 11, 2016
Excelente para descobrir sobre o presente. Serviu como um ótimo complemento ao Brasil: Uma Biografia que acabei de ler, trazendo a história mais para o presente através da vida dos bilionários que o Alex Cuadros acompanhou a trabalho para a Bloomberg. Ele dá um ponto de vista externo para o que se passa no Brasil com bastante irreverência e uma boa noção de como o Brasil funciona. O que serve não só para explicar como os realmente ricos fazem o seu dinheiro aqui (com verba pública, apoio do governo e muito financiamento de campanha, diga-se de passagem), mas também para contrastar o que acontece no Brasil com outros países (principalmente os EUA).
O livro descreve mais de perto o Eike, pela figura pública que ele é e pelo momento recente que passou (a obra termina no começo de 2016). Também passa por vários outros bilionários, incluindo alguns que o autor desenterrou. Senti falta de nomes como Sarney (duvido que não seja bilionário) e afins, mas o autor tem um viés mais de negócios (Bloomberg) do que político.
O livro descreve mais de perto o Eike, pela figura pública que ele é e pelo momento recente que passou (a obra termina no começo de 2016). Também passa por vários outros bilionários, incluindo alguns que o autor desenterrou. Senti falta de nomes como Sarney (duvido que não seja bilionário) e afins, mas o autor tem um viés mais de negócios (Bloomberg) do que político.
February 11, 2020
Assigned to cover billionaires of Brazil for Bloomberg, Alex Cuadros got hooked. Maybe it was the people, maybe the topic or maybe Brazil, but what resulted besides his articles and his net worth calculations, is this information packed book. Through the billionaires profiled here the reader gets a short immersion in Brazilian politics, economics (sometimes the same thing) and life.
You meet your first billionaires in the era of the military dictatorship when business and the government were tightly tied. Large government projects (roads, dams, bridges) made Carmago Carrera and Paulo Maluf very wealthy. While the elected government of Lula da Silva, with its emphasis on “development” continued awarding awarding contracts to supporters, there were other means to wealth.
A good bit of the post-dictator period is devoted to Eike Batista, whom Caudros sees as emblematic of the era. Eike portrays himself as a self made man, but he may have gotten his lucky mining strike through information from his father. Eliezer Batista, Brazil’s Minister of Mines and the head of its state-run mining company, would surely have been in the know. Cuadros takes you through Eike’s business career distinguished by having a net worth of perhaps $30 billion vanishing to a negative billion in less than a year. Eike’s story includes a jet set son whose tragic accident leads to large “Occupy-style” demonstration showing Brazilians as fed up with its billionaires and a judge who impounded Eike’s vehicles (in theory to pay Eike’s creditors) and took them for his own. Eike’s talk of building a great Brazil, twittering and high style wife suggest that Donald Trump is not unique.
Two other billionaires stand out. Roberto Marinho built a communications business from newspapers (in the 1920’s) to radio to the third largest TV channel in the world. Caudros shows how Marinho did business with dictatorship and then the republic. Edir Macedo owns a chain of churches where parishioners tithe a good percent of their resources for what sounds to them will be a guarantee of prosperity. It appears to be OK to run a church as a business in Brazil, (or at least its status is more out in the open),
Along the way you learn about Brazil. You glimpse life in the offices, cities (clogged with traffic), communities of believers, court rooms, and favellas. You learn how the Bolsa Familia program alleviated 25% of Brazil’s poverty. There is a glimpse of the workings of AmBev, the owner of the all American Budweiser label. You learn how trade unionist Lula da Sliva came to power and kept it. You read how the costs of hosting the World Cup and Olympics compounded the problems of the economy (and the crony capitalism and sloppy accounting entrenched from the dictator years) impacted the administration of former guerilla Dilma Rousseff (now impeached).
If you are interested in Brazil (and/or its billionaires) you will find a lot of interest in this very engaging book.
You meet your first billionaires in the era of the military dictatorship when business and the government were tightly tied. Large government projects (roads, dams, bridges) made Carmago Carrera and Paulo Maluf very wealthy. While the elected government of Lula da Silva, with its emphasis on “development” continued awarding awarding contracts to supporters, there were other means to wealth.
A good bit of the post-dictator period is devoted to Eike Batista, whom Caudros sees as emblematic of the era. Eike portrays himself as a self made man, but he may have gotten his lucky mining strike through information from his father. Eliezer Batista, Brazil’s Minister of Mines and the head of its state-run mining company, would surely have been in the know. Cuadros takes you through Eike’s business career distinguished by having a net worth of perhaps $30 billion vanishing to a negative billion in less than a year. Eike’s story includes a jet set son whose tragic accident leads to large “Occupy-style” demonstration showing Brazilians as fed up with its billionaires and a judge who impounded Eike’s vehicles (in theory to pay Eike’s creditors) and took them for his own. Eike’s talk of building a great Brazil, twittering and high style wife suggest that Donald Trump is not unique.
Two other billionaires stand out. Roberto Marinho built a communications business from newspapers (in the 1920’s) to radio to the third largest TV channel in the world. Caudros shows how Marinho did business with dictatorship and then the republic. Edir Macedo owns a chain of churches where parishioners tithe a good percent of their resources for what sounds to them will be a guarantee of prosperity. It appears to be OK to run a church as a business in Brazil, (or at least its status is more out in the open),
Along the way you learn about Brazil. You glimpse life in the offices, cities (clogged with traffic), communities of believers, court rooms, and favellas. You learn how the Bolsa Familia program alleviated 25% of Brazil’s poverty. There is a glimpse of the workings of AmBev, the owner of the all American Budweiser label. You learn how trade unionist Lula da Sliva came to power and kept it. You read how the costs of hosting the World Cup and Olympics compounded the problems of the economy (and the crony capitalism and sloppy accounting entrenched from the dictator years) impacted the administration of former guerilla Dilma Rousseff (now impeached).
If you are interested in Brazil (and/or its billionaires) you will find a lot of interest in this very engaging book.
December 17, 2016
Bazillionaires: Chasing Dreams of Wealth in an American Country by Alex Cuadros, is an interesting look at Brazil and its recent development, growth and struggles, by examining the wealthiest individuals in the country. Cuadros is a journalist for Bloomberg who specializes in reporting on the wealthy, and helps develop Bloomberg's list of wealthiest individuals. He has also lived and worked in Brazil for decades. This allows him to look closely at the wealthiest in Brazil, and how they affect the countries growth, struggles and income equality.
Brazil is a fascinating country that is not well reported in most mainstream Western press, nor examined closely by academia in accessible circles. There are very few books on Brazil in wide print, and most people only hear about Brazilian soccer, riots and corruption, or the widespread deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and how outrageous this is to citizens of other nations who probably could not name a single city or Province in the country. Cuadros' book takes a similar approach, and does so it seems to help reach a wider audience. This is appreciated, as although I would love to know more about Brazil, one needs to start somewhere.
The book jumps around, starting with the controversy surrounding Eike Batista, one of the America's richest billionairs, and a speculative genius who has gained investment dollars for oil rig projects, railroads, steel factories, communications lines, agricultural production facilities and beauty lines, often without actually developing the business. The man is a brilliant fundraiser, and can sell a project all over the world, even if returns are not guaranteed. He is also a popular figure in Brazil, once being married to a famous model, and also sporting close political connections and a Donald Trump-style oratory tradition (blust and blunder). In 2015, his son Thor hit and killed a biker on the road, out to buy groceries for his wife on her birthday. This controversy highlighted the contrasting living conditions of Brazilian rich and poor, and the different treatment certain people receive from the government - Thor's son should not have been driving in the first place, as he had received a request number of speeding tickets to have his license revoked. His son had previously hit and injured an elderly man a few years before. And two months after the fatal accident, Thor was publically drag racing in a Formula-style race.
Cuadros looks at other Billionaires in brief - media tycoons who create novelas in Brazil, old military barons, and so on, but the main focus is on Batista and his wealth. It tracks his dizzying rise, and the slow and piecemeal fire sale of his business empire in recent years. The style used is to contrast this with the whims and fancies of a nation many do not understand. Much like China or Russia, many westerners have a lot to criticize in the BRIC nations, and developing nations in general. Corruption and nepotism are big parts of the developmentalist ideals of Brazil's business leaders and politicians. This is why Luis de Silva and Dilma Rousseff, nominally socialist politicians, can cozy up to old military hardliners from the era of dictatorship. It is for the greater good, in their opinion, and who could disagree? Brazil's rise has been fairly rapid. Although not as glamorous as China's double digit decade, Brazil has risen to become the world's top exporter of Coffee and Beef, pulp and more. It has modernized its industrial base using a developmentalist mentality, ie. close government control of the banking system, periodic assistance for struggling industries, and so on. It also engages in American-style libertarian views on wealth. Many wealthy Brazilians will die on the cross before claiming they inherited their wealth, and will play up the self made aspects of their business empires, even though they may take loans, favourable interest rates, or other forms of support from the government. Many billionaires are also philanthropic, and will donate to poverty reduction programs, or to buy equipment for government agencies or build schools, roads and so on.
