http://www.maximsnews.com/news20091004BrazilpresidentLulaUNGA10910040101.htmMany countries, however, have not sat waiting.
Brazil – fortunately one of the last countries to be hit by the crisis – is now one of the first to emerge from it.
There is no magic in what we did.
We simply kept our financial system from being contaminated by the virus of speculation. We cut back our external vulnerability as we turned from debtors into international creditors. Along with other countries, we decided to contribute resources for the IMF to loan money to poor countries, free of unacceptable conditionalities imposed in the past.
Above all, however, both before and after the crisis broke out we implemented anti-cyclical policies.
We intensified our social policies, particularly income-transfer programs. We raised wages above inflation rates. We used fiscal measures to stimulate consumption and keep the economy moving.We have now emerged from the brief recession. Our economy has regained its impetus and shows promise for 2010. Foreign trade is recovering vitality, the labor market is doing amazingly well and macro-economic equilibrium has been preserved, at no cost to the victories of our people’s movements.
What Brazil and others have shown is that, at times of crisis, we must still carry out bold social and development programs.
Yet I hold no illusions that we might solve our problems alone, within our own borders. Because the global economy is interdependent, we are obliged to intervene across national borders and must therefore re-found the world economic order.
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