Prison and the Central Bank

Since September 6, 2018, the convicted former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been seeking support through an indecent and fraudulent political strategy that leverages and exploits public outrage in order to conceal his crimes under a blatant victimhood narrative. 

What we are witnessing today is pure mockery.

With imprisonment in a closed regime imminent, coupled with the possibility of serving his sentence at the Papuda Penitentiary Complex, Bolsonaro is attempting to resort to old tactics, once again invoking the "divine inheritance" that his alleged assassination attempt granted him. 

The effectiveness of such a strategy goes beyond maintaining a privileged position; it also represents a betrayal of the democratic trajectory, an institutional indifference towards the past. 

More than a legal act, the conviction of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, as well as the other agents involved in the attempted coup against the Democratic Rule of Law, is a historic action.

House arrest is not an automatic right, but an exception provided for by law in specific and duly proven cases. In the case of Jair Bolsonaro, convicted under a closed regime, any relaxation without an official medical report and detailed expert assessment would be a distortion of the norm, constituting an unacceptable privilege. 

When a person is ill, depending on the severity of the illness, they usually live between their home and a specialized clinic or hospital. Billionaires go to the best ones and stay for the time necessary for their complete rehabilitation. 

In the case of someone convicted by the courts, the most appropriate prison is not their own home, but rather a properly equipped prison hospital.

If there is medical evidence that requires ongoing care, the logical alternative is not the comfort of one's own home, but serving the sentence in a prison hospital. 

The Central Army Hospital (HCE), for example, has adequate facilities and cells for imprisoned military personnel, which would make this option legitimate and practical, guaranteeing medical treatment without violating penal rules.

Therefore, serving the sentence in one of the aforementioned institutions is appropriate, as it is a reputable establishment, and for a former Army captain, there is no basis to claim inadequacy or persecution. 

This is therefore a coherent solution that, in addition to ensuring adequate medical treatment, would avoid the weekly travel and high logistical costs that eventual house arrest would impose on the State, also reducing security risks.

It is crucial to view Bolsonaro's imprisonment with the strategic importance it deserves.

We are living through a unique moment of "reverse transitional justice," with the breaking of the historical impunity of high-ranking military officers and their supreme commander. 

The place where he will serve his sentence will be marked in history. 

Allowing him to stay at home, under a regime that, even if strict, can be manipulated for purposes of victimhood and eventual political maneuvering, would be a disservice to the country's memory and send the wrong message to future generations.

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Once again, the Central Bank demonstrates a lack of commitment to the country's development and is obsessed with an unrealistic inflation target that has already lasted for two years, regardless of the changes occurring in the national and international landscape. 

The Central Bank's dogmatic orthodoxy is like a mantra: it only modifies some ingredients of the justifying narrative, so that any teenager could repeat the method of raising or freezing interest rates, always with the aim of cooling down the vitality of the economy. If, on the one hand, the government makes an effort to achieve full employment, on the other hand, the Central Bank acts to reduce this economic vitality that the country is experiencing.

But the underlying question is: why, during the Lula and Dilma governments, was the Central Bank staffed by people from the financial market? 

Well, the financial market has absolutely no commitment to the country's productive development; it feeds on interest. 

Galípolo, hailed as a young man aligned with the aims of Lula's program, represented a hope that he would be the antithesis of his predecessor, Roberto Campos Neto. It was Fernando Haddad, the head of the Ministry of Finance, who brought Galípolo into the government, positioning him as Secretary-General, and from there he was groomed to assume the presidency of the Central Bank in 2025.

Just before assuming the presidency of the Central Bank, Galípolo, still under the leadership of Roberto Campos Neto, was involved in the first and only significant dissent within the Monetary Policy Committee (Copom). At the May 2024 meeting, he voted alongside the directors appointed by Lula for a 0,50 percentage point reduction in the Selic rate, while the majority of the committee opted for a smaller cut of 0,25 points, a decision that ended with a 5-4 vote, consolidated by Campos Neto's own deciding vote.

Galípolo's vote was a key piece in constructing a charade. A performance directed at the left wing, with the objective of demonstrating alignment with the Lula government and presenting himself as a counterpoint to Roberto Campos Neto. Under the guise of technical autonomy, the gesture served only to fabricate the illusion of rupture, produce inventive divergences with his future predecessor, and establish himself as the ideal political figure to take over the Central Bank.

All of that, however, is in the past. Since he assumed the presidency, the farce has been revealed in its entirety. Galípolo maintained the same restrictive monetary policy, sustaining high interest rates and a discourse identical to that of Campos Neto, reaffirming, in practice, the continuity of the rentier agenda.

Former president Roberto Campos Neto has returned to the financial market as vice chairman and global head of public policy at Nubank, and is a defender and enthusiast of Galípolo. We have already discussed in other articles identical concepts and phrases from both, which are, in essence, guided by an ideology of financial rent-seeking.

It's striking that, even before the Copom meeting, the market is already setting interest rates, and this is being done in broad daylight, right under the nose of society, which is no longer surprised, as it's becoming normalized to accept Galípolo as a fifth columnist for the government. 

When Fernando Haddad, Gleisi Hoffmann, and Lindbergh Farias criticize these exorbitant interest rates, and nothing gets resolved, it's evidence that Galípolo only has one boss, which is the financial market. 

On the 25th of this month, the president of the Central Bank, summoned by Senator Calheiros, will have to explain the leniency agreement that saved his ideological ally Roberto Campos Neto and harmed public funds. 

This institutional game is disheartening, where exempting those who receive a meager 5 reais from income tax becomes a great achievement, an amount that doesn't even reach the minimum wage of R$ 7.025,00 calculated by DIEESE in light of constitutional criteria.

With the SELIC rate maintained at 15%, the real interest rate in Brazil stands at 9,74%, the second highest in the world. It's a country of usury.

The Minister of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann (PT), published on her social networks this Thursday (6), about the Copom decision, which reflects well the people's feeling about our absurd reality of living with incessant interest rate increases. 

"The Copom's decision to maintain the Selic rate at 15% for the third time is detrimental to productive investments, access to credit, job creation, and the balance of public accounts. It is harmful to Brazil. No economy in the world can coexist with a real interest rate of 10%. Nothing justifies a decision so disconnected from reality, from economic indicators, and from the country's needs." (@gleisi on X)