This contrasts with corruption allegations which have been sneeringly grabbed by Western press over the last few years. Brazilian politicians and business leaders are closely related (sometimes literally related) and so their is much insider knowledge being traded around, much cooperation and agency capture, and favourable contracts, financial support and so on. These allegations closely mirror other developing nations, where cooperation between various actors is necessary to support economic growth, but can also be detrimental to the transparency of the states politics and economics. Brazil struggles with this especially as a democratic nation, where it is unable to crack down as hard as China can on corruption (or indeed, exploit is closely like other nations do). Cuadros claims this system closely resembles the development style of early USA, with tycoons who have lots of leeway to make decisions, and are closely connected to local and federal politicians.
This style of development is also chafing in its income inequality. Most Brazilians live in poverty closely akin to what one might see in China or India or Mexico. Services like electricity, telephone access, internet access, and even road or port access, are all relatively unknown. The booming Soy fields of Mato Grosso, for example, have to ship product over distances, and through terrain, that increases the price of product more so than shipping it over the Pacific Ocean to market in Asia. Brazil has its own class of migrant workers, moving from boom town to boom town, working in beef, soy farms, coffee plantations or the lumber industry, for example. This contrasts with the New Rich in Brazil, who drive sports cars, have apartments in Miami, Florida, and have dozens of bodyguards at their disposal. One can see why Brazil is often seething with unrest, as recent protests against Dilma Rousseff have shown, these tensions can erupt into violent protest and unrest. Brazil suffers from a high crime rate, and drug gangs operate as quasi-governments in favelas all over the country, providing protection, services and support for local businesses and residents. They are also heavily armed, and police executing operations often look more like soldiers storming a rebel stronghold then police-man. And the drug gangs reciprocate. They shoot back through rubble, fire rocket propelled grenades at helicopters, and melt into the general population as unrecognizable as local residents - often because they are.
Brazil, clearly, struggles with an image issue. Its poverty issues are terrifying to many westerners, but are not any more onerous than those of other developing nations. Its other big issue is environmental. US politicians and celebrities have gone on camera saying that the rainforests of Brazil are not Brazilian, they are global territory. This has as little traction in Brazil as a Chinese politician claiming Wall Street as "global property" for its financial importance, and criticizing US politicians for being protectionist. Although I am a staunch environmentalist myself, I can feel the resentment the global environmental movement can have on those wishing to bring themselves out of poverty, and develop a nation that can mirror the West in its success. This is a thorny issue, as lumber and land are important for Brazil's resource driven economy. How can one develop resources and compete globally, to bring millions out of poverty, if they are unable to export any resources? These questions remained unanswered.
So how did the book do? Cuadros has done a great job analyzing a country that is not well known in much of the rest of the world. Although Brazil has been struggling of late, it is still one of the biggest and most resource rich countries in the world, with a few hundred million citizens to boot. It is South America's China, and it is always strange to me why it is ignored so. Cuadros seeks to reverse this issue, bringing to light Brazil's relationship with its rich and poor, and contrasting this mostly to the rise and fall of Eike Batista's (and a select few others) business empire. I enjoyed this style enough, but would have preferred a more straightforward analysis of Brazil's economy and internal politics. This book leaves a lot to be desired for me, and in a way, that is a good thing. It will make the reader want to learn more on Brazil, and seek new information, or may make them read more of it in the news (and so on). As a reader who already does this however, I was hoping for a more in depth look at Brazil's economy, and this book could have used it. The anecdotal stories on Batista and his life were adequately entertaining, but do not wholly cover up the lack of concrete substance. I think I was not the target audience for this book, but appreciate the time and effort Cuadros has put into writing it. This is a subject worth learning more about, and Brazillionaires is most certainly a good introduction on Brazil that may take the average reader down new paths. Don't let my three stars throw you off if you are looking to start somewhere on Brazil. This is a very commendable place to begin.
Brazil is a fascinating country that is not well reported in most mainstream Western press, nor examined closely by academia in accessible circles. There are very few books on Brazil in wide print, and most people only hear about Brazilian soccer, riots and corruption, or the widespread deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and how outrageous this is to citizens of other nations who probably could not name a single city or Province in the country. Cuadros' book takes a similar approach, and does so it seems to help reach a wider audience. This is appreciated, as although I would love to know more about Brazil, one needs to start somewhere.
The book jumps around, starting with the controversy surrounding Eike Batista, one of the America's richest billionairs, and a speculative genius who has gained investment dollars for oil rig projects, railroads, steel factories, communications lines, agricultural production facilities and beauty lines, often without actually developing the business. The man is a brilliant fundraiser, and can sell a project all over the world, even if returns are not guaranteed. He is also a popular figure in Brazil, once being married to a famous model, and also sporting close political connections and a Donald Trump-style oratory tradition (blust and blunder). In 2015, his son Thor hit and killed a biker on the road, out to buy groceries for his wife on her birthday. This controversy highlighted the contrasting living conditions of Brazilian rich and poor, and the different treatment certain people receive from the government - Thor's son should not have been driving in the first place, as he had received a request number of speeding tickets to have his license revoked. His son had previously hit and injured an elderly man a few years before. And two months after the fatal accident, Thor was publically drag racing in a Formula-style race.
Cuadros looks at other Billionaires in brief - media tycoons who create novelas in Brazil, old military barons, and so on, but the main focus is on Batista and his wealth. It tracks his dizzying rise, and the slow and piecemeal fire sale of his business empire in recent years. The style used is to contrast this with the whims and fancies of a nation many do not understand. Much like China or Russia, many westerners have a lot to criticize in the BRIC nations, and developing nations in general. Corruption and nepotism are big parts of the developmentalist ideals of Brazil's business leaders and politicians. This is why Luis de Silva and Dilma Rousseff, nominally socialist politicians, can cozy up to old military hardliners from the era of dictatorship. It is for the greater good, in their opinion, and who could disagree? Brazil's rise has been fairly rapid. Although not as glamorous as China's double digit decade, Brazil has risen to become the world's top exporter of Coffee and Beef, pulp and more. It has modernized its industrial base using a developmentalist mentality, ie. close government control of the banking system, periodic assistance for struggling industries, and so on. It also engages in American-style libertarian views on wealth. Many wealthy Brazilians will die on the cross before claiming they inherited their wealth, and will play up the self made aspects of their business empires, even though they may take loans, favourable interest rates, or other forms of support from the government. Many billionaires are also philanthropic, and will donate to poverty reduction programs, or to buy equipment for government agencies or build schools, roads and so on.
This contrasts with corruption allegations which have been sneeringly grabbed by Western press over the last few years. Brazilian politicians and business leaders are closely related (sometimes literally related) and so their is much insider knowledge being traded around, much cooperation and agency capture, and favourable contracts, financial support and so on. These allegations closely mirror other developing nations, where cooperation between various actors is necessary to support economic growth, but can also be detrimental to the transparency of the states politics and economics. Brazil struggles with this especially as a democratic nation, where it is unable to crack down as hard as China can on corruption (or indeed, exploit is closely like other nations do). Cuadros claims this system closely resembles the development style of early USA, with tycoons who have lots of leeway to make decisions, and are closely connected to local and federal politicians.
This style of development is also chafing in its income inequality. Most Brazilians live in poverty closely akin to what one might see in China or India or Mexico. Services like electricity, telephone access, internet access, and even road or port access, are all relatively unknown. The booming Soy fields of Mato Grosso, for example, have to ship product over distances, and through terrain, that increases the price of product more so than shipping it over the Pacific Ocean to market in Asia. Brazil has its own class of migrant workers, moving from boom town to boom town, working in beef, soy farms, coffee plantations or the lumber industry, for example. This contrasts with the New Rich in Brazil, who drive sports cars, have apartments in Miami, Florida, and have dozens of bodyguards at their disposal. One can see why Brazil is often seething with unrest, as recent protests against Dilma Rousseff have shown, these tensions can erupt into violent protest and unrest. Brazil suffers from a high crime rate, and drug gangs operate as quasi-governments in favelas all over the country, providing protection, services and support for local businesses and residents. They are also heavily armed, and police executing operations often look more like soldiers storming a rebel stronghold then police-man. And the drug gangs reciprocate. They shoot back through rubble, fire rocket propelled grenades at helicopters, and melt into the general population as unrecognizable as local residents - often because they are.
Brazil, clearly, struggles with an image issue. Its poverty issues are terrifying to many westerners, but are not any more onerous than those of other developing nations. Its other big issue is environmental. US politicians and celebrities have gone on camera saying that the rainforests of Brazil are not Brazilian, they are global territory. This has as little traction in Brazil as a Chinese politician claiming Wall Street as "global property" for its financial importance, and criticizing US politicians for being protectionist. Although I am a staunch environmentalist myself, I can feel the resentment the global environmental movement can have on those wishing to bring themselves out of poverty, and develop a nation that can mirror the West in its success. This is a thorny issue, as lumber and land are important for Brazil's resource driven economy. How can one develop resources and compete globally, to bring millions out of poverty, if they are unable to export any resources? These questions remained unanswered.
