A little taste of Balcony last night:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISa0xaVqJOs[/url]
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A little taste of Balcony last night:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISa0xaVqJOs[/url]
A little taste of Balcony this evening:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRwzP23ifI[/url]
[QUOTE=Sperto;1144355]A little taste of Balcony this evening:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRwzP23ifI[/url][/QUOTE]
Are you sure that was Balcony and not Vila Mimosa? ;)
[QUOTE=Gfe Finder;1144521]Are you sure that was Balcony and not Vila Mimosa? ;)[/QUOTE]Speaking of Vila Mimosa.
[url]http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135519259/brazil-aims-to-clean-up-image-ahead-of-games[/url]
Be sure to visit before its gone! (Article also refers indirectly to Help disco.)
[QUOTE=Yankee 617; 1146513]Speaking of Vila Mimosa.
[url]http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135519259/brazil-aims-to-clean-up-image-ahead-of-games[/url]
Be sure to visit before its gone! (Article also refers indirectly to Help disco.) [/QUOTE]Now if they had asked Sperto his opinion, rather than some lame anthropologist from the local high school, that would have been an article worth reading!
[QUOTE=Yankee 617;1146513]Speaking of Vila Mimosa.
[url]http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135519259/brazil-aims-to-clean-up-image-ahead-of-games[/url]
Be sure to visit before its gone! (Article also refers indirectly to Help disco.)[/QUOTE]
"Live sex shows" in Vila Mimosa? That's not true.
Trem-bala:
[url]http://www.internationalsexguide.info/forum/showthread.php?2192-Rio-de-Janeiro-Reports&p=1098441&viewfull=1#post1098441[/url]
All week CNBC has had live reports from Brasil, the shows were full of very interesting interviews and discussions about the Brasilian economy! (Seems like the brasilians are finally starting to admit that they are in deep shit when it comes to being ready for the Olympics). Anyway, one of the biggest topics that they kept hammering home was the explosion of the middle class. How within the past 5 years, millions and millions of brasilians are now considered middle class.
My question is this. How much does a family have to earn to be considered "Middle Class" in brasil? I was having a discussion with a co-worker on this topic and I said "I have a feeling that the American idea of middle class is greatly different than what middle class is in Brasil".
[QUOTE=Bravo; 1150603]All week CNBC has had live reports from Brasil, the shows were full of very interesting interviews and discussions about the Brasilian economy! (Seems like the brasilians are finally starting to admit that they are in deep shit when it comes to being ready for the Olympics). Anyway, one of the biggest topics that they kept hammering home was the explosion of the middle class. How within the past 5 years, millions and millions of brasilians are now considered middle class.
My question is this. How much does a family have to earn to be considered "Middle Class" in brasil? I was having a discussion with a co-worker on this topic and I said "I have a feeling that the American idea of middle class is greatly different than what middle class is in Brasil". [/QUOTE]Interesting issue.
Some sources says that half the population in Brazil are middle class. It sounds weird to me.
It can't mean that middle class are the average doctor/lawyer family living in a nice apartment in Ipanema, with a nice car and with kids studying at an university like PUC.
[QUOTE=Sperto; 1150679]Interesting issue.
Some sources says that half the population in Brazil are middle class. It sounds weird to me.
It can't mean that middle class are the average doctor / lawyer family living in a nice apartment in Ipanema, with a nice car and with kids studying at an university like PUC. [/QUOTE]Thats my question. What is considered "Middle Class"? A family earning 1500R a month, would they be considered middle class in Brasil? With the super high costs of everything in brasil, I can't see how anyone who makes less than 3000 reais a month in Rio gets by.
[QUOTE=Bravo;1150720]Thats my question. What is considered "Middle Class"? A family earning 1500R a month, would they be considered middle class in Brasil? With the super high costs of everything in brasil, I can't see how anyone who makes less than 3000 reais a month in Rio gets by.[/QUOTE]I have been dotting on the issue of domestic Brazilian inflation for a couple years now. I just do not see how inflation in Brazil and especially Rio can be contained. I also do not see how they can contain the crime wave that will ensue. I am with a taxi driver this week who tells me he has had two motorcycles stolen right out from under him. They cornered him at an intersection, pulled guns on him and took them.
