Jan Landi, financial market professional, comments on the US view of our economy, interest rates and reforms

Roberto Dardis: With interest at 13.75%, would you say that this interferes a lot with investments or does it not interfere?

Jan Landi: First question: 13.75% interest, let’s see if it interferes with our real economy. Brazil must have one of the highest real interest rates on the planet again. To give you an idea, inflation is around 5% and the government interest rate is around 5%, so real interest is 0%.

RD: From zero to 10, what grade would you give about political interference in the economy? And what weight can this interference cause to the country?

JL: Intrusion in the economy of government has both in Brazil and in the USA. In the US, business is more discreet, the FED (Federal Reserve) has autonomy, but no, it suffers political pressure too, obviously this interferes. The economists, the central banks, they know what they have to do, but there is always great political pressure for the interests of politicians who obviously don’t care about the population. They’re defending them and wanting to be re-elected, I’d say it’s eight of the government interfering in the economy _ and it’s not today.

RD: How do you see the current government from the outside?

JL: Out here, they don’t pay much attention to Brazil, just like when they talk about Latin America, all of “Latin America”, including Mexico in terms of investment. So apparently not much has changed how the US views Brazil today despite the political change. Bolsonaro leaving and Lula entering. Lula has already been in government, they are cautious because Lula always flirts with the left, but this is nothing new. This is not a recent thing, so this is how I see it.

RD: Both the Fiscal Framework and tax reforms are in Congress. With these passed, is our need for economic equilibrium adequate, or do we need further reform?

JL: Unfortunately, Brazil needs a series of reforms to become more transparent, more stable for investments mainly from abroad. So many diverse interests end up altering the agenda of what the government proposes to do or proposed to do, and what actually happens. So let’s see what happens with these reforms really cause some impact change in how they see Brazil, but they will wait and see without getting excited, for now. I think other changes need to happen. The government’s attitude of respecting that history that it had in the past, the budgetary guidelines that it could spend as much as it collected, so this is what needs to be made clearer here, I think that the current government is at least not talking that way and is spending more than there is, so this is not positive for anyone looking from the outside.

RD: Do you think it’s safe to invest in Brazil?

JL: Since when we started working in the 80’s, I don’t think anything has changed. Brazil is the eternal teenager. One hour is happy another hour is sad. Sometimes he’s rich, another time he’s poor. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility, high risk when you put money in Brazil, and with the current government going back to flirting with the left, there is always that concern if they are going to nationalize some more serious investment, I don’t see it only here, but I also see that Europe: see it the same way. I don’t think that if I were a Brazilian I would invest here, I don’t leave all the money, because we don’t know what could happen tomorrow. We have already seen this film during Collor’s time, with the freeze. And to this day, we remember how that immense rupture of the economy as a whole was and those who had power benefited from it and there is always this uncertainty.

RD: We spoke with Jan Landi, who sought with his experiences in the financial market an expectation about our economy, putting his vision of Brazil seen by the USA.