So how did the book do? Cuadros has done a great job analyzing a country that is not well known in much of the rest of the world. Although Brazil has been struggling of late, it is still one of the biggest and most resource rich countries in the world, with a few hundred million citizens to boot. It is South America's China, and it is always strange to me why it is ignored so. Cuadros seeks to reverse this issue, bringing to light Brazil's relationship with its rich and poor, and contrasting this mostly to the rise and fall of Eike Batista's (and a select few others) business empire. I enjoyed this style enough, but would have preferred a more straightforward analysis of Brazil's economy and internal politics. This book leaves a lot to be desired for me, and in a way, that is a good thing. It will make the reader want to learn more on Brazil, and seek new information, or may make them read more of it in the news (and so on). As a reader who already does this however, I was hoping for a more in depth look at Brazil's economy, and this book could have used it. The anecdotal stories on Batista and his life were adequately entertaining, but do not wholly cover up the lack of concrete substance. I think I was not the target audience for this book, but appreciate the time and effort Cuadros has put into writing it. This is a subject worth learning more about, and Brazillionaires is most certainly a good introduction on Brazil that may take the average reader down new paths. Don't let my three stars throw you off if you are looking to start somewhere on Brazil. This is a very commendable place to begin.
July 31, 2017
Alex clearly understood Brazil very deeply, uncovering ape truths that surprised even a native Brazilian such as me. While I thank him for sharing his insights about the way our capitalism works, I just wish he'd devoted more time discussing other hidden billionaires, and not focused so much on Eike Batista
April 18, 2017
Mixed feelings. It's an utterly entertaining read. The book is full of interesting anecdotes (but some are facts and others are hearsay -- so it's important for the reader to distinguish them). The author also exposes his takes on the culture and problems of the country, and I believe he hits the mark some of the times. The problem is that the arguments feel plenty of times one-sided and are many times fallacious. Read with extreme caution: this is clearly not a proper discussion and exposition about the country and its problems, but merely a one-sided opinion of an outside reporter with no roots in the country and who was assigned to report on local billionaires. Read it for the stories and be skeptic about his opinions and conclusions -- especially those drawn about the Brazilian society and the business class in general.
Be in the lookout for:
1) The author's evident soft spot for Lula, Dilma and the Workers Party. The Workers Party held the executive branch (and, with that, controlled the Brazilian department of justice), their coalition held the majority in both houses of congress, and they nominated the majority of the supreme court judges (they even nominated the lawyer to the Workers Party who never held a position as a judge before! I've got to repeat this: a lawyer to their party was nominated and now holds a seat as a supreme court judge to the country!). Additionally, the Workers Party came to power in 2003 after many years of rigorously campaigning against corruption. Afterwards, they held power for 14 years, culminating in the worst recession and the worst corruption scandal in the history of Brazil. What's worst, almost none of their policies were sustainable or everlasting, they were Ponzi schemes -- i.e. they didn't create value, they either destroyed value or moved value around. Education (i.e. primary and secondary), healthcare, safety, bureaucracy and even infrastructure haven't significantly improved and their problems still persist to this day. The Workers Party say unemployment decreased and that people moved up in life, but now we are finally seeing that it was in fact the labor force that decreased (i.e. less people were looking for jobs) and most of those who moved up the ladder are now moving down indebted as never before. And yet, the author attempts to defend Lula and Dilma, saying that they "allied themselves with Brazil's entrenched interests" because they believed "it was the only way to govern" in a "grand…bargain for progress." Poor them, so powerless in those 14 years! Meanwhile, the facts themselves (as described above) point in the other direction: helping the poor and the workers was only a sales pitch, a means to an end, and the end itself was perpetual power and the increase of the size of state by any means necessary. Taxes as percentage of GDP (and in nominal terms) sky rocketed, government agencies and state run companies became even more bloated, contracts and subsidies to select companies increased exponentially. More money was funneled upwards to their political comrades and entrenched business partners than the other way around.
2) The author's use of generalizations and fallacious arguments. For example, at one point the author stealthily tries to discredit a person's position against the adoption of affirmative action quotas by referencing his employment and nothing more, saying "[i]t’s a curious position for the employee of a company whose current owners were born into their places at the top of the pyramid." In another example, the author fails to understand the relationship between cause and effect when he calls out the Brazilians who complain about corrupt officials and at the same time avoid the import tariffs on their iPads bought in Miami -- both are hardly the same offense and the second is arguably the effect of the first. In yet another example, he describes how millions of Brazilians took the streets to protest against the inflaming corruption scandals, but the author complains that the placards were all aimed at the corrupt politicians in power and none at the construction companies that bribed them, as if trying to point out that these well-intended protestors were on the side of the bribers or somehow misguided. With that, the author astonishingly brushes aside the fact that the fiduciary duty to its constituents and to enforce the law is that of the government and its politicians (in power) -- they are the ones who should rein in abuses, be incorruptible, oust corrupt practices and jail those involved. Trying to shift their role or share their responsibility (even if by a slight bit) with the business class and the public is fallacious and indecorous.
In the end, I can't help but think this could be a better book if the author either a) avoided talking about the social problems of the country and stuck with the billionaires; or b) actually exposed both sides of the story, together with the more lucid points of views of the middle class --those who are afraid for their safety (because they don't fly on helicopters or have bullet proof cars), who don't get "Bolsa Familia" or cheap credit from BNDES, who overpay for the basic education for their children and everything else because of the so called "Brazil cost" and lack of decent public services, who pay excessive taxes in a country that taxes its people as much as a developed nation (as % of GDP), and who have to deal with the overburdening interest rates.
Be in the lookout for:
1) The author's evident soft spot for Lula, Dilma and the Workers Party. The Workers Party held the executive branch (and, with that, controlled the Brazilian department of justice), their coalition held the majority in both houses of congress, and they nominated the majority of the supreme court judges (they even nominated the lawyer to the Workers Party who never held a position as a judge before! I've got to repeat this: a lawyer to their party was nominated and now holds a seat as a supreme court judge to the country!). Additionally, the Workers Party came to power in 2003 after many years of rigorously campaigning against corruption. Afterwards, they held power for 14 years, culminating in the worst recession and the worst corruption scandal in the history of Brazil. What's worst, almost none of their policies were sustainable or everlasting, they were Ponzi schemes -- i.e. they didn't create value, they either destroyed value or moved value around. Education (i.e. primary and secondary), healthcare, safety, bureaucracy and even infrastructure haven't significantly improved and their problems still persist to this day. The Workers Party say unemployment decreased and that people moved up in life, but now we are finally seeing that it was in fact the labor force that decreased (i.e. less people were looking for jobs) and most of those who moved up the ladder are now moving down indebted as never before. And yet, the author attempts to defend Lula and Dilma, saying that they "allied themselves with Brazil's entrenched interests" because they believed "it was the only way to govern" in a "grand…bargain for progress." Poor them, so powerless in those 14 years! Meanwhile, the facts themselves (as described above) point in the other direction: helping the poor and the workers was only a sales pitch, a means to an end, and the end itself was perpetual power and the increase of the size of state by any means necessary. Taxes as percentage of GDP (and in nominal terms) sky rocketed, government agencies and state run companies became even more bloated, contracts and subsidies to select companies increased exponentially. More money was funneled upwards to their political comrades and entrenched business partners than the other way around.
2) The author's use of generalizations and fallacious arguments. For example, at one point the author stealthily tries to discredit a person's position against the adoption of affirmative action quotas by referencing his employment and nothing more, saying "[i]t’s a curious position for the employee of a company whose current owners were born into their places at the top of the pyramid." In another example, the author fails to understand the relationship between cause and effect when he calls out the Brazilians who complain about corrupt officials and at the same time avoid the import tariffs on their iPads bought in Miami -- both are hardly the same offense and the second is arguably the effect of the first. In yet another example, he describes how millions of Brazilians took the streets to protest against the inflaming corruption scandals, but the author complains that the placards were all aimed at the corrupt politicians in power and none at the construction companies that bribed them, as if trying to point out that these well-intended protestors were on the side of the bribers or somehow misguided. With that, the author astonishingly brushes aside the fact that the fiduciary duty to its constituents and to enforce the law is that of the government and its politicians (in power) -- they are the ones who should rein in abuses, be incorruptible, oust corrupt practices and jail those involved. Trying to shift their role or share their responsibility (even if by a slight bit) with the business class and the public is fallacious and indecorous.
In the end, I can't help but think this could be a better book if the author either a) avoided talking about the social problems of the country and stuck with the billionaires; or b) actually exposed both sides of the story, together with the more lucid points of views of the middle class --those who are afraid for their safety (because they don't fly on helicopters or have bullet proof cars), who don't get "Bolsa Familia" or cheap credit from BNDES, who overpay for the basic education for their children and everything else because of the so called "Brazil cost" and lack of decent public services, who pay excessive taxes in a country that taxes its people as much as a developed nation (as % of GDP), and who have to deal with the overburdening interest rates.
November 8, 2016
Brilliantly written. "This is Brazil!", as we Brazilians love to say in a sarcastic way. Americans could say the same about our country though. Having grown up in both countries, I see too many similarities in the way things are done. To be honest one can say this about any country in the world. But Brazil wins because after all God is Brazilian. A must read for anyone wanting to understand the ebb and flow in the lobbyist activities of a government.