I stopped by Premier Hotel the other day and they said they were 100% full booking at rates of R$275 a day. That is over $170 a day. It is almost all Brazilians. I also was talking with a US Oil executive who says that his company just landed a new contract which included a provision that the workers had to be Brazilian. For many, like these kind of manual laborers, the World Cup and Olympic boom will put them in the middle class. However, I also am getting a lot of reports that retail shops in Ipanema and Copa are suffering because many of the middle class or their friends are going on buying trips to the US.
Getting a handle on Brazilian Macro and Micro economics right now is not an easy matter.
[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704071704576277161593023004.html[/url]
SÃO PAULO—Brazil has aspired for generations to climb into the club of the world's rich nations. By one measure, that moment has arrived: This city and others like Rio de Janeiro are now among the world's priciest.
The big reason is Brazil's currency has soared some 40% against the dollar in two years. Add to that a 6. 4% inflation rate and Paulistanos here are suddenly shelling out the equivalent of $15 for a movie—more than New Yorkers.
Those prices reflect the conversion of the local currency, the real, into dollars. Brazilians earning local salaries are mostly insulated from currency shift because their incomes are rising relative to the dollar, but they, too, are beginning to feel the pinch of inflation and a hot economy.
Still, it is a staggering reversal from a decade ago when Brazilian land, rents and labor were all cheap in dollar terms. That made the volatile but commodity-rich South American nation enticing to adventurous investors and a sultry paradise for budget tourists. But a global investment frenzy for Brazil—and other emerging markets—is changing that by sending its currency sky high.
After climbing to 1. 57 per dollar this week, Brazil's real is near a three-year high, and Goldman Sachs says it is arguably the world's most overvalued currency.
The shift holds ominous implications for Latin America's biggest economy—and a cautionary tale for other emerging markets. As Brazil becomes more expensive in dollar terms, it loses the competitive edge of a weak currency in the global economy. Brazilian newspaper columnists regularly fret about "de-industrialization" as a strong currency makes local manufacturers uncompetitive.
Brazil's JBS SA, the world's biggest beef producer, says it is exporting less from Brazil because many international customers can no longer afford Brazilian-produced cuts. Meantime, exports from JBS's USA plants are rising.
The hitch is that Brazil is becoming as expensive as rich countries before it can truly compete with them. Converted into dollars, Brazilian workers are starting to earn developed-world salaries, even though productivity is lower.
For foreign firms, it often costs as much or more to do business in Brazil as it does in the USA, even though Brazilian businesses are disadvantaged with obstacles like bad roads, dismal ports, power blackouts, high crime and heavier tax rates.
High prices in dollars are a jarring contrast in still poor Brazil, where millions live in precarious shanty towns on city outskirts. Their incomes are starting to slip behind recent jumps in food, transportation and land costs, said Marcelo Neri, an economist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
Brazilian politicians aren't going to be left behind by rising prices. In December, Congress gave itself a 62% raise and members now earn the equivalent of more than $210, 000 a year, above the $174, 000 earned by their USA counterparts.
Examples of Brazil's new dearness are plentiful. The cost of hiring executives to organize Rio de Janeiro's 2016 Olympic Games is bigger than for the 2012 Games in London, said Odgers Berndtson, the firm that hired for both. Office space in Rio de Janeiro now costs more in dollar terms than midtown Manhattan, according to real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.
Adding to the problem, Brazil's mostly closed, heavily taxed economy have long made items such as cars or machines with imported parts shockingly high priced. A Honda Civic sedan in the USA costs around $21, 400. In Brazil, prices start around $39, 000 in dollar terms.
The trend is perhaps most evident to travelers arriving in Brazil with dollars in their pockets. These days, foreign business travelers commiserate over $16 caipirinhas—Brazil's national tipple—in disbelief that a typical night at Marriott's Renaissance hotel in Sâo Paulo can cost 50% more than a night at the Renaissance in Manhattan.
"I don't remember prices like this in my whole 40 years covering Brazil, and living there," said economist John Welch, who grew up in Brazil and visits São Paulo frequently as Brazil economist for Macquarie Bank.
For Mr. Welch, a key question is whether some of Brazil's higher prices reflect asset bubbles forming in Brazil's hot economy. One concern is that an overvalued real can lead to real-estate bubbles, he said, adding unpredictability to the economy.
