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Love Brazil. The most significant achievement of the regime, however, has been economic, not political. While it has been ten years of ditadura (hard dictatorship) for the bulk of the population, it has been ditabranda (a mild variety) for business and the middle class. Although the military run the government, it and the economy are managed by an accomplished cadre of technocrats. When Goulart was deposed, intemperate development schemes had fired a wild inflation rate—more than 100% in 1964. Last year inflation was between 14% and 20%—high enough but still tolerable for Brazil, which has just seen six consecutive years of better than 10% real growth in the gross national product. Exports last year were $6.6 billion v. $1.4 billion in 1964.
That year Brazil produced only 100,000 autos v. 740,000 in 1973. With the prospering if still small middle class driving ever greater numbers of Brazilian-built Volkswagens and Fiats (many with BRAZIL, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT bumper stickers), the nation's oil needs are becoming costly. The government is so confident of its healthy balance of payments position that it has made no move to ration gas, even though Brazil must import more than 70% of its petroleum requirements.
The regime has been enormously successful in attracting foreign capital. Americans, Japanese and Germans are investing most heavily, but even the Italians are involved in projects, ranging from steel production to manufacture of the G91 fighter-bomber aircraft (extremely effective, among other things, in helping suppress guerrilla insurgencies). Two Japanese firms, Nippon Steel and Kawasaki Corp., plan to treble the size of the Brazilian steel industry. Other Japanese firms have invested heavily in everything from electronics to paper production.
In statistical terms, the dimensions of the Brazilian "miracle" are undeniably imposing. Foreign exchange reserves currently total $6.3 billion, almost $1 billion more than a year ago. The country is the world's fifth largest producer of iron ore, the third largest producer of manganese; it has huge (and largely untapped) reserves of tin, nickel and tungsten. Brazil has a beef population of nearly 93 million head—almost twice that of Argentina. Once a rich land waiting to be exploited, Brazil can now help develop other countries. Brazilian oil and gas pipelines are being laid in Colombia and Bolivia, and Brazilians are building a dam in Paraguay and a highway in Ecuador. Three months ago, a 25-year-old Brazilian rail project finally connected the Pacific and Atlantic coasts for the first time, bringing Chilean copper to the burgeoning industries of Sào Paulo.