I have lived in Rio since April 2003. Now that Rio de Janeiro will host both the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, one question keeps popping up. Is Rio de Janeiro a safe place to visit? It is certainly understandable. Quite often, photos of violence in Rio de Janeiro are shot around the world.
Not only is Rio de Janeiro one of the most beautiful cities in the world but it is also one of the largest. All large cities have a certain amount of violence and some precaution should always be taken when traveling the dark and unknown streets of a large city. Putting that aside, Rio de Janeiro does have a higher level of violence.
I place this in two categories.
1) On going drug war
2) Tourist related crimes
When we see all the photographs and video beamed across the world, it is usually related to the government’s on going drug war. There is quite a bit of poverty in Rio de Janeiro, and it is all focused in these large slums called favelas. Rio boasts some of the largest favelas in the world. Favela residence do not pay utilities nor do they pay property taxes and so on. Hand in hand with the favelas, is also a thriving drug trade. This drug trade creates a certain lawlessness.
In November 2010, the lawlessness hit a crescendo. The drug lords were burning buses. They would evacuate the bus, and then burn the entire bus as a symbolic Fuck You to the government. Each time a bus burned, it would be the front page of the paper, and quite often across the internet. Finally, the government took measures in their own hands, and invaded one of the larger favelas just south of the international airport. The city government joined forced with the federal government and the results were stunning. They brought in the tanks, armored vehicles and lots of lots of artillerary and helicopters. All other TV programming was canceled and the war was broadcast 24/7. I was secretly rooting for the governmnet despite my secret love affair with anarchy.
There were few casualties and the bus burnings have ceased. I have no false hope that the game is over, but the key point is that the violence and danger is centered in the favelas. I have never been to a favela and I never plan to go. Many of my friends have been, and they wear it like a badge of pride. Not me. The odds are extremely small that one would be hurt, but why bother? I just can’t justify it in my mind.
Tourist related crimes. In addition to the drug war, there is and always be tourist related crimes. These crimes are never homicides and mainly petty theft. The prime tourist area in Rio de Janeiro is called Copacabana and that is not coincidentally where the vast majority of these crimes occur.
I have been robbed two times since living in Rio. Both times in the Copacabana and both times involved a stupid gold chain that I used to wear. Not any more. It is a simple precaution, but I now have a much more important precaution and I am confident that I will never be robbed again.
I am in very good physical shape and when walking on the streets particularly at night, I never let anyone that I do not know get close to me. If I see someone approaching me, or attempting to talk to me, I just run away. Simple. These guys have a million little schemes. Some guys throw little balls of dirt that look like shit on your shoes. Some guys just pretend like they want to talk to you. Again, if you don’t know them, then don’t let them near. Run away.
So I have two basic rules. I don’t go into favelas and I don’t let strangers near me when walking on the street. By following these two basic rules, I can say that Rio de Janeiro is totally safe and I feel just as comfortable in Rio as any other place I have visited in the world.
I watched Obama’s speech last week and frankly I was disappointed. It was a nice speech, but in my view, Obama missed the key issue that will fix our economy from a death spiral. That issue is Wall Street.
We all agree that Wall Street and the Fed are the underlying reason behind the greatest economic depression since the Great Depression. BTW. Why do people call our current crisis the worst since the Great Depression? They have been calling it that for years at this point. The Great Depression is over and it was bad. Our current crisis is not over, and so therefore, we cannot compare one against the other.
Back to Wall Street. So these guys are making record profits. They are making money hand over fist during this economic crisis. While unemployment remains high and the rest of America suffers, these guys are raking it in. Why is that? I think I know.
Last year, I called my banker and I considered getting a loan for my business. We did not need the money but I was more curious. He told me that my interest rate would be 5%. I told him that sounded high. In fact, that was the same interest rate I would have received before the economic crisis. He agreed but that was the rate. So here is the issue. Before the crisis, banks could buy from the Fed at let’s say 3%, and then they would sell that same money to me at 5%. They net 2%. Now, they can buy from the Fed at 0%, but they are still selling at 5%. They now net 5%. Their profits have more than doubled because their costs have gone down. They are making so much money that they don’t need to make any more loans, they can just milk it.
