[evanlh]

American, been following Brazil since I studied there in college. I am cautiously optimistic about Brazil's prospects, I believe a lot hinges on how quickly they're able to reduce their inequality and fix education. Bolsa familia is an innovative step and education, though terrible, is improving: http://www.economist.com/node/17679798. Right now most of their GDP growth is based on China's commodity demand so a lot depends on how stable that remains.

I see the corruption issue largely as a result of the massive inequality-- which, like the U.S.'s inequality, tends to fall along racial lines-- and politicians have been great at exploiting it to their advantage with help from the monopolistic mass-media. Ideally a shift towards internet and social media will increase transparency and reduce corruption and the social programmes will smooth out inequality in the long run. IMO the Brazilian culture of jeitinho, taking advantage of opportunity where it arises, is very close to the America entreprenuerial spirit but adapted for an environment with a weak rule-of-law.

So the optimism is because all the fundamentals are there -- a growing, young, tech savvy population that loves social media & open source and a government using a commodities boom to invest in education and social programmes. There are plenty of startups-- http://www.predicta.net, for instance, or follow this blog: http://startupi.com.br/ Obviously it's all very fragile but I remain hopeful, the people are amazing and there's nothing I'd like more than to be able to go back.

[ryetoasthumor]

I agree wholeheartedly with your point. China and India are in a similarly precarious position especially in regards to inequality. The urban centers and their peripheral regions in all three countries are lightyears ahead of the rural countryside. China as many before has pointed out has approx 200 million migrant workers. They have no permanent employment prospects in the cities they are migrating to and they are coming out of abject poverty to begin with.

India is in the same position. Cheating is of no consequence when they aren't enough schools to accomodate the population. And the disparity is not minor, it is catastrophic.

These middle income countries are all in a precarious position, so writing any one or all of them off is uneducated and foolish.