June 6, 2017
It's interesting to read about the magnats in one of the biggest economies, but the names and stories get very mixed up, hard to follow. One of the rare books I couldn't finish.
June 27, 2020
A review of three works:
The Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal
Brazillionaires, Alex Cuadros
HATE INC., Matt Taibbi
Figuring it was time to take a breather from recent weighty reads, I turned to some brain candy; three well-written books, of nearly identical length, authored by professional journalists, all with the lure of safely feeding and reinforcing my confirmation bias. The authors met expectations. I’ve found that many journalists rely on sentence structures that liven things up a bit, taking liberties with attribution, the description of events, and the establishment of fact to capture our attention. This does make for a more entertaining, engaging reading experience (note the word ‘entertaining’ -maybe a better word is ‘infotaining’). Admittedly, traditional historical or academic authors can also engage in similar loose language, it’s just that the journalist author seems naturally endowed with this trait and all too willing to use it. I find this reading experience akin to eating a fresh, warm Krispy Kreme donut, well the third Krispy Kreme donut; “Did I just down two or is this my third? Damn these things go down good!” Of course, there’s little nutritional value in that ecstatic treat.
The Management of Savagery
President Eisenhower’s speech on January 17, 1961 warning of the military industrial complex, pretty much said all we need to know. Since then, perhaps with a short retrenchment post-Vietnam and questions of a peace dividend following the demise of the Soviet bloc, America has continued to grow its security state with successive self-propelled rationales. Why is a nation overflowing with amber waves of grain, securely moated with large oceans, bordered with two friendly neighbors, free of military incursion to its continent for more than 200 years, so committed to a security state with the largest incarceration rate on the planet, by far the largest defense budgets, increasingly militarized police forces, and destructive, destabilizing international interventions, one following the other? I wonder if our endowed wealth and intrinsic natural security somehow, perplexingly, are at the heart of our illogical behaviors. I don’t believe there’s a likely resolution to this situation, unfortunately. Some, including me, can attempt to profit from this systemic aberration in some small way. Even that, however, is a risky proposition, as those who invested in private prisons found. I guess we can make easy peace with our military policies because they largely directly affect the voiceless and the opportunity costs are so ambiguous, so intangible.
Brazillionaires
When I first visited Brazil in the early 1990s, I remember flying over miles and miles of shanties – only later did I learn these are called favelas – then, upon landing, meeting with several persons from Brazil’s financial elite. How was it possible for wealth to aggregate in the hands of the few, persons no smarter than yours truly, in a land with so much poverty? The answer, I very much suspected, was a cozy, dare I say corrupt, relationship between financiers and government. If a friend in the Ministry of Finance gives a nod that your currency is soon to be devalued, what do you do? Why you lever up and take the opposite side of that trade, or so I believed. What genius! Such acumen! I don’t remember studying this business model in graduate school, unless it was in ethics class. Then again, apparently, this activity was not illegal in Brazil until more recent years. Finishing this work, John Law, the scam artist and Controller General of France under a young Louis XV came to mind. So too did Lord Alfred Hayes, of professional wrestling fame, though for different reasons.
HATE INC.
As a longtime viewer and subscriber to high-brow print and television media, I’ve often thought of the commercial value of selling divisiveness, a theme that loops directly back to Mr. Blumenthal’s work, by the way. The issues we have with the media are nothing new. Thomas Jefferson remarked, “I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” Maybe it’s the media’s omnipresent character, now associated with every personal electronic device, it seems, that has changed. Commercial and political interests, which may have merged, desire our attention, even for the briefest of moments; it’s a steeplechase to the basest emotions, where Jerry Springer’s annoying early 90s antics are so widespread we barely notice. Mr. Taibbi devotes quite a bit of this work reflecting on Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. He includes an exchange with Professor Chomsky as an appendix. I guess I need to put that one on my ‘to read’ list.
These books, while describing conditions affecting modern life, offer little prospect for betterment. They seem products from a shelf of the very store they appear to deride. Since our evolution into governed states and, especially, the dawn of the industrial revolution, we seem accelerating further and further from our natural roots. This is very good news for book publishers as it ensures a limitless flow of similar product to these three volumes, all the while avoiding actionable remedy for that which ails, upsets and stymies. I’m reminded of the wise central African tribal chief X’Nuthru, who some 77,350 years ago pointed his spear at each setting sun saying, “T’axugra, t’axugra jhalru qhatrrh mnemba!” giving thanks to the sky god for providing abundant warmth and light that day. His tribe, gathered around, danced and sang, just as they did every sunset prior and every sunset thereafter. All felt harmonious and in great order.
The Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal
Brazillionaires, Alex Cuadros
HATE INC., Matt Taibbi
Figuring it was time to take a breather from recent weighty reads, I turned to some brain candy; three well-written books, of nearly identical length, authored by professional journalists, all with the lure of safely feeding and reinforcing my confirmation bias. The authors met expectations. I’ve found that many journalists rely on sentence structures that liven things up a bit, taking liberties with attribution, the description of events, and the establishment of fact to capture our attention. This does make for a more entertaining, engaging reading experience (note the word ‘entertaining’ -maybe a better word is ‘infotaining’). Admittedly, traditional historical or academic authors can also engage in similar loose language, it’s just that the journalist author seems naturally endowed with this trait and all too willing to use it. I find this reading experience akin to eating a fresh, warm Krispy Kreme donut, well the third Krispy Kreme donut; “Did I just down two or is this my third? Damn these things go down good!” Of course, there’s little nutritional value in that ecstatic treat.
The Management of Savagery
President Eisenhower’s speech on January 17, 1961 warning of the military industrial complex, pretty much said all we need to know. Since then, perhaps with a short retrenchment post-Vietnam and questions of a peace dividend following the demise of the Soviet bloc, America has continued to grow its security state with successive self-propelled rationales. Why is a nation overflowing with amber waves of grain, securely moated with large oceans, bordered with two friendly neighbors, free of military incursion to its continent for more than 200 years, so committed to a security state with the largest incarceration rate on the planet, by far the largest defense budgets, increasingly militarized police forces, and destructive, destabilizing international interventions, one following the other? I wonder if our endowed wealth and intrinsic natural security somehow, perplexingly, are at the heart of our illogical behaviors. I don’t believe there’s a likely resolution to this situation, unfortunately. Some, including me, can attempt to profit from this systemic aberration in some small way. Even that, however, is a risky proposition, as those who invested in private prisons found. I guess we can make easy peace with our military policies because they largely directly affect the voiceless and the opportunity costs are so ambiguous, so intangible.
Brazillionaires
When I first visited Brazil in the early 1990s, I remember flying over miles and miles of shanties – only later did I learn these are called favelas – then, upon landing, meeting with several persons from Brazil’s financial elite. How was it possible for wealth to aggregate in the hands of the few, persons no smarter than yours truly, in a land with so much poverty? The answer, I very much suspected, was a cozy, dare I say corrupt, relationship between financiers and government. If a friend in the Ministry of Finance gives a nod that your currency is soon to be devalued, what do you do? Why you lever up and take the opposite side of that trade, or so I believed. What genius! Such acumen! I don’t remember studying this business model in graduate school, unless it was in ethics class. Then again, apparently, this activity was not illegal in Brazil until more recent years. Finishing this work, John Law, the scam artist and Controller General of France under a young Louis XV came to mind. So too did Lord Alfred Hayes, of professional wrestling fame, though for different reasons.
HATE INC.
As a longtime viewer and subscriber to high-brow print and television media, I’ve often thought of the commercial value of selling divisiveness, a theme that loops directly back to Mr. Blumenthal’s work, by the way. The issues we have with the media are nothing new. Thomas Jefferson remarked, “I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” Maybe it’s the media’s omnipresent character, now associated with every personal electronic device, it seems, that has changed. Commercial and political interests, which may have merged, desire our attention, even for the briefest of moments; it’s a steeplechase to the basest emotions, where Jerry Springer’s annoying early 90s antics are so widespread we barely notice. Mr. Taibbi devotes quite a bit of this work reflecting on Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. He includes an exchange with Professor Chomsky as an appendix. I guess I need to put that one on my ‘to read’ list.
These books, while describing conditions affecting modern life, offer little prospect for betterment. They seem products from a shelf of the very store they appear to deride. Since our evolution into governed states and, especially, the dawn of the industrial revolution, we seem accelerating further and further from our natural roots. This is very good news for book publishers as it ensures a limitless flow of similar product to these three volumes, all the while avoiding actionable remedy for that which ails, upsets and stymies. I’m reminded of the wise central African tribal chief X’Nuthru, who some 77,350 years ago pointed his spear at each setting sun saying, “T’axugra, t’axugra jhalru qhatrrh mnemba!” giving thanks to the sky god for providing abundant warmth and light that day. His tribe, gathered around, danced and sang, just as they did every sunset prior and every sunset thereafter. All felt harmonious and in great order.
August 27, 2016
Rio de Janeiro is burning! Quick pass the sunscreen. A tale of two cities redux.