Of course, this was not the intention. When the Fed reduced the rate, they wanted to give more people access to capital. Let’s just say the entire zero percent interest thing has been a miserable failure and the only ones that have benefited have been the bankers.
But this is not the reason I am blogging today. I view the fundamental issue that we must defeat in America is the amount of control that bankers have over our lives and the impact it has on our well being. I plan to demonstrate that what is good for Wall Street is quite often in direct conflict for what is good for Main Street.
Before I begin, I have a lot of friends in the financial sector and they are all doing fabulously well. This is not a personal attack. These are my observations about the system and not the people in it.
There is no dispute that Wall Street was behind the huge housing crisis. We all know the history. They created the bubble and when it popped they were screwed and so the taxpayers bailed them out to tune of over a trillion dollars. But there is another story. During this bubble, the entire immigration issue heated up.
Here in Myrtle Beach it was particularly pronounced. Suddenly, the dominant language in Walmart and Circuit City was Spanish rather than English. I am not complaining. I speak Spanish. I am just using this as a barometer of change. Also now a days, I don’t hear that much Spanish being spoken.
Anyways, the point is that all of these companies building the houses like Lennar, etc are large publicly traded companies. They all use illegal immigrants and we know it. So does Wall Street. What happens when a company such as Lennar begins to use illegal immigrants? First, their costs go down. Also immigrant workers have less rights and there is no chance they will ever form a union. Good docile workers just like Wall Street likes them. The labor costs go down, but also payroll taxes go down. Insurance costs go down. Medical costs and so on. Once their costs go down, they have a choice. They can pass the savings on to customers or they can increase profits. Guess which one Wall Street prefers? PROFITS.
So Lennar announces improved profits, and Wall Street rewards the executives at Lennar by running up their stock price. Since all executives have stock or stock options, these guys are now filthy rich. Not because they are smart, but because they were willing to break the law.
But the problem gets worse. Other executives at other home builders see that their colleagues at Lennar are getting filthy rich and they jump on the bandwagon. Before you know it, all home builders think that the only way to build a house is using illegal immigrants. And that’s where things stand today.
As I get older, a lot of my friends are getting older as well. I actually have a very close friend that is 55 years old. He works for a hospital in California. We were having beers and he tells me that he turns 60, he is going to get 80% of his salary and full medical benefits for his pension. I was really really happy for him, but then it made me sad. I quickly began to realize that very few of my friends have pensions. Some are very financially healthy and have no worries, but to be honest, I would say that 1/2 of my friends are essentially fucked. They will never have enough money to retire and they will work until they die. I am not a sociologist but I believe that their life expectancy is not good.
Even when I talk to my friends that have pensions, they are quick to point out how lucky they are. Without exception, these pensions are being discontinued. My friends and relatives hit a certain pension window, but it is safe to say that my children will never have a pension. They either save a lot of money, or they will work until they die.
Wall Street does not like pensions. I really don’t think they can relate. They make more in 6 months than most people make their entire lives. Of course no one on Wall Street needs a pension. They make so much money that their children’s children’s children will not have to work if they don’t want to. Pensions are bad for profits and bad for stock prices.
When I worked at Gateway from 1991-1999, one of our primary functions were call centers. We handled everything on the telephone. Sales, customer service, technical support, returned parts, customer accounting and so on. Furthermore, every single one of these tens of thousands of jobs were legal Americans. In less than ten years, all of those jobs are gone. They are all in India and the Phillipines best I can tell.
If you talk to just about anyone, there is not one of us consumers that like talking to non Americans. It is not like there is some advantage to talking to an Indian person to get a refund on my credit card. It is the opposite. Sometimes their accents are not intelligible and quite often they are ill trained to boot.
If you go and look at what companies are outsourcing you will find the vast majority are publicly traded companies. By and large small businesses like my company, we still answer our phones.
Note: By the time that Gateway began outsourcing, I had already left, but I definitely voiced my concerns. My reasoning had nothing to do with cost. You want your points of contact to the customer linked to your operations. Customer service also gives valuable feedback to operations on what they are doing wrong. Outsourcing breaks that link. In fact the opposite occurs. The Indian call center wants more calls, not less. So the last thing they want is to eliminate the problem at the root. Outsourcing promotes inefficiency in the long run.
Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that when a publicly traded company began outsourcing jobs that Wall Street rewarded them with an increased stock price?
Here is one of the scariest trends that I see in America. Wall Street loves monopolies. By monopoly, I mean a company that has enough market share so that if they want to increase their profits, all they need to do is raise their prices. This is definitely a Bush thing. Not that I agree with this, but Clinton went after Microsoft as a monopoly. Way back long before any of were born, it was a Republican named Teddy Roosevelt that decided that corporations were destroying the American way of life. He ran on a platform of busting the trusts, and he actually won and that’s what he did.
It is not clear whether the monopolies and trusts are more powerful now than then, but one thing is clear. Powerful companies today have a lot more leverage in federal government.
We can see it all around us. Just look at the airlines. They are all in the process of consolidating, eliminating routes and jobs, and increasing prices. I was shocked when I paid over $7000 for my family of four to return from Rio de Janeiro to the United States. That’s a lot of dough. I used to pay less than $500 a person less than 5 years ago. Then think about your TV and internet provider. What true options do you really have? There is no competition and over time, our internet and television bills have slowly gone up.
These price increases just pad the corporate bottom lines and then Wall Street knocks up the stock price. The increased stock prices allow upper management to retire early and filthy rich.
Let’s make a note. People want to blame this entire situation on greed. I disagree. I am not a greedy guy, but if I were in their shoes, I would do the exact same thing. It is the rationale thing to do. It is not the players. It is the system itself that is flawed.
We see it all around us. Made in China. Nothing is made in America anymore. I think there should be a law where the flag of the country of the manufacturer should be prominently displayed on the front of the box. You shouldn’t have to pick up the box and figure out where they hid the disclosure.
If you look at all the companies that are manufacturing in China, by and large they are all publicly traded companies. They have Wall Street’s seal of approval. There is one thing that is clear. Wall Street does not care about American jobs.
It was over 100 years ago that Teddy Roosevelt was president, but we seem to be at the same point again. I disagree with the TEA party on one key fact. The only solution to this problem is for our government to stand up to Big Business and Wall Street. The sad reality is that no one in our government has the balls to stand up and the problem keeps getting worse and worse. I think myself as well as many Americans hoped that Obama would be different. It is obvious to see that Obama is more like George W Bush than Teddy Roosevelt.
I agree with 99% of everything you say Rob, save one part. You stated that no one in government has the balls to stand up to wall Street. I think there are those who do have the balls. But here is the problem, while people make noise about it, people no longer have the balls to stand up to the powers that be, people no longer have the balls to organize and stand up to corporations, people no longer have the balls to even stand up to their boss. People don’t have the balls to stand up as they watched their wages become stagnant, and decline, they didn’t have the balls to stand up when their pensions and health care were taken away. People didn’t have the balls to stand up when factories were shut down and moved to China, India, Philippines, Pakistan…………. People have become spineless little sheep, to afraid to open their mouths when they need to.
This is of course a goal achieved by Wall Street, one that they have been working on for a long time. They take little bites out of the workers apple, then a few more little bites out of it, then bigger ones, people didn’t stand up, that was the big wake up call on Wall Street, pull the core out of all the apples, do it, and do it quickly. When you make the situation bad enough, you have the little people where you want them, afraid, scared, so worried about where they will get the money for the next rent check, mortgage payment, utility payment, then Wall Street has them by the balls, and when the people get afraid and scared, and cower down, then the people in government have no reason do anything about the problems. Why not? Well because the people don’t have the balls, they are sheep for the slaughter.
I recently worked on a 2 year project at Fort Devens Massachusetts building a Solar Panel Factory. Our state dumped 54 million dollars into this project because it created a hell of a lot of good construction jobs to build it, and created 800 full time jobs once it was up and running.
The company just recently shuttled the plant, closed the doors, all 800 people lost their jobs, and they are going guess where? Do I really need to say, of course not but I will, they picked up and went to China. The Chinese government is paying them so much to move there that they can pay off the debt to Mass, move, retrain people and make a profit via slave like labor.
Now the people working at this plant were not “high” payed people, they on average made $14.00 an hour. But I guess $14.00 dollars a day for people who work 12 hour shifts is much more appealing, and the Chinese government of course subsidizes everything.
