A Vida É Bela

wink wink nudge nudge

Corruption in Brazil is big news and major gossip – scandals involving politicians trading cash for votes, police allied with drug lords, soccer club owners and church leaders getting fat off the opiates of the masses. But my first direct experience with tainted money was a minor thing. Last Saturday catching the bus home de madrugada after a night out in Rio, we had two R$2 and a R$20 to pay R$4.70 in bus fare. Unable or unwilling to break our twenty, the cobrador took our R$4 and told us to stay up front rather than going through the turnstile.*

So what, you ask? We get a discount, he pockets the cash. Well, there’s the obvious stuff – even the perception of a higher cost of doing business reduces foreign investment; public funds for education, health, roads, etc. gets drained away; it sucks to live in a place where everyone breaks the rules.

I’m no political economist, but I’ve started to wonder if the more insinuous effect of corruption could be the horrendous bureacracy that evolves to impede it. Could this be why public officials (including research scientists) have to submit a pile of paperwork (including a complete meeting agenda translated into Portuguese) justifying every trip abroad? Or why the competition process for government and academic jobs (including exam grades) is completely and permanently public record? Or why, when applying for funding to travel to a workshop in the US, I had to submit forms and a proposal to be signed by half a dozen administrators, English and Portuguese versions of my diplomas, CV, invitation and acceptance letters, and authenticated copies of my passport and Brazilian ID and Social Security cards?

Actually, the authentication wasn’t a big deal, because even though I had forgotten the originals at home, the rotary agreed to stamp them all since it was due a few hours later, given that I bring in the originals…amanhã.

* I didn’t see this because I was facing front, but there was also a drug deal taking place in the back of the bus. Apparently the drivers look the other way in exchange for protection – or a cut.