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Article Artículo

Brazil

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Brazilian Social Movements Organize for Political Reform

On January 25, during the Third Social Thematic Forum in Porto Alegre, representatives of urban social movements affiliated with the National Urban Reform Forum started a campaign to support a referendum for removing political reform power from Congress, passing authority over to a newly-created, democratically-elected and sovereign body.

The referendum represents the largest concession that President Dilma Rousseff announced after last year’s June and July protests. Although critics say that it could end up giving too much power to the incumbent PT party, it is supported by 76 social movements and labor unions because it addresses one of the most important problems in Brazil: the fact that a full transition to democracy was never made when the military dictatorship ended in 1985.

Unlike other former dictatorships in South America, the Brazilian government refused to disband the brutal military police. It also gave full amnesty to the military and its puppet government. This meant that most congressmen and senators from the two legal political parties of the dictatorship era, ARENA [the National Renewal Alliance Party] and MDB [Brazilian Democratic Movement], were able to stay in power and benefit from the advantage of incumbency in future elections. ARENA changed its name to PFL [Liberal Front Party] and then to DEM [Democratas], and MDB changed its name to PMDB [Brazilian Democratic Movement Party]. Every president between 1985 and 2002 governed in coalition with these two parties. President Lula broke with DEM but was only able to maintain a majority block in the house and senate with PMDB, led by the widely-hated former President José Sarney.

The social movements believe that, due to the inherent structural problem of a congress that is controlled by representatives of the former military dictatorship, it is incapable of reforming the political system. Instead, they support a bottom up process of change. During the next few months they will organize a series of national protests in favor of the referendum. On April 1, on the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-supported military coup of 1964, the social movements will create neighborhood and village committees across the country to discuss the issue.

CEPR and Brian Mier (Guest post) / February 26, 2014

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Latin America and the Caribbean

Venezuela

World

Venezuela: Who Are They and How Did They Die? [Updated]

[3/12: This post is no longer being updated. For a updated list, please click here.]

The morning of February 22, Venezuela Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz stated that so far eight deaths and 137 injuries had occurred during the protests that have taken place over the last ten days. Díaz added that “the investigations [into the killings] are advanced.” Many press and NGOs have simply reported that “demonstrators” were killed.  For example the International Crisis Group states in its February 21 report: “confrontation in Venezuela has turned violent in the past few days with the killing of six demonstrators.” However, a closer look at the individuals identified as having been killed reveals that the political allegiances of the victims and their causes of death are varied.  

Since Díaz’s announcement more deaths related to the protests have been reported in the media. Here, first, are details regarding seven of the deaths that Díaz referred to in her statements:

-          Bassil Alejandro Da Costa, an opposition demonstrator was shot, reportedly in the head, and killed  in Caracas during the opposition protest that took place on February 12. The Attorney General announced Friday that an investigation into the killing is close to finished and will be made public in the coming days. An analysis of amateur video and images by the Venezuelan newspaper Últimas Noticias alleges that uniformed and plainclothes members of the Venezuelan intelligence service (SEBIN) were responsible.  The video images show what appear to be SEBIN agents in uniform as well as individuals in plain-clothes firing handguns toward the demonstration after demonstrators had charged at them while throwing rocks.  President Maduro later stated that SEBIN agents weren’t authorized to be present at the protest and replaced the  head of SEBIN.  At least one of the SEBIN officers seen discharging his weapon has reportedly been arrested and, according to Venezuelan media, authorities are engaged in a manhunt to apprehend the other individuals observed firing their handguns. [Update 2/25: According to Attorney General Díaz, three SEBIN officers have been arrested in relation to the killing of Da Costa and Montoya, see below for more.] [Update 3/4: On February 26, the Attorney General announced additional arrests in relation to the deaths of Da Costa and Montoya. In total, at least 8 individuals have been arrested.]

-          Juan Montoya, a pro-government community activist, was reportedly shot in both the head and chest and died. Montoya’s body was found a short distance from the body of Da Costa. It remains unclear how he was killed but Maduro stated that the same gun killed both Montoya and Da Costa.

Jake Johnston / February 24, 2014

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Robert Samuelson's Arithmetic Challenged Economics

Yes, it's Monday and Robert Samuelson is badly confused about economics again. Today he complains about the White House's "fairy-tale economics."

Robert Samuelson is upset because the Obama administration has been arguing that it is possible to raise the minimum wage without any job loss. He apparently feels that he can now dismiss this claim as fairy-tale economics because the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a study that put its best guess of the job loss from the administration's proposal at 500,000.

It's worth noting that in its report CBO did not dismiss the possibility of zero job loss as fairy-tale economics. CBO noted the economic research on the topic and commented that the plausible range of impact would include near zero. CBO did not do original research; rather it chose to pick a number for its estimate that was a midpoint of the findings of recent research. (See my colleague John Schmitt's post for a longer discussion.) So the dismissal of a zero estimate of job loss as fairy-tale economics is Samuelson's invention, not a conclusion based on CBO's analysis.

It is also worth doing a little arithmetic to assess the 500,000 figure. As Samuelson points out, CBO projects that the minimum wage hike would affect 16 million people directly and another 8 million through spillover effects. This means that the lost jobs will be roughly equal to 3 percent of the workers directly affected and 2 percent of the total number of workers who see wage hikes.

For the most part, the reduction in employment of 500,000 will not correspond to workers being laid off. More likely it means that workers will not be replaced when they leave and that firms will be slower to hire when they see an increase in demand.

This is important to keep in mind, because we are not talking about 500,000 workers being permanently unemployed. Minimum wage jobs tend to be high turnover jobs. As a practical matter, a loss of 500,000 jobs means that workers will spend more time looking for jobs when they first enter the labor force or change jobs. This means that they can expect to spend roughly 2-3 percent less time working, but when they do work they will get close to 19 percent more per hour. Note this is not "fairy-tale economics," this is Robert Samuelson's economics if he bothered to think through what he was saying.

Dean Baker / February 24, 2014