The photo that accompanied the New Republic`s review of `Brazillionaires` perfectly captures the essence of Brazil during one of the country`s most challenging times. The photo showed bathing beauties catching some rays perched next to a 5 star hotel`s roof-top poolside. The nonchalant bikini-clad girls were juxtaposed with a photograph of a crowd at street level vehemently protesting against the Government during the 2013 winter of discontent. Rio de Janeiro is burning! Quick pass the sunscreen. A tale of two cities redux.
Get ready for a journey that will take you on a white knuckled ride that goes from palace to shanty town (favela/comunidade) in a heart beat. The author has a historian`s eye for detail but his delivery is fast paced and compelling.
The author`s genius is that after painstaking research he has endeavored to `join the dots` between various time-periods and a cast of billionaires during Brazil`s turbulent history. The author openly offers his personal opinion regarding the communality of the super-rich even though they hail from very different backgrounds ranging from elected politicians, military dictators, evangelists, media men, super-market magnates to white shoe private-equity bankers.
The tale seamlessly blends the author`s experiences from the corporate helicopters and penthouse board-rooms reserved for the elite to the public buses and urban slums where the majority of Brazilians inhabit. The author earned my respect by reporting from his personal experiences direct from the tear-gassed streets of Av Paulista during the protests.
The author usefully includes benchmarks for North America readers to appreciate that Brazil is indeed a land of superlatives. The vastness of the land described in his courageous bus trips, the frustration of weaving through government bureaucracy and the immense wealth of his targeted subjects are all captured here. E.g Bible thumping Edir Macedo (founder of Igreja Universal) is compared with Oral Roberts and local media moguls, `the Marinhos` are compared with Rupert Murdoch; btw the Brazilians are much richer and influential. But the star of this captivating soap opera is reserved to relating the rise and fall of ex-billionaire Eike Batista, once the world`s 7th richest man...no one has ever lost so much money so quickly.
The book starts with a headline grabbing tabloid story which may appear to be frivolous to the reader, but the book comes around full-circle and the closing page offer a poignant personal opinion of what really led to that same event.
I am a huge fan of the book/author but the criticisms that I reluctantly offer is that certain billionaires were completely excluded e.g. the bad boy banker Daniel Dantas. More time could have been spent on the Safras – the deadly fire in Monaco and the Safra`s purchase of Swiss Re`s London Gherkin probably deserved inclusion. Christina Onassis also lived for a short period in Sao Paulo and it would have been interesting to read about who attended her Court.
I myself am a native of Trinidad & Tobago, attended University in the UK and hopped around Puerto Rico, Germany, Argentina, Mexico before making Brazil my home in 1997. Even after living 19 years between Sao Paulo & Rio de Janeiro I was able to learn a great deal from Brazillionaires. For me it was an eye-opening, spellbinding page turner. Right now with the economic/political challenges, there is an exodus of the ex-pat community fleeing Brazil. The wounded executives then whine that things were just too hard, nothing worked, there was too much red-tape, everything was too expensive, the business community was a closed network, blatant corruption prevailed, no one was professional, the longest business plans never exceed 12 months etc.. I would especially recommend `Brazillionaires` to any aspiring ex-pat who is thinking of moving to Brazil. I hope that they might understand, as Tom Jobim once quipped, that Brazil is not for amateurs.
The photo that accompanied the New Republic`s review of `Brazillionaires` perfectly captures the essence of Brazil during one of the country`s most challenging times. The photo showed bathing beauties catching some rays perched next to a 5 star hotel`s roof-top poolside. The nonchalant bikini-clad girls were juxtaposed with a photograph of a crowd at street level vehemently protesting against the Government during the 2013 winter of discontent. Rio de Janeiro is burning! Quick pass the sunscreen. A tale of two cities redux.
Get ready for a journey that will take you on a white knuckled ride that goes from palace to shanty town (favela/comunidade) in a heart beat. The author has a historian`s eye for detail but his delivery is fast paced and compelling.
The author`s genius is that after painstaking research he has endeavored to `join the dots` between various time-periods and a cast of billionaires during Brazil`s turbulent history. The author openly offers his personal opinion regarding the communality of the super-rich even though they hail from very different backgrounds ranging from elected politicians, military dictators, evangelists, media men, super-market magnates to white shoe private-equity bankers.
The tale seamlessly blends the author`s experiences from the corporate helicopters and penthouse board-rooms reserved for the elite to the public buses and urban slums where the majority of Brazilians inhabit. The author earned my respect by reporting from his personal experiences direct from the tear-gassed streets of Av Paulista during the protests.
The author usefully includes benchmarks for North America readers to appreciate that Brazil is indeed a land of superlatives. The vastness of the land described in his courageous bus trips, the frustration of weaving through government bureaucracy and the immense wealth of his targeted subjects are all captured here. E.g Bible thumping Edir Macedo (founder of Igreja Universal) is compared with Oral Roberts and local media moguls, `the Marinhos` are compared with Rupert Murdoch; btw the Brazilians are much richer and influential. But the star of this captivating soap opera is reserved to relating the rise and fall of ex-billionaire Eike Batista, once the world`s 7th richest man...no one has ever lost so much money so quickly.
The book starts with a headline grabbing tabloid story which may appear to be frivolous to the reader, but the book comes around full-circle and the closing page offer a poignant personal opinion of what really led to that same event.
I am a huge fan of the book/author but the criticisms that I reluctantly offer is that certain billionaires were completely excluded e.g. the bad boy banker Daniel Dantas. More time could have been spent on the Safras – the deadly fire in Monaco and the Safra`s purchase of Swiss Re`s London Gherkin probably deserved inclusion. Christina Onassis also lived for a short period in Sao Paulo and it would have been interesting to read about who attended her Court.
I myself am a native of Trinidad & Tobago, attended University in the UK and hopped around Puerto Rico, Germany, Argentina, Mexico before making Brazil my home in 1997. Even after living 19 years between Sao Paulo & Rio de Janeiro I was able to learn a great deal from Brazillionaires. For me it was an eye-opening, spellbinding page turner. Right now with the economic/political challenges, there is an exodus of the ex-pat community fleeing Brazil. The wounded executives then whine that things were just too hard, nothing worked, there was too much red-tape, everything was too expensive, the business community was a closed network, blatant corruption prevailed, no one was professional, the longest business plans never exceed 12 months etc.. I would especially recommend `Brazillionaires` to any aspiring ex-pat who is thinking of moving to Brazil. I hope that they might understand, as Tom Jobim once quipped, that Brazil is not for amateurs.
February 5, 2017
This book is not only a masterpiece of journalistic work, but also a surprisingly deep analysis of Brazilian society, with its longings and frustrations - and whence they arise. Never before has a book managed to capture with such authority the hidden workings of the country, and how (until now) nameless ‘elites’ have throughout history controlled and milked the state for their own benefit and obscene enrichment - and here one could be talking about most other nations. It blatantly exposes those who wish to stay hidden due to having built astonishing fortunes using methods they can’t be proud of.
Alex Cuadros shows his astonishing power of insight gained from living and working in the country with regular everyday Brazilians, as well as extensively researching and following the other 1% of that complex society. He manages to put into words the “grito preso na garganta” of the thousands who took to the streets of the country in June 2013 (and later), without knowing much why exactly they were doing it. His descriptions of Brazilian culture and mindset are so on point they felt as if he was talking inside my head! That is no small feat, it takes a superior type of observation skill to gather, and then describe how a culture feels like on the inside.
His writing style, mixed with the backdrop of his own experiences makes this book a real page-turner, but it is so much more than that. The book captures with fidelity the feelings and events that accompanied the boom years, as well as the collapse of the economic ‘miracle’, and the current political crisis that engulfed that once promising nation.
This is a damning book. It exposes a side of that society that the powers want to keep hidden, but which most Brazilians have a nagging feeling about and just can’t put their finger on, or translate it into language.
A true landmark work on modern Brazil. Excellent read.
Alex Cuadros shows his astonishing power of insight gained from living and working in the country with regular everyday Brazilians, as well as extensively researching and following the other 1% of that complex society. He manages to put into words the “grito preso na garganta” of the thousands who took to the streets of the country in June 2013 (and later), without knowing much why exactly they were doing it. His descriptions of Brazilian culture and mindset are so on point they felt as if he was talking inside my head! That is no small feat, it takes a superior type of observation skill to gather, and then describe how a culture feels like on the inside.
His writing style, mixed with the backdrop of his own experiences makes this book a real page-turner, but it is so much more than that. The book captures with fidelity the feelings and events that accompanied the boom years, as well as the collapse of the economic ‘miracle’, and the current political crisis that engulfed that once promising nation.
This is a damning book. It exposes a side of that society that the powers want to keep hidden, but which most Brazilians have a nagging feeling about and just can’t put their finger on, or translate it into language.
A true landmark work on modern Brazil. Excellent read.
February 6, 2017
A journalistic account of Eike Batista's rise and fall set in the context of the lives of other Brazilian billionaires. This is an extremely readable account, yet also superficial and full of the authors platitudes about wealth, economics and corruption which don't sit very easily in the book. It sits in an uncomfortable middle ground between a historian's approach in which facts and events are woven into a unifying narrative and a Bloomberg news article. Consider it a 285pg Op-Ed piece.
I would have preferred the author to have taken more time in the writing of the novel to develop a clear, coherent message. As it is, the novel reads as though you are riding shotgun with the author on a whirlwind trip through Brazil while he takes potshots at selection of the main characters.
