Emerging South

Mea culpa, it has been too quiet here.
Too compensate I start pointing to the 6 page special on Brazil in the Financial Times of last Tuesday.  Start reading the piece of John Rumsey on the interest rates and Jonathan Wheatley who writes on the infrastructure challenge.

Also interesting is this interview with Central Bank President Meirelles.  I'm not his biggest friend (although he did a great job the last years), new names like Delfim Netto and Afonso Pastore should now give lectures to Mantega and Meirelles.  These are times where brains and vision make all the difference.
But then again, I also believe Ben Bernanke, mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet ought to be replaced, because they refuse to see the deflationary hurricanes which will hit the US and the UK.  It's truly amazing to see that most are still screaming inflation, stagflation or even hyperinflation simply because food and energy prices are rising.  Deflation is here and now nin Europe and the US and there is nothing that can be done about it (Africa, Asia and Latin America are different stories).  None of the financial engineering jobs that fueled the credit boom of the last decades will ever come back.  SIVs, conduits, toggle bonds.... are all dead for years and decades to come.
There is no source for jobs to replace what has been lost, discretionary spending is dead.  The impact of that still has to drip into the economy, once it does its here to stay.  The mentality shift in the next generation towards credit will be massive.  Our children will never forgive our parents.