For Eliane, Dilma's "stumble" has a grain of truth to it.

247 – Political columnist Eliane Cantanhêde, from Folha de S.Paulo, decided to offer her opinions on the economy and commented on President Dilma Rousseff's statement about the dichotomy between inflation and economic growth. According to the president, a millimeter less of inflation does not justify abrupt slowdowns in growth – which was interpreted by financial market agents as a green light for price increases and led the president to clarify her views on the Planalto Blog. But Dilma's "stumble," according to Eliane, has a grain of truth. Read below:

Dilma's Freudian slip

BRASILIA - Judging by what we've seen and what the press reports say, President Dilma Rousseff's trip to the BRICS summit in Durban was full of setbacks and stumbles.

Dilma was kept waiting by the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. After waiting for almost an hour and a half with her ministers, imagine the president's mood. She returned to the hotel and attended the opening of the meeting, but skipped dinner. That's not trivial. Could she have claimed to have a terrible headache?

Yesterday, Dilma said in a press conference that she doesn't agree with fighting inflation at the expense of development. Later, faced with astonishment and criticism, she said she didn't say that. But that's what she thinks, right?

Let's look at the president's statements: 1) "I don't agree with anti-inflation policies that address the issue of reduced economic growth"; 2) "This prescription that wants to kill the patient instead of curing the disease is complicated. Am I going to end the country's growth?".

The market jumped. It interpreted Dilma's actions as being lenient on inflation, which, at this point, is almost heresy. In these past two years, fighting inflation hasn't exactly been a priority. But there are things that are thought but not said. Especially by presidents.

Through the Planalto Palace blog, Dilma tried to fix things. She accused financial market agents of manipulating her speech and passed the buck to the president of the Central Bank to deal with. She suggested he should demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that, as Dilma said in the new version, "the fight against inflation is a value in itself and is permanent."

Between you and me, Dilma's original statement has a grain of truth and aligns with her government's actions, since inflation is exceeding the target midpoint and approaching the ceiling. And the worst part is that Brazil didn't get a low mark in inflation in order to get a 10 in growth. With a meager GDP growth of 0,9% in 2012 (well below the BRICS), it didn't shine in either area.