Regardless, the subject matter is fascinating and the author has placed events in their political and historic context, making good use of his knowledge of Brazil, it's people and culture.
I would have preferred the author to have taken more time in the writing of the novel to develop a clear, coherent message. As it is, the novel reads as though you are riding shotgun with the author on a whirlwind trip through Brazil while he takes potshots at selection of the main characters.
Regardless, the subject matter is fascinating and the author has placed events in their political and historic context, making good use of his knowledge of Brazil, it's people and culture.
October 15, 2016
Brazillionaires is an interesting piece written about the billionaires living in Brazil, by the Bloomberg journalist Cuadros. Besides an account on the billionaires, the book really is more an account on how wealth and power are connected in that country...and why Brazil seems to continue forever being the "country of the future" , the future which never seems to arrive...
The main character featured is Eike Batista, the eighth richest man in the world with his Usd 30bn fortune in 2012. His imperium was based on a bubble he created on petroleum ... And whilst his rise was fast, his fall was even faster, as by mid 2013 he had lost it all...
Some of the characters apparently managed to get this book "banned" in Brazil, but in case you re interested, i found mine in Europe and it seems to be selling in the US too... Interesting reading!
The main character featured is Eike Batista, the eighth richest man in the world with his Usd 30bn fortune in 2012. His imperium was based on a bubble he created on petroleum ... And whilst his rise was fast, his fall was even faster, as by mid 2013 he had lost it all...
Some of the characters apparently managed to get this book "banned" in Brazil, but in case you re interested, i found mine in Europe and it seems to be selling in the US too... Interesting reading!
October 9, 2016
Si bien el título del libro pareciera indicar que sólo se trata de un recuento o una narración de los multimillonarios brasileños, en realidad se trata de una descripción detallada de las desigualdades que atraviesan Brasil, así como de la sociedad brasileña en su conjunto. Los multimillonarios sirven de pretexto a Cuadros para analizar cada uno de los sectores en los que se encuentran (construcción, religión, medios de comunicación, ganadería), para analizar los vínculos entre sus fortunas y el sector público (tanto durante la dictadura como durante la democracia) y siempre recalcando la desigualdad existente en Brasil.
Excelente libro.
Excelente libro.
September 24, 2016
Book structure didn't work - 1st part was about Brazil generally, the 2nd was focused on Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista, who was not as fascinating as the # of pgs devoted to him might lead you to believe. 2nd half was really a letdown, like an interminably long business periodical article.
March 13, 2017
Pretty accurate picture of Brazilian society through the stories of our billionaires. If one is interested in deepening her knowledge of Brazilian society and its flaws (hipocrisy and incurable selfishness, among others) I'd suggest Jesse Souza's books.
December 17, 2016
I thought this book was excellent. I enjoy how he used the story of billionaires and their wealth to tell the story of modern Brazil.
August 19, 2016
Excellent book to read during the olympic to get a view of what a crazy country Brazil is.
June 20, 2019
I don't know how interesting this book would be to someone who only has a passing interest in Brazilian affairs. But as the husband of a Brazilian citizen, I found this book to be an entertaining and informative account of the country of which I may one day become a citizen. It's also disheartening and depressing, but that's hardly the author's fault; the facts are what they are.
You don't have to spend long in Brazil (I lived in São Paulo for six months) to realise that Latin America's biggest country is beset by many problemas. The infrastructure is crumbling, poverty is rife, crime is omnipresent, and the inequality is like nothing I've ever seen elsewhere. When I first arrived in early 2017, I saw headline after headline about corruption and scandal and thought I must have arrived at a particularly newsworthy time. As the months went on, I realised that there was nothing special about my timing. Brazil has been exploited and robbed and scammed and kept under thumb by its ruling class of robber barons for as long as anyone can remember, and probably much longer; what I thought were shocking new revelations were just the latest line in a constant (and I really do mean constant) stream of chaos. It's no wonder so many Brazilians feel deeply disillusioned with their country.
Where did it all go wrong? Brazillionaires is, first and foremost, the story of Eike Batista, until-recently Brazil's richest man. You might not have heard of Batista (I hadn't), but according to my wife he's a household name in Brazil, and a few chapters into Brazillionaires it's not hard to see why: the man is almost a comic-book parody of a tycoon.
Batista's meteoric rise and fall (from the seventh-richest man in the world to a humiliating bankruptcy) is the perfect vehicle for an exploration of the many interlocking problems Brazil faces. As the 1% get richer, we meet many more billionaires, and Cuadro riffs on global inequality and the injustices of the system, in Brazil and elsewhere. He weaves in tales from Brazilian history and politics and we get a sense of how structural these problems are and how far back they go. Along the way we learn a lot about Brazilian culture and day-to-day life. Cuadros is an excellent writer - the words just flow - and he does a fantastic job of weaving all kinds of loosely related points together into a coherent picture of Brazilian life, big and small.
As the narrative goes on, things keep changing but everything stays the same. Things seem to be picking up during the boom years under Lula, but sure enough it all comes crashing down, both for Batista and the whole country, culminating in the mass protests of 2014 and onwards - just about the only event in the book that I remember seeing in European headlines. The story ends mid-2016, in the run-up to the Rio Olympics and not long before Dilma's impeachment. Cuadros tries to end on an optimistic note, suggesting that Brazil may have turned a new leaf; if only he'd known about Bolsonaro.
Justice is, of course, never served. On page one of the book, Batista's 22 year-old son Thor kills a cyclist in his Mercedes while speeding. (Ahem, I mean allegedly speeding, of course.) Unsurprisingly, police handle the case somewhat differently to how they would if the driver had been a poor, black favelado. Batista Sr. is also fingered in a litany of crimes, including bribery and fraud, although by the time these allegations come to the surface it would have been more shocking if he, as a member of Brazil's elite, hadn't been corrupt to high hell.
It's not just the top 1% of the top of 1%; as Batista's prosecutors seem to be narrowing in on a conviction, the criminal actions of a judge set the trial back in a manner that's so absurd and ostentatious that it could be something out of a South Park episode. Só no Brazil indeed. As I write this in 2019 it's still unclear whether Batista will ever serve time - but then if every Brazilian who belonged in jail was in jail, there'd be far fewer private jets taking off from São Paulo–Guarulhos International.
All in all, I enjoyed Brazillionaires a lot, and in future when people who don't know a lot about Brazil ask me why the country is so troubled, this will be the book I point them to.
You don't have to spend long in Brazil (I lived in São Paulo for six months) to realise that Latin America's biggest country is beset by many problemas. The infrastructure is crumbling, poverty is rife, crime is omnipresent, and the inequality is like nothing I've ever seen elsewhere. When I first arrived in early 2017, I saw headline after headline about corruption and scandal and thought I must have arrived at a particularly newsworthy time. As the months went on, I realised that there was nothing special about my timing. Brazil has been exploited and robbed and scammed and kept under thumb by its ruling class of robber barons for as long as anyone can remember, and probably much longer; what I thought were shocking new revelations were just the latest line in a constant (and I really do mean constant) stream of chaos. It's no wonder so many Brazilians feel deeply disillusioned with their country.
Where did it all go wrong? Brazillionaires is, first and foremost, the story of Eike Batista, until-recently Brazil's richest man. You might not have heard of Batista (I hadn't), but according to my wife he's a household name in Brazil, and a few chapters into Brazillionaires it's not hard to see why: the man is almost a comic-book parody of a tycoon.
Batista's meteoric rise and fall (from the seventh-richest man in the world to a humiliating bankruptcy) is the perfect vehicle for an exploration of the many interlocking problems Brazil faces. As the 1% get richer, we meet many more billionaires, and Cuadro riffs on global inequality and the injustices of the system, in Brazil and elsewhere. He weaves in tales from Brazilian history and politics and we get a sense of how structural these problems are and how far back they go. Along the way we learn a lot about Brazilian culture and day-to-day life. Cuadros is an excellent writer - the words just flow - and he does a fantastic job of weaving all kinds of loosely related points together into a coherent picture of Brazilian life, big and small.
As the narrative goes on, things keep changing but everything stays the same. Things seem to be picking up during the boom years under Lula, but sure enough it all comes crashing down, both for Batista and the whole country, culminating in the mass protests of 2014 and onwards - just about the only event in the book that I remember seeing in European headlines. The story ends mid-2016, in the run-up to the Rio Olympics and not long before Dilma's impeachment. Cuadros tries to end on an optimistic note, suggesting that Brazil may have turned a new leaf; if only he'd known about Bolsonaro.
Justice is, of course, never served. On page one of the book, Batista's 22 year-old son Thor kills a cyclist in his Mercedes while speeding. (Ahem, I mean allegedly speeding, of course.) Unsurprisingly, police handle the case somewhat differently to how they would if the driver had been a poor, black favelado. Batista Sr. is also fingered in a litany of crimes, including bribery and fraud, although by the time these allegations come to the surface it would have been more shocking if he, as a member of Brazil's elite, hadn't been corrupt to high hell.