Didn’t hear much noise about that one I bet, well because the people don’t have any balls, they didn’t make noise, they didn’t stand up, they laid down, whimpered and ran to China Mart ( Wal Mart) to buy some cheap plastic crap made overseas.
The problems we have are as much the fault of the people at the bottom as it is the people at the top.The people allow it to happen, they allow it because that pride, fight, and set of balls that our parents and grand parents had, and used to fight for the way of life we “had” have shriveled up.
So the flag waving continues, and that’s as far as it goes. Problem is people waving the flag the highest are the ones who would sell it all to make a buck at their own peril.
Nice job Robby. You squarely hit that nail on the head!
It was Sunday December 5th. The prior Thursday, I had tried to purchase tickets for the final Brazilian championship game but to no avail. There was a line a mile long and many people had camped out with tents, barbecues, chairs and umbrellas. I knew that I didn’t stand a chance so I gave up. The day of the game, my buddy John who was visiting from London rang about 9 am. He was very excited and explained to me that he could get scalped tickets for the game. Each ticket would cost about R$400. I did some quick calculations, and we had a group of 7 people (me, my wife Solange, my two kids Teddy and Jesse, our nanny Sida, and my two friends John and Mark). That means I needed to come up with a little less than R$3000, and I had a little less than an hour to come up with the cash. The scalpers were skeptical that a gringo could come up with that kind of cash on a Sunday morning. They had another thing coming.
I ran down to the Bob’s hamburger place which has an ATM. I have three ATM cards (two from Brazil and one from the United States). The only trick would be to remember all the PINs since I rarely use all three of them. I was shocked but I got all of them on the first try. I jammed R$3000 into my wallet and made the quick drive to the Marriott in Copacabana.
Now the planning begins. In Brazil, there is no true championship or playoffs. There is a point system, and Fluminese from Rio de Janeiro was the favorite. They only had to win the last game and they would be the champion of the entire country. Brazil is a football crazy country and every person, male, female, young or old had to pick an allegiance. Very early in my indoctrination into Brazilian culture, I picked Fluminese. For this reason, I had 3 male Fluminese jerseys. Also, both of my kids had already received little Fluminese jerseys as gifts. So the only people that were missing jerseys was my wife and the nanny.
The plan was that we would grab lunch at Cafe Feliz in Ipanema. Cafe Feliz is located near the Hippy Fair and I thought we could pick up two jerseys for the ladies. We arrived at Cafe Feliz and like usual the food was awesome. I was starved and got a huge salad, and then the beef with a plate of french fries. Topped it off with two home made scoops of ice cream. We ran out to buy the jerseys. We searched high and low and one can not purchase team jerseys at the Hippy Fair. One vendor explained to me that it was some sort of licensing issue. My friend John suggested we go toward the beach because there are many vendors selling the shirts illegally. Just as we were approaching the beach, we saw a shirt vendor and low and behold, he had two ladies shirts!
We were right by the Hippy Fair still and it was no problem picking up two taxis for the trek to the game. Maracaná is Rio de Janeiro’s most famous stadium, but it is shut down. The game was to be held in a location about 20 miles from Ipanema in a neighborhood called Meier. We needed two taxis and the drivers conferred on the best way to get to the game. They chose to go north toward the airport and then west to the stadium.
Although it was not planned, their route took us very near where the war between the drug lords and the military was occuring. In the past few weeks, the drug lords had begun to burn a series of public buses. Not one person was injured. They would clear out all passengers and then burn the bus. It was still insubordinance and the photos of the buses quickly crossed the globe via the internet. Then the state of Rio de Janeiro called in the heavy reinforcement. They took over the entire neighborhood with tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery. On top of that, it was televised non stop. I am not a big fan of using force, but I was secretly routing for the invasion.
So now for the first time, we were less than a kilometer from the occupation. The taxi driver directed us to the points of interest. It was a little eerie to see up and personal the places I had seen on television during the military attack.
Within a few minutes, we arrived in the stadium. I looked at our tickets and all of the seats were not next to each other. In fact, some were in totally different sections. I was a little nervous, but not to worry. In Brazil, they don’t pay attention to seat numbers, and it is really on a first-come first-served basis. We were about 90 minutes before game time and we were able to get pretty good seats reasonably near center field.
