It is a natural fact that the Minister is trying to correct his own mistakes and put out the fire caused by the disastrous decision made by the neoliberal staff under his command in the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, keeping the interest rates unchanged and going against the trend being developed during the previous six months and the expectations of workers and businesspeople. It is acceptable that he used his authority as one of the administration’s main ministers to cheer up the population and the economic agents as he manifested his belief that a period of consistent economic growth would begin in 2004.

But it is not natural and it is not something that corresponds to the people’s expectations the fact that the most important governmental authority regarding economic policies reaffirms that the ruinous and suicidal policy effective till the present days will remain unchanged. It is a startling affirmation in a moment when there is a growing healthy and fruitful debate, both inside the government and among the allied political forces, on the course Brazil will follow: either the establishment of a new economic model based on national development and the valorization of labor, with justice and social progress, or the maintenance of a model characterized as a financial casino, with an open market, a paradise for deregulated capital—in a few words, the maintenance of a neoliberal economic and financial policy coined by the previous administration and applied in the name of the interests of the financial capital. The debate on those two alternatives is not only necessary—it is inexorable and already following its course. Two or three appealing sentences rehearsed in the fashion of media tergiversation will not obstruct it. Today there is not a single accountable voice that is not raised whenever it is time to criticize the economic policy applied by Minister Palocci.

It has led Brazil to a dead-end and the macroeconomic indicators praised by the Minister are those that correspond to that very model’s stability, those that guarantee the solvency of commitments the country has made with the international speculative bank, contradicting a policy that favors sustained economic growth. It is for that reason that the promise of growth, in the evasive terms expressed by Minister Palocci, is nothing but an appealing sentence that tends to prove itself empty.

According to the principles of that model, which has been effective for so many years, a model that bitter experience proved to fail wherever it was imposed—and most significantly in Brazil—, there will be no national development. Another issue is the complexity of the national and international situation, the difficulties in the correlation of forces and the understanding that the government must be cautious and avoid adventures or the illusion of an easy victory over neoliberalism. If it lacks the certainty that there is the need for changing the model—and the necessary political will to do that—the considerations on the correlation of forces will be just another element of tergiversation. On the other hand, if both the government and society are convinced that it is necessary to change the model, and therefore the orientation, the people, government and supporting political forces will be wise and find the means, paces and political times to accomplish a successful transition.

Maybe it is that uncertainty, or the certainty that we must persist in applying the current model, that has led the Minister to leap from inconsistent promises to deceit in the same interview when he said that he has carried out the adjustment without burdening the people last year. Are not economic recession, increasing unemployment, decreasing income of salary people, fiscal surpluses tied to a tightened budget, leading to the paralysis of investments and the degradation of public services, cuts in the rights of civil servants included in the social security reform and the increase of the debt as compared to the GDP sacrificing to the people? It is precisely due to the fact that the harmful effects of Mr. Palocci’s economic policy are so evident and tangible, reaching the limits of the bearable, that the people cry louder for a change in policy and course.