Chapter CI - Fighting Back
Chapter CI - Fighting Back
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Firstly, now that the economical situation was getting better, the government decided to start once again creating public works programs to increase the size of the economy. However, this time the Keynesianism was to be done in moderation as Alfonso Henriques launched what would become the new Brazilian Way of economics. Today known as the Economical Tripod, the new system was to done with 3 objectives in mind, firstly the government should always keep a positive surplus (aka spending should not exceed revenue), secondly the government was to keep inflation at a minimum at all times with 3% being the absolute worst possible and thirdly, the government should enforce a mixed-economy system which would allow for the growth of capital without trampling over the working class. With this under his belt, the Brazilian government between 1975 and 1976 managed to accumulate more money as spending in new mega projects stopped and spending in maintenance decreased due to the crisis, the government also managed to curb inflation from 28,1% in the beginning of the crisis, to some 12% by 1976. To finalize the recovery Henriques thought, the Brazilian economy needed to be stimulate, but just enough so that the engine could catch on, but since he didn’t want to spend the budget surplus on expensive projects, he turned to someone else for that money, the IMF.
The IMF, or International Monetary Fund, was an organization created by the UN in the wake of WW2 to loan money to countries in need of rebuilding, but since them served as a kind of world bank that would loan money to countries that wished to spend money. Brazil, just so happened to want to spend money without using their own money, thus they went to the IMF and asked for some money to invest in their economy. The train of thought here was that by stimulating the economy without generating much inflation, state revenues could grow more and thus be used to repay the loans at the benefit of having spent that money on infrastructure. Said infrastructure, was mainly focused on one important thing, energy, more specifically alternative sources of energy that would render the Brazilian economy less dependent on foreign oil. This in the vision of the government could come in 4 ways, nuclear energy, hydroelectric energy, sugar-based alcohol fuel and local oil reserves. The first one, nuclear energy, was however what Alfonso was most excited about, as he saw it as a very efficient way to generate a lot of energy, thus rendering the other solutions as secondary to his goal of turning Brazil into a nuclear fueled country. However you see, the country had basically put nuclear energy aside during the 60’s in pursuit of cheaper middle-eastern oil, thereby the Brazilian nuclear technology was pretty outdated and poorly-maintained. Thankfully for Alfonso however he would have help by his side.
Namely, Brazilian scientist, which never stoped working in nuclear energy research despite the country’s leadership lack of interest, innovated in the field of nuclear reactors and by mid 1970’s, released the earliest versions of Generation III reactors, which used advanced water boiling reactors and were thus more efficient and safe. With these technological advances in mind, the Gualtério government launched the Projeto Novo Sol, which consisted in the construction of 3 new Generation III nuclear reactors in the country, one which would be located near Feira de Santana and provide power for Bahia and the adjacent provinces, one in Porto Sul[1] in Guanabara for the Southeast and one in Nova Milão for the Brazilian south. The project, tough expensive, would employ thousands of Brazilians workers and in its aftermath generated a lot of energy for Brazil as a whole, with later governments later launching other versions of Projeto Novo Sol, which would lead to Brazil becoming the preeminent developer and user of nuclear energy in the incoming decades. However, this did not meant that the Brazilians did not experiment with other types of energy. In fact, the Brazilian government would also spend money and effort into oil prospects near the Southeastern coast, however these were deemed not viable at the current level of technology, as well as efforts to modernize and retrofit Brazilian hydroelectric dams across the country in order to keep up with energy demands. Not only that, but the government also began a campaign called the “Pro-Álcool”, which called for the development and implementation of sugar-based diesel fuel in order to diminish Brazilian depende on foreign oil, however now that Venezuela supplied Brazil with high-quality oil, the program was not that much of a success.
The Novo Sol I nuclear reactor in the city of Nova Milão as seen in 2023
As this was happening, provincial governors were preoccupied with something else, namely the crime crisis the country was facing. The rise of armed ganhas across most of Brazilian major cities, left the country in a predicament as the poorest neighborhoods became active shooting zones. In these cases, normal police was often ineffective as the criminals were often better armed and more organize than the police themselves. Facing such odds, governor Adalberto Baymundt, decided to use an unorthodox strategy, he used government money to buy military surplus (which he government sold at a discount) and begin the training of a new elite police force as armed and trained as the military. These special units would be officially known as the “Polícia de Armadoria”(Armory Police) or more popular known as “Armados”. These special units, would be used by the state when normal police could not to the job and would first see action in the end of 1976, in that year, a gang known as the “Dragões do Oeste” (Dragons of the West), had one of their factories raided by police, however when the criminals returned fire, the police asked for armed assistance and in came the Armados, the resulting skirmish left one policeman dead as well as 7 dead criminals, plus another 16 captured. The news of this success, spread throughout the country and soon, more and more governors were creating their own “Polícias de Armadoria” in order to combat highly armed criminals. The federal government, seeing this, signed the Lei da Armadoria, which stated that every province had to have an Armory Police and that weapons would be sold from the military to this new police force. Thus, beginning the end of the golden age of crime gangs.
However, crime was not found only in the streets, more specifically corruption was still an issue in Brazil and although cases of corruption had decreased at a provincial level, still remained at an all time high in the federal level. Thus, to combat this, Branco sponsored yet another anti-corruption bill in order to root out this endemic issue. However, director of the AIC (Agência de Investigação da Corrupção/Agency for the Investigation of Corruption) Mario Rezende tried to blackmail Branco into not passing the legislation due to how balls deep he was in corruption schemes. In response, Branco had the Police and IBIS conduct a raid on the AIC’s headquarters, this allowed for the seizure of a lot of documents confirming Rezende’s involvement in many schemes and the like. As a result, the AIC was completely reshuffled with staff as incompetent and corrupt officials were dismissed and fresh and competent men were brought in. To make this issue less controversial, Gualtério allowed for a universal commission of men from all parties to elect the new officials of the agency. This, allowed for the birth of a more competent and effective unit that throughout the 70’s and 80’s would be synonymous with efficiency and cleanliness.
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[1] The city of Angra dos Reis/RJ