It's not just the top 1% of the top of 1%; as Batista's prosecutors seem to be narrowing in on a conviction, the criminal actions of a judge set the trial back in a manner that's so absurd and ostentatious that it could be something out of a South Park episode. Só no Brazil indeed. As I write this in 2019 it's still unclear whether Batista will ever serve time - but then if every Brazilian who belonged in jail was in jail, there'd be far fewer private jets taking off from São Paulo–Guarulhos International.
All in all, I enjoyed Brazillionaires a lot, and in future when people who don't know a lot about Brazil ask me why the country is so troubled, this will be the book I point them to.
September 23, 2017
"It's true that the economy needs energy to grow. But Brazil's love of megaprojects reflects the influence of money--and the lure of power--as much as any objective logic of development. According to Professor Bermann, a lot of energy goes to waste in Brazil. The ethanol industry throws out enough sugarcane dregs to generate two or three Belo Montes' worth of energy, and fifteen percent of the nation's electricity is lost to crappy old power lines. It would be cheaper than building mega-dams, Bermann says, to address these problems. But the revenues would be diffuse, with less value as patronage. Brazil's construction giants are already specialized in dam building. And new power lines don't make much of an impression in campaign ads." -- page 77
The passage above speaks to the problems of money in politics all over the world, not just Brazil. Though Brazillionaires obviously is focused on Brazil, the book in many ways seems like the author, a former Bloomberg business reporter, coming to terms with the misaligned goals of wealth creation and the public good.
Cuadros is a fine writer and good business journalist. The best part of Brazillionaires are those that focus on the unique character of Brazil--the obsession with telenovelas and futebol, the culture of "jeitinho" and the phrase "para ingles ver" that sustains unethical behavior. Much of the book is viewed through the lens of the cult of Eike Batista. Though I felt Cuadros spends too many words describing the ostentation and entitlement of the Batista family, Eike's tale of squandering billions of dollars in perceived wealth is illustrative and fascinating. That Eike is always hustling for his next venture--as with his oil wells that never produced anything close to what he promised--leads one back to the unfortunate saying, "Brazil is the country of the future ... and always will be."
The passage above speaks to the problems of money in politics all over the world, not just Brazil. Though Brazillionaires obviously is focused on Brazil, the book in many ways seems like the author, a former Bloomberg business reporter, coming to terms with the misaligned goals of wealth creation and the public good.
Cuadros is a fine writer and good business journalist. The best part of Brazillionaires are those that focus on the unique character of Brazil--the obsession with telenovelas and futebol, the culture of "jeitinho" and the phrase "para ingles ver" that sustains unethical behavior. Much of the book is viewed through the lens of the cult of Eike Batista. Though I felt Cuadros spends too many words describing the ostentation and entitlement of the Batista family, Eike's tale of squandering billions of dollars in perceived wealth is illustrative and fascinating. That Eike is always hustling for his next venture--as with his oil wells that never produced anything close to what he promised--leads one back to the unfortunate saying, "Brazil is the country of the future ... and always will be."
February 9, 2017
"When Bloomberg News invited the young American journalist Alex Cuadros to report on Brazil's emerging class of billionaires at the height of the historic Brazilian boom, he was poised to cover two of the biggest business stories of our time: how the giants of the developing world were triumphantly taking their place at the center of global capitalism, and how wealth inequality was changing societies everywhere. Eike Batista, a flamboyant and charismatic evangelist for the country's new gospel of wealth, epitomized much of this rarefied sphere: In 2012, Batista ranked as the eighth-richest person in the world, was famous for his marriage to a beauty queen, and was a fixture in the Brazilian press. His constantly repeated ambition was to become the world's richest man and to bring Brazil along with him to the top. But by 2015, Batista was bankrupt, his son Thor had been indicted for manslaughter, and Brazil its president facing impeachment, its provinces combating an epidemic, and its business and political class torn apart by scandal had become a cautionary tale of a country run aground by its elites, a tale with ominous echoes around the world."
This is a book that I would not have picked up if I wasn't consciously trying to read more books set in South America. I'm glad I read it.
Alex Cuadros was selected for an unusual job. He was to monitor the billionaires of Brazil. He needed to maintain an up to date list of the net worth of the richest people in Brazil. In trying to find out who these people were, he started to look at the world around him. Who owns the company that makes your soap or the roads you drive on? There may be a hidden billionaire behind it. Some billionaires weren't so hard to find. Eike Batista was one of these. He flaunted his wealth. He bragged on Twitter whenever he moved up in the rankings of richest people. Then suddenly he lost it all.
The rise and fall of Eike Batista is told along with the stories of other Brazilian billionaires. Some are in construction or broadcasting. There is even a billionaire pastor. Cuadros brings up the question -- Is is possible to amass this amount of money in an ethical way in a country with such rampant poverty? Is corruption endemic in a country founded on a system where slaves do all the work and higher classes live off of others?
I didn't know anything about Brazilian history or politics. This was a great introduction in an engaging story. I enjoyed listening to the author narrate the book so I could hear the proper pronunciations of places and names in Portuguese.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to combine the voyeurism of watching how the super rich live with an education in the culture and politics of Brazil.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
This is a book that I would not have picked up if I wasn't consciously trying to read more books set in South America. I'm glad I read it.
Alex Cuadros was selected for an unusual job. He was to monitor the billionaires of Brazil. He needed to maintain an up to date list of the net worth of the richest people in Brazil. In trying to find out who these people were, he started to look at the world around him. Who owns the company that makes your soap or the roads you drive on? There may be a hidden billionaire behind it. Some billionaires weren't so hard to find. Eike Batista was one of these. He flaunted his wealth. He bragged on Twitter whenever he moved up in the rankings of richest people. Then suddenly he lost it all.
The rise and fall of Eike Batista is told along with the stories of other Brazilian billionaires. Some are in construction or broadcasting. There is even a billionaire pastor. Cuadros brings up the question -- Is is possible to amass this amount of money in an ethical way in a country with such rampant poverty? Is corruption endemic in a country founded on a system where slaves do all the work and higher classes live off of others?
I didn't know anything about Brazilian history or politics. This was a great introduction in an engaging story. I enjoyed listening to the author narrate the book so I could hear the proper pronunciations of places and names in Portuguese.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to combine the voyeurism of watching how the super rich live with an education in the culture and politics of Brazil.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
September 11, 2017
This is the best book I have read yet on contemporary Brazil. It sets out to look just at Brazil's "super rich" but ends up saying something much broader about Brazil and inequality in general.
September 9, 2017
journalistic stories about eika batista, jorge paulo leman, and brazil's politicians
real ability of eika to convince global investors to pour money into his ideas
however no execution capability once cash there, no focus
real ability of eika to convince global investors to pour money into his ideas
however no execution capability once cash there, no focus
September 15, 2016
I've read a few books on modern Brazil in recent years, and this was easily the best. Cuadros was a reporter for Bloomberg News covering the billionaire beat down in Brazil. He learned about them and reported on them - and this book is something that those years inspired.
There are two halves to this book. The first is on some of the billionaires and how they got their fortunes. This ties Brazil to its past - including the old military dictator regimes. It also ties to the present as working with others (re: corruption) is a key cornerstone of how things got down. Even an old labor leader and former Marxist guerrilla fighter - the two presidents of Brazil during the 21st century heyday - go-along and now work with billionaires.
The second part is the story of the rise and fall (and possible return?) of Brazil's most flamboyant billionaire: Eike Batista. He's a serial entrepreneur who stacked upon stacks of paper money in hopes of becoming the world's richest person. It didn't work out. His highly leveraged oil extraction company found itself on land that wasn't as good as it needed to be. Combined with other factors, it all came crashing down. (But, as the book ends, he intends a comeback).
Serving as a hook, Cuadros tells the story of how Eike's son (everyone calls Eike by his first name) killed a poor bicyclist in a car accident. Frankly, that part could've been handled better. It looks like it's serve as a central point or allegory for the book, but it really isn't. It just dangles there on the side throughout.
But, by and large this is interesting and absorbing look at the big wealth of 21st century Brazil and what's going on in that country in general.
There are two halves to this book. The first is on some of the billionaires and how they got their fortunes. This ties Brazil to its past - including the old military dictator regimes. It also ties to the present as working with others (re: corruption) is a key cornerstone of how things got down. Even an old labor leader and former Marxist guerrilla fighter - the two presidents of Brazil during the 21st century heyday - go-along and now work with billionaires.
The second part is the story of the rise and fall (and possible return?) of Brazil's most flamboyant billionaire: Eike Batista. He's a serial entrepreneur who stacked upon stacks of paper money in hopes of becoming the world's richest person. It didn't work out. His highly leveraged oil extraction company found itself on land that wasn't as good as it needed to be. Combined with other factors, it all came crashing down. (But, as the book ends, he intends a comeback).
Serving as a hook, Cuadros tells the story of how Eike's son (everyone calls Eike by his first name) killed a poor bicyclist in a car accident. Frankly, that part could've been handled better. It looks like it's serve as a central point or allegory for the book, but it really isn't. It just dangles there on the side throughout.
But, by and large this is interesting and absorbing look at the big wealth of 21st century Brazil and what's going on in that country in general.
