This chart shows from mid-2004 when I first visited Brazil until today. The value of the United States Dollar has basically fallen off a cliff—at least when compared to the Brazilian Real—since then.
Unfortunately it has not seemed to make a huge difference in the way day-to-day life is lived. In fact, the price of a lot of things has gone up (groceries comes to mind).
I suppose the people this effects most are those who are paid in US Dollars. Foreign workers like missionaries, and people whose company has assigned them to Brazil, but still pay in Dollars.
An up-to-date, and interactive chart like the one above can be found at Google Finance.
Update: Here is another look at money in Brazil.
Dear Ex-Pat:
ReplyDeleteMarketplace, the business show on public radio, is circulating a request for ex-pat entrepreneurs to contact us about their experiences starting businesses overseas.
U.S. companies and individuals directly invested $150 billion in businesses in foreign countries in 2006, the Congressional Research Service estimates. That's a big recovery from 2005, when direct investment dropped sharply to just $9 billion after a 2004 high of $252 billion Of the $2.1 trillion in overall U.S. assets invested in foreign business, about 17 percent is in Latin American companies, 18 percent is in Asia.
What's your piece of that international pie? What challenges you? Is it language, culture, the weak dollar, finding a clientele or establishing trust? Where have you succeeded?
To respond, point your browser to:
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Your answers will help shape our reports. A reporter or producer may follow up with a call for more information. And please forward this note to other overseas business people by using the link at the bottom of this message.
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Thanks in advance for your help,
Sharon McNary
Analyst, Public Insight Journalism
Marketplace
American Public Media
213-621-4671
smcnary@marketplace.org
Yeah, while this is seemingly good for Brazilians, it's a tad annoying for me. I especially felt the change in the last two times we visited Brazil. The last time in particular I felt pretty poor, like my money couldn't go very far at all.
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand it either. To me, it seems like the reverse should be true - that the real would be dropping. We noticed some absolutely hideous rises in prices from when we originally went there. You notice it especially in the malls: 400 reais for purses and such. Food is also sharply rising (at least dining out). The economy feels imbalanced to me. And it makes no sense that all this significant rise in inflation in recent years would somehow make the real more valuable. It seems to me that the opposite should be true, if it takes more reais to buy something. But then again, I'm no financial genius. It just feels wrong to my brain.
Maybe it's just a trend and will reverse itself over time, it's hard to say. I also thank you in advance for your help, as the very nice Sharon McNary has done ;)