Everyone in the entire stadium was rooting for Fluminese and wore the Fluminese colors of Red, Green and White. This game was to be a slam dunk. Their opponent was one of the worst teams in the division and they were a long long way from home. The mood in the stadium was festive and we all anticipated a Fluminese victory and a wild celebration.
The game began and Fluminese played horrible. They seemed tentative. It was clear that Fluminese was the better team but the half ended with a 0-0 tie. Right behind us was a man that brought a portable television, so he felt he was the commentator for the game. At times, I wanted to cover my kids ears! I think they learned a few new Portuguese words and me too. Wow!
The players began the second half the mood was tense. The ugly thoughts were going through my head. What if the other team got a lucky goal? More bizarre things have happened. The yelling and screaming and the frustration was hitting a peak. Then in one quick sequence on the opposite side of the field, Fluminese scored. The sensation in the stadium was amazing. The collective sigh of relief was felt throughout the entire stadium. The game dragged on and Fluminese won 1-0 and are national champions. This is quite the accomplishment since Flamengo another team from Rio won last year. Rio has now won two years in a row!
As the game ended, it was strange because no one was leaving. We were worried about difficulties getting a taxi on the way out. After about 15 minutes of celebrating, we were among the first to leave. We went around the block and there was actually no problem catching a taxi.
We were near the swanky Barra neighborhood and decided to dine at the churrascaria Pampa Grill. The taxis went there and we had a splendid meal at Pampa Grill. While we were dining, a huge storm hit Rio de Janeiro. Bu the time we were leaving, it was pouring down buckets of rain. Buckets and buckets. When it rains in Rio, it rains very hard.
Barra is a neighborhood very very different than Zona Sul which is the home to Copacabana, Ipanema and where I live Lagoa. We asked the people at Pampa Grill to call a taxi and over 30 minutes later not one taxi had arrived. Basically, since it was raining so hard, there were no available taxis in Barra. No where. What to do?
I took matters in my hands. I realized that it would not be possible to catch a cab just by waiting in front of the restaurant. I grabbed a heavy umbrella and started walking. I had no idea where I was going but my chances had to improve. I walked and walked in the pouring rain. There were a few taxis but none of them stopped. Finally, I was in front of one of the largest shopping centers in Rio called Barra Shopping. I asked where there was a taxi stand and I went to the other side of the mall. There was a line and I waited and waited. By this time, we had left the restaurant 2 hours ago. The problem now was that taxis were arriving at about one every 30 minutes. Finally one of the guards told me that I would be waiting forever and for me to go to a different place.
So I kept on walking. By this time, the rain had abated, but now it was getting late. A few taxis stopped but none of them wanted to drive so far away to my neighborhood. I just kept on walking and walking. Finally, a taxi stopped and I begged him to take me. He refused but he felt sorry for me. He told me he would take me to another place where I might be able to catch a taxi. So I get in and he drives me about a mile down the road. As I stop to get out of the taxi, there are two guys waving down the taxi frequently. It was my two friends that I went to the game with. They tried to jump into the taxi but I told them it was going in the wrong direction.
Shortly after that another taxi stopped but again he did not want to go all the way back to the Lagoa neighborhood. But then my friend said in his broken Portuguese, we will pay twice the meter. He still said No. I then broke in and said we would pay three times the meter. He finally relented. I jumped into the taxi and went to the restaurant to get my family. The kids had fallen asleep on the ground. There was no traffic and the meter said we owed R$50. It was now close to four hours since we had left the restaurant. I truly appreciated this guy for driving us back home. So instead of paying him R$150 or three times the amount, I gave him R$300 and said “Feliz Natal” or “Merry Christmas.”
It was an incredible day and there is a huge lesson learned. It is not easy catching a taxi in Barra when it rains.
That’s hilarious Robbie, so long as one is always prepared to RUN for their life, then Brazil is perfectly safe.. Look, I realize you have adopted Brazil and love it very much, but you have become an immigrant Brazilian apologist.. You don’t have to work so hard to make the case for Brazil there is a generally positive impression of that nation it would seem. It remains to be seen whether they can pull off the Olympics yet or not…