Reading report

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 23
Title: Adiós to poverty, hola to consumption
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 16th 2007

Vocabulary

Breeze: 2. Informal. Something, such as a task, that is easy to do.
Winding: 2. A curve or bend, as of a road.
Depot: 1. A railroad or bus station. 2. A warehouse or storehouse. 3. A storage installation for military equipment and supplies.
Vend:To sell, especially by peddling.
Fourfold: 1. Divided into a specified number of parts: fourfold.
case 2. A decorative or protective covering.
Sewage: 1. Liquid and solid waste carried off in sewers or drains.
Amid: 1. Surrounded by; in the middle of.
Grinding: that never ends or improves
Ubiquitous: 1. Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent.
Pipe: A hollow cylinder or tube used to conduct a liquid, gas, or finely divided solid.
Ply: 3. To traverse or sail over regularly.
Sewerage: 1. A system of sewers. 2. Removal of waste materials by sewers. 3. Sewage.
Searing: 1. To scorch or burn the surface of. 2. To wither or parch.
Advent: 1. The coming or arrival, especially of something important
Plethora: 1. A superabundance; excess.
Rough: 9. Not complete, exact, or perfect
Nadir: 1. Astronomy. A point on the celestial sphere diametrically opposite the zenith. 2. The lowest point.
Inflow: 1. A flowing in or into.
Tradable: that you can easily buy and sell or exchange for money. Marketable
Shrink: 1. To contract from heat, moisture, or cold. 2. To dwindle. 3. To draw back; recoil.
Stipend: 1. A fixed and regular payment, such as a salary or allowance.
Remittance: 1. Credit or money sent to someone.
Collate: 1. To examine and compare (texts) carefully.
Abjure: 1. To renounce under oath. 2. To recant solemnly; repudiate. 3. To give up; abstain from.
Scarce: 1. Insufficient to meet a demand or requirement; short in supply.
Pamper: 1. To treat with excessive indulgence.
think-tank: 1. A research group organized especially by a government for solving complex problems.
Claw: 4. To scratch or dig with or as if with claws.
Mushrooming: 2. To grow or spread rapidly.
Threshold: 1. A piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door. 2. An entrance.

Main ideas

Montanhao is one of the poorest districts in Brazil.
The owner of a brazilian chain of supermarkets affirms that people there are very poor, but a lot are becoming middle class.
Life in places like Montanhao is still though, crime is a big problem.
Signs of progress are all around.
A new middle class is emerging almost overnight across Brazil and much of Latin America .
While poverty is measurable, the middle-class is subjective.
The middle class that is emerging is more accurately described as a lower-middle class.
In Mexico some of the new middle class come from the informal economy, others from new industries or service businesses.
These trends are furthest advanced in Chile.
Something similar is starting to happen in Colombia and Peru. In Argentina 40% of the society is considered middle-class.
In Latin America as a whole, !5m households ceased to be poor between 2002 and 2006, by 2010 this percentage will increase.
There are several factors behind these trends since 2004 the region`s economies have grown.
Since 1990s there has been a growth driven by an inflow of capital and accompanied by overvaluated exchange rates.
Innovation in what refers to social policies in Mexico and Brazil.
In both countries poverty is falling steadily.
Credit is still much scarcer than in developed countries but it is growing fast.
Sales of new cars, computers and consumer electronics in both Brazil and Mexico are at record levels.
These positive trends are recent and remain fragile.
The new middle classes have more schooling than their parents
Thegrowth of the middle-class society carries big implications for politics in the region.

Personal reaction

This article talks about an increase in the amount of people that belongs to a new middle class in Latin America society, especially in countries as Mexico and Brazil.
I believe that this global vision does not really match with many other countries in Latin America as for instance in the case of Argentina. Here the majority of the population is extremely poor, just a few are rich or belong to the high class and the rest belongs to different levels of the middle class society.
A very important factor that determines this situation are the social policies that the Mexican and Brazilian governments are applying to give a financial assisstance to the poorest families, which although also exist in Argentina are not enough as they should be in order to asure the poor a better life style.