(I have been saying this for months, the real estate bubble in Rio will eventually burst! I truly believe that within two years after the Games, that the prices of real estate will fall like panties on prom night!)
[QUOTE=Bravo;1150720]Thats my question. What is considered "Middle Class"? A family earning 1500R a month, would they be considered middle class in Brasil? With the super high costs of everything in brasil, I can't see how anyone who makes less than 3000 reais a month in Rio gets by.[/QUOTE]We still have 25 year-old engineers who make R$2500 / mo. Before taxes (take home is <$2K) but they live with their parents and they commute to work with their parents (Dad's car). Who knows how they share rent, but definitely there is a culture of staying at the roost longer than in other countries.
I'd say it's costing me 2x as much to live in Copa than it cost me to live the same quality of life in Brentwood / LA, USA. Which is one of the highest-income neighborhoods in LA (#1 language after English is Farsi). And that's without a car here in Rio. R$5K rent, R$500 electric bill each month, R$50 gas, R$120 NET bill (for shitty 10MB / 80GB cap) , R$200 / week cleaning lady, not to mention the daily food costs (R$30 lunches at Siq. Grill) , and other costs. Don't get me started on mobile phones. I have to go buy new sneakers tomorrow which should be a painful education.
I seriously don't know how most people hack it. And I am constantly surprised that the ready supply of $$$ does not drive more nubile young ladies to enter our favorite profession. I mean, if I'm readily throwing R$400 / hr down at MC, is that not going to drive more young women from the countryside to Rio? And shouldn't that lower prices? My macroeconomic understanding is getting confused by the current state of affairs.
-Cartman
The numbers to classify which class you belong to varies a lot.
According to IBGE:
Classes (family income):
Classe A: Acima de R$ 15.300,00
Classe B: de R$ 7.650,00 até R$ 15.300,00
Classe C: de R$ 3.060,00 até R$ 7.650,00
Classe D: de R$ 1.020,00 até R$ 3.060,00
Classe E: Até R$ 1.020,00.
Meaning that you have to earn R$3060 to be classe média.
According to ABEP:
Classes (family income):
A1 - R$ 14.366
A2 - R$ 8.099
B1 - R$ 4.558
B2 - R$ 2.327
C1- R$ 1.391
C2 - R$ 933
D - R$ 618
E - R$ 403
Meaning that you have to earn R$933 to be classe média.
IMO a very low number. That's propably how they get half the population in the category classe média.
[url]http://www.logisticadescomplicada.com/o-brasil-suas-classes-sociais-e-a-implicacao-na-economia/[/url]
[url]http://economia.terra.com.br/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=201103221427_TRR_79582542[/url]
[QUOTE=Eric Cartman; 1150764]I'd say it's costing me 2x as much to live in Copa than it cost me to live the same quality of life in Brentwood / LA, USA. Which is one of the highest-income neighborhoods in LA (#1 language after English is Farsi). And that's without a car here in Rio. R$5K rent, R$500 electric bill each month, R$50 gas, R$120 NET bill (for shitty 10MB / 80GB cap) , R$200 / week cleaning lady, not to mention the daily food costs (R$30 lunches at Siq. Grill) , and other costs. Don't get me started on mobile phones. I have to go buy new sneakers tomorrow which should be a painful education.
-Cartman[/QUOTE]5K a month on rent? You must have a palatial, pimped out apartment! If you can afford to spend that much on living expenses that you must be making a killing in brasil. I am almost afraid to ask what you do in Brasil as an American that pays you so much! And if you are making that kind of money, than there are some happy brasilians down there too! If I remember correctly, if an American company wants to open an office in Brasil, by law, they have to hire 3 Brasilians for every American they bring down in. Plus the Brasilians have to be paid the same amount the american is paid!
[QUOTE=Exec Talent;1150735]However, I also am getting a lot of reports that retail shops in Ipanema and Copa are suffering because many of the middle class or their friends are going on buying trips to the US.[/QUOTE]Ya think? I bought this thermos in the USA at Walmart for US$5 and saw the exact same one in the mall in Manaus for R$50. R$50 for a piece of fucking plastic?