The World Cup of Politics (Brazil Elections)

About this episode

A Brazilian congressman runs a WhatsApp channel called "Lula's Army." This week it passed ten million followers, part of a late surge that has turned a race Lula was losing into a near tie. Monica de Bolle of the Peterson Institute for International Economics maps what Sunday's runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro decides: who fills at least three of the Supreme Court's eleven seats, whether anyone fixes debt rules built for an age of runaway inflation, and who controls the world's second-largest rare earth reserves - where an American company has agreed to buy a mine. Monica is extremely confident in at least one thing: "The potential to disappoint is enormous." -- (00:00) - Intro/Welcome (01:20) - A race that flipped in three weeks (03:33) - Meta, WhatsApp and the online campaign (05:39) - Supreme Court seats and the Orbán comparison (09:47) - Lula's record, and the market's hope for a Brazilian Milei (15:40) - Why Brazil's interest rates are so high (21:24) - The reforms nobody will make (26:09) - Washington, Beijing and Brazil's new trade deals (33:36) - Can Brazil lead? Rare earths and a mine in Goiás (41:46) - Why micro-entrepreneurs left Lula (47:14) - The military an