And this is why politicians can lie with statistics.
GDP in dollars fell in 1998 due to changes in the exchange rate. The price of the dollar went from BRL 1.2 to 1.98 in a matter of a week.
Further, the spike that you see in your chart after 2002 was due to the dollar hitting an all-time high of BRL 4.00 when Lula was elected, and there was huge speculation in the market. After he took office and kept the monetary policy, the market calmed down and the BRL has been rising in value since.
Had the price of the dollar kept stable during these years, you would see a curve that shows exactly the numbers I mentioned before.
The IMF has not been kicked out of the country. Debts with the IMF were paid, but the monetary and economic policy is still there. The Brazilian Central Bank still recommends austerity policies for government spending. They still have the highest interest (inflation adjusted) rate in the world. Your cute chart does not prove anything.
P.S: It's in times like these that I really hate voting in discussion forums, and makes me even less of a believer in "the rule of the mob". You are completely wrong, but your cheap jab managed to convince a couple of uninformed people that what I said is worthy of a down vote.
This is GDP in current US dollars. Not in what US dollars were at the time. This is the only way to meaningfully compute GDP. Of course the choice of US dollars is arbitrary. But if you do some math you would realize that if you calculated it as GDP in current BRL you would get exactly the same curve.
But the only way to meaningfully measure GDP is to measure it against a single unchanging metric, and that's what they did here. Otherwise a country could double its GDP by simply devaluing its currency by half.
Are you sure about that? The chart is showing a growth in GDP of 21% in 2007-2008. The growth rate in 2008 was ~5%.
More importantly, it looks like it works the other way around. If you are devaluing your currency in half, your GDP in dollars (or whatever means of comparison you use) will be cut in half, not double. This is what your chart is showing. It will be a bigger number in the domestic currency, but then it doesn't mean anything because you are just changing the scale.
Anyway, we are arguing over details. The larger point is that the economic policy mandated by the IMF is still largely in place, and whenever the Brazilian government tried to increase government spending, a short growth burst was experienced with a very long bust.
Lula gave a 1001 speeches saying that "they were breaking free from the IMF", but in the end it is just political bullshit: interest rates are still high and it is the only instrument the Central Bank is able to use to keep inflation under control. This is pretty much the IMF "formula".
Update: looks like you are correct that they use current dollars. It still seems a misleading chart. Take a look at http://goo.gl/BCNIo and you can see the numbers I was mentioning.
GDP in dollars fell in 1998 due to changes in the exchange rate. The price of the dollar went from BRL 1.2 to 1.98 in a matter of a week.
Further, the spike that you see in your chart after 2002 was due to the dollar hitting an all-time high of BRL 4.00 when Lula was elected, and there was huge speculation in the market. After he took office and kept the monetary policy, the market calmed down and the BRL has been rising in value since.
Had the price of the dollar kept stable during these years, you would see a curve that shows exactly the numbers I mentioned before.
The IMF has not been kicked out of the country. Debts with the IMF were paid, but the monetary and economic policy is still there. The Brazilian Central Bank still recommends austerity policies for government spending. They still have the highest interest (inflation adjusted) rate in the world. Your cute chart does not prove anything.
P.S: It's in times like these that I really hate voting in discussion forums, and makes me even less of a believer in "the rule of the mob". You are completely wrong, but your cheap jab managed to convince a couple of uninformed people that what I said is worthy of a down vote.