Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Sunday night that the feeling prices have gotten higher comes from changed consumer habits, high interest rates, and the fact that Brazilians are simply buying more. He made the comments in an interview with TV Record.
Speaking with journalist Mariana Godoy, Lula acknowledged that Brazil's benchmark interest rate, the Selic, is high, but said the government could not accept lies about the state of the economy.
Changing consumption habits
Lula said he had been discussing the topic with his wife, Janja, before the interview. He said the way people consume has changed: a person scrolling on a phone today sees ads for all kinds of cheap items, for 5, 15 or 20 reais, and keeps buying without realizing those amounts add up, ending the month having spent more than planned.
He said he supports people consuming, but that they should spend within what they earn, and he defended a financial education proposal that he linked to a possible fourth term in office.
Comparisons with the Bolsonaro government
During the interview, Lula presented data from his administration and compared it with that of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, saying conditions in the country had improved significantly. He proposed creating a program to teach popular economics, saying that if people learned financial education and took care of their finances, they would live well.
Lula's view on debt
Last week, Lula said he was not opposed to people going into debt if the aim was improving their quality of life. He said he was not against people being in debt, but was against debt that did not aim at growth, at improving quality of life, or at increasing the assets of the person taking it on, since debt taken to grow one's assets is good and necessary. He made the remark in reference to gambling debts.
Response to Flavio Bolsonaro's picanha video
Lula also addressed a jab from Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. This week Flavio appeared in a video on social media offering meat and soda to journalists waiting outside one of his campaign headquarters in Brasilia, referencing one of Lula's 2022 campaign promises. In the video, Flavio said he had brought the picanha, or premium steak, that Lula had promised voters but never delivered, offering it to the press with a barbecue.
Lula responded that he had recently seen a rival show off a picanha on television, and said it was more important for his opponents to follow Brazil's official inflation index, the IPCA, than to stage such stunts.
Absence from the presidential debate
Lula's interview was broadcast at the same time as the first presidential debate of the campaign, held by the Band television network on Sunday night. Lula did not attend the debate, and neither did Flavio Bolsonaro or Romeu Zema of the Novo party. Only three candidates took part: Renan Santos of Missao, writer Augusto Cury of Avante, and Ronaldo Caiado of the PSD.
