The experiences of mine, recounted below, with purchasing basic,
important safety equipment for completely standard purposes highlights a major
problem with the Brazilian economy.
Brazil, contrary to what some politicians would have you believe, is NOT
self-sufficient. There are market
failures - prospective customers who can not buy locally-made products, for no
good reason. Why can't you get a decent
leather motorcycle jacket in Brazil?
There's no shortage of leather - cattle farming is one of Brazil's
biggest industries; and no shortage of clothing manufacture - the textile and
clothing industries are two of the other biggest industries in Brazil! If they were available at non-absurd prices, at
least online, people would buy them - as it's common to see the more dedicated
bikers (owners of bikes with 500cc+ engines, motorcycle clubs, etc.) using
leather, which they likely imported themselves or bought overseas. I'm sure it's the same with motorcycling-grade
denim&kevlar, leather chaps, boots, etc.
Why the market failure?
Reason one - starting a business in Brazil is a major-league pain in the
ass. According to the annual World Bank "Ease of Doing Business" ranking, Brazil is one of the harder places in the world
to start a company (130 of 185), behind some countries at war! Depending on the state and type of business, going from memory,
you'll need approval from 7 to 11 government agencies, all of which has to be
fetched in person; pay thousands of reais; and wait for months. (there are initiatives to cut the time below
two months, including in Rio de Janeiro, through such simple measures as
maintaining an electronic version of the business registry so you don't have to
spend hours flipping through folders looking for a name or risk wasting months
of time because you picked a company name that someone has already
registered) A lawyer and accountant are required, and until very recently, so was a partner. Still is in most cases, I believe. Compare this with Sweden (ranked #13 in the
above survey), where you need an address (a PO Box is fine)
and have to fill in a form, which I believe can now be done online. That's it, from what I understand.
This is all without getting into the tax issues - the tax code in Brazil is so
complicated that many companies, especially those needing imports or those
handling food, collapse in a mire of endlessly complicated tax law red tape.
Reason two - in the rest of the world, it is accepted that
imports will be a normal fact of life.
It's globalisation - there's no way to get around it; in basically any
country you'll be able to buy an iPod, a Toyota, and Johnny Walker. The Brazilian government has tried and
continues to try to subvert this fact.
Their main sledgehammer-applied-as-a-bandaid is extortionate import
taxes, as referred to above. Import
taxes are astronomical, especially on electronics. Cost of an iPhone 4S on the US Apple store
online: US$549, about R$1,110. Cost of
an iPhone 4S on the Brazilian Apple store online: R$1,999. It's the same item, built in China either
way. Top-of-the-line electronics simply
aren't available - I built my desktop PC years ago and was thinking of making
an upgrade, but all the parts on the domestic market are obsolescent and
crap! The idea is to stimulate local
industry by making Brazilian-made products (=lower total taxes than imports)
competitive domestically. That idea is
an utter failure, because:
1. Opening a business is a pain in the ass.
2. Brazil has the highest effective banking interest rate in
the world (unless another country passed Brazil in the statistics within the past few months,
which isn't likely), meaning that bank loans for capital to open industrial
production is absurdly, prohibitively, extortionately high. Thus, new industries or new competitors to
existing companies simply won't arise without an eccentric billionaire
benefactor providing the backing.
3. While import taxes are high enough to be extortionate and
depress consumption, they aren't even high enough to make Brazilian goods
competitive! I once needed a new PC
mouse. Went down to a local store, asked
for the cheapest mouse he had. He put
two on the counter - one Brazilian for R$6, and one Chinese for $5. I bought the Brazilian one to stimulate the
domestic economy. The mouse didn't work. I exchanged it for the Chinese one, which
worked perfectly. Textiles - a major Brazilian industry, also
subject to higher-than-normal import taxes I believe and certainly subject to
more thorough customs inspection. Many
major international brands produce clothes here for export. If you want cheap clothes in the local shops - they're all made
in China.
Thus, you have a situation where there's a huge demand for
consumption which is not being satisfied. Brazilians now have more
money to spend (especially since income inequality is slowly decreasing, so the
lower and middle classes have ever more disposable income - those are the
groups most likely to stimulate domestic consumption of manufactured goods or
primary goods such as food), and want to spend it on minor luxuries such as
clothes, electronics, and motorcycles (and motorcycle accessories). Prices
become unnecessarily high, since there's high demand but low supply (from
imports and lousy infrastructure) and low competition (because opening a
business is a pain in the ass). Concrete example: Brazil has an enormous automotive industry. Car factories are all over the place, relatively
speaking for the continent. One of those
manufacturers is VW, which makes the Gol - a Brazilian peoples' car. No frills, low price. (Still more expensive than a Chinese import,
despite enormous tax benefits to domestically-produced cars) For the price of a Gol in Brazil, you could
buy two Gols in Mexico. That's despite those two Gols being built in Brazil,
shipped to Mexico, and having import duties and taxes levied in Mexico before
sale. For the price of a Gol in Brazil,
you could buy a Camaro in the USA. (A
Camaro in Brazil - yes, Chevrolet has factories here too - costs the same as 4
Gols) What the hell for? Taxes play a role, but mostly it's the
near-cartel of the automotive industry levying as eye-wateringly high profit
margins as their conscience will let them.
(OK, there's no conscience in business - it makes perfect business sense for
them, and they'd be crucified by their shareholders if they acted otherwise). Unfree market -> unnecessarily
high prices.
Another important carryon effect, since I'm on the subject - since
electronics are so expensive and outdated, Brazil's efforts at modernisation
are crippled and lethargic. How can
Brazil become a high-tech society when residents can't afford decent computing gear or an
affordable internet connection? The
federal government yammers about having to modernise, needing to stimulate
domestic electronics production capacity through international cooperation such
as the going-nowhere fighter jet purchase for the chair force and expansion of the submarine fleet for the navy, and needing to improve internet
infrastructure and computer access for the people, but it's their own policies and legislation
preventing any of this from happening.
Morons.
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