September 20, 2016
For anyone wanting to know more about Brazil, particularly contemporary Brazil, this book is for you. Cuadros is smart but not erudite; his audience is the Common Reader, but that doesn't make him patronizing. His skill in reporting and research is without question.
Brazil is a petri dish, an artificial creation whose colonizers lost control early on. Imagine the US without its founding fathers. What you get is Every Man for Himself. The disparate injections of immigrants, and a number of slaves that dwarfs the number sent to the US, has created a society where race is fluid -- on the surface. In practice institutional racism is not only de facto, it is iron clad. Consider that none of the top 250 richest people in Brazil are non-white. Consider that slavery was abolished a good 30 years later than it was in the US. Consider what Lula, for all intents and purposes Brazil's Obama, had to say about construction projects in the Amazon and their potential impact on the environment: "Who cares about some Indian dying under a tree?"
If it seems like I'm being critical of Brazil, I am. That doesn't mean it is better anywhere else. Doesn't mean Brazil doesn't produce many good things, that Brazilians aren't smart, or capable, etc. etc. Brazilians themselves are critical of their country, as they have every reason to be. Overall, Brazil is a perfect example of what happens when you dump a bunch of different peoples in a random location: Massive inequality and ecological destruction, rigged economies, corrupt political institutions, and an idiosyncratic style of soccer playing.
Big ups to Waldo Squash tho'. That dude tight.
Brazil is a petri dish, an artificial creation whose colonizers lost control early on. Imagine the US without its founding fathers. What you get is Every Man for Himself. The disparate injections of immigrants, and a number of slaves that dwarfs the number sent to the US, has created a society where race is fluid -- on the surface. In practice institutional racism is not only de facto, it is iron clad. Consider that none of the top 250 richest people in Brazil are non-white. Consider that slavery was abolished a good 30 years later than it was in the US. Consider what Lula, for all intents and purposes Brazil's Obama, had to say about construction projects in the Amazon and their potential impact on the environment: "Who cares about some Indian dying under a tree?"
If it seems like I'm being critical of Brazil, I am. That doesn't mean it is better anywhere else. Doesn't mean Brazil doesn't produce many good things, that Brazilians aren't smart, or capable, etc. etc. Brazilians themselves are critical of their country, as they have every reason to be. Overall, Brazil is a perfect example of what happens when you dump a bunch of different peoples in a random location: Massive inequality and ecological destruction, rigged economies, corrupt political institutions, and an idiosyncratic style of soccer playing.
Big ups to Waldo Squash tho'. That dude tight.
June 11, 2017
This book examined the development of Brazil through the lives of several of its billionaires.
The first half described various aspects of Brazilian culture, like the favelas, its religion, mining, etc. This was interesting since it focused on the personalities of the billionaires involved, but I think a wider focus might have been more illuminating. Overall I was struck by how entwined billionaires and the state were. It seems every large company donates to the political campaigns of politicians, in return for having state contracts awarded to them. I was also surprised at how weak the justice system is in Brazil. It seems that a rich person can never go to jail by keeping up a never ending stream of appeals.
The second half focused on one billionaire in particular: Eike Batista. Eike was a showman of the first degree, and overinflated his business' values through constant promotion and spin. Eike fancied himself an Elon Musk type and ran start-ups in every sector of the Brazil economy. At one point, he was the 8th richest man in the world (on paper) and was worth $30 billion. He over leveraged himself spectacularly and when times turned for the worst (e.g. his oil fields turned out to be hard to extract oil from) his house of cards came crashing down.
The book was well written and a quick read. It was good to learn more about Brazil, which has 200 million people (!).
The first half described various aspects of Brazilian culture, like the favelas, its religion, mining, etc. This was interesting since it focused on the personalities of the billionaires involved, but I think a wider focus might have been more illuminating. Overall I was struck by how entwined billionaires and the state were. It seems every large company donates to the political campaigns of politicians, in return for having state contracts awarded to them. I was also surprised at how weak the justice system is in Brazil. It seems that a rich person can never go to jail by keeping up a never ending stream of appeals.
The second half focused on one billionaire in particular: Eike Batista. Eike was a showman of the first degree, and overinflated his business' values through constant promotion and spin. Eike fancied himself an Elon Musk type and ran start-ups in every sector of the Brazil economy. At one point, he was the 8th richest man in the world (on paper) and was worth $30 billion. He over leveraged himself spectacularly and when times turned for the worst (e.g. his oil fields turned out to be hard to extract oil from) his house of cards came crashing down.
The book was well written and a quick read. It was good to learn more about Brazil, which has 200 million people (!).
December 7, 2016
I liked this book. Cuadros work as a business writer for Bloomberg really prepared him to make a captivating book that really goes for the big picture in an engaging way.
The book is set up in two parts, the first sort of documents some 5 or 6 billionaires that Cuadros studied while he was writing about billionaires for Bloomberg. The second part follows the story of Eike Batista, whose MMX mining company was indicative of the Brazilian economic boom of the early aughts. There's some economic history thrown in along the way. He managed to get a few interesting interviews in there too and tell a bit of the story of regular Brazilians.
I'm being nit-picky here but Cuadros offered no broad policy solutions to the problems he identifies in the book. While it seems like he hits the nail on the head of the problem of state backed risk for well connected men, I don't know how it should be different.
In all, I think it's a pretty good book for anyone interested in modern economics and Brazil. It's pretty accessible and Cuadros did his research but it's no monograph with charts or anything (thankfully).
The book is set up in two parts, the first sort of documents some 5 or 6 billionaires that Cuadros studied while he was writing about billionaires for Bloomberg. The second part follows the story of Eike Batista, whose MMX mining company was indicative of the Brazilian economic boom of the early aughts. There's some economic history thrown in along the way. He managed to get a few interesting interviews in there too and tell a bit of the story of regular Brazilians.
I'm being nit-picky here but Cuadros offered no broad policy solutions to the problems he identifies in the book. While it seems like he hits the nail on the head of the problem of state backed risk for well connected men, I don't know how it should be different.
In all, I think it's a pretty good book for anyone interested in modern economics and Brazil. It's pretty accessible and Cuadros did his research but it's no monograph with charts or anything (thankfully).
August 1, 2016
I found the first half of this book to be completely gripping. Someone needed to write a political economic history of Brazil's corruption, and Cuadros did this through the lens of the exceptionally rich. He used the story of Eike Batista as a road into the country's recent boom and bust cycle that began under FHC's liberalization and hit its peak and crash under Lula and Dilma. Indeed, he spent half the book on Batista, and when read alongside his memoir approach to Brazil's recent history, it came across as really solipsistic. He wrote about Eike because his story was the most flagrant example of speculation and booming share prices based on unrealistic projections. Broken promises aren't anything new for Brazil, alas. As interesting as that was, I would have rather read about other billionaires in Brazil's history and their collusion with its past. Thus, while I enjoyed the book, it lost steam for me.
February 27, 2017
Great book from Alex Cuadros on how the wealth is created and maintained on Brazil via the promiscuous relationship between State and "a few selected big companies". Focusing on the Brazilian billionaires, Alex goes through Camargo Correa, Odebrecth, Roberto Marinho, Eike Batista, Edir Macedo, Blairo Maggi and others, telling a tale that should be known to all Brazilians by now. But it is not. Which is more impressive, Alex perspective as a foreigner makes the book all more interesting to a Brazilian and you will catch yourself rethinking things you took for granted on Brazil. The chapter on Edir Macedo and his view on what his "business" is and what he "delivers" for his "customers" is one of the best on bringing up a new and clear perspective on an issue most of us do not take a deeper look.
Finally, his writing is clear and the book is a quick reading. Also, his biases are pretty clear and don't harm the book at all.
Finally, his writing is clear and the book is a quick reading. Also, his biases are pretty clear and don't harm the book at all.
December 23, 2016
"Brazillionaires" offers a fascinating glimpse of the contemporary political economy of Brazil through a series of biographical portraits of several of Brazil's leading plutocrats. These billionaires are differentiated by age and industry, but all reflect a tension between Brazil's developmentalist aspirations to being seen as the wealth-creating equals of their leading capitalist peers, and the reality of their dependency on support from the Brazilian state for their fortunes. These billionaires imagine themselves as agents of Brazil's growth and ascent to the developed world, but are responsible for exacerbating economic inequality through their ability to manipulate government in their favor. Cuadros is a fine story teller who uses his reportage to show thre reality of Brazil's economic and development beyond the headlines.
March 19, 2017
Having served three sojourns in Brazil as a volunteer community consultant, many places (particularly Rio area) mentioned in this book are familiar to me. Author writes mostly about the rise and fall of now jailed Eike Batista, a one-time Trump-like multi-billionaire, but chapters also are devoted to other super-rich characters. As a journalist, author "covered" Brazilian wealthy for Bloomberg News for four years and here he reflects on his experiences. He offers insights on how societal and cultural phenomena affect "Ordem e Progresso" (Order and Progress), words on the Brazilian flag, as well as imperfections. Political corruption? Yes. Portuguese imbued "laziness"? Yes, there's that. World Cup boondoggle? Yes, a few well-connected people got rich while most Brazilians got screwed. Author's well-written narrative reflects a love for Brazil and its inhabitants that I similarly found.
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