There are several dissimilarities between B3 and the New York Stock Exchange. B3 does not have 56% of the population as participants. There are 186 million Americans investing in stocks. Here, the number of 4 million investors is a record, but it represents less than 2% of Brazilians. B3 has no international relevance. Unlike American indices, the Ibovespa is an important indicator only for those investing in Brazil. And, from Tuesday night (23), B3 also does not have a bull sculpture to celebrate the strength of the market, the economy and Brazilians in general. After exactly seven troubled days ahead of the Stock Exchange, the work Touro de Ouro, by architect and plastic artist Rafael Brancatelli, was removed from the site by the City Hall.
The justification was the decision of the Commission for the Protection of the Urban Landscape (CPPU), linked to the Municipal Department of Urbanism and Licensing. There was no permit for placement, which violated the Clean City Law. And the CPPU considered the work as advertising, as the sculpture was sponsored by the financial education company Touro Inc., by the financial influencer and educator Pablo Spyer, associated with XP Investimentos and creator of the catchphrase “go, bully!” to encourage equity investments. After seven days of controversy, the bull was gone. Where to, remains to be seen.
Comparisons with American beef are inevitable. Created by the Italian artist Arturo di Modica, Charging Bul, or Bull Attacking, represents the stock market on the rise. It was installed in 1989, after the 1987 crisis, as “a symbol of the strength and power of the American people”. The opening took place on December 15th. There as here, the sculpture generated protests and criticism. It was removed from the front of the stock exchange six days later and relocated to another location two blocks from Wall Street. Since then, for better or for worse, Charging Bull has become a symbol of the stock market. The first Occupy Wall Street assembly, which criticized the concentration of income, was held at his side. And the interventions show that she inserted herself in the popular imagination.
The controversy surrounding the statue placed in the center of São Paulo — which, in another dissimilarity to Wall Street, is made of styrofoam and acrylic, not bronze — is a faithful reflection of the contradictions of Brazilian society. There is no problem celebrating professional or business success. On the contrary, in a country lacking in inspiring figures, recognizing who has achieved success through work and competence is almost a civic duty. However, a period that combines rising inflation and unemployment and a slowing economy is not the best time to praise the influx of the capital market. Those who are hungry are in a hurry. And he doesn’t have the patience to listen to narratives that speak of billions of reais changing hands while he counts change to eat and pay the electricity bill. The placement of the gilded sculpture could be interpreted as misplaced irony.
That’s what happened. A few hours after the opening, a wealth of satire and criticism was already circulating on the internet. The less acidic one edited the image to show a scrawny bull with exposed ribs. Several montages featured Economy Minister Paulo Guedes riding the sculpture. There was no lack of interpretations that had nothing to do with the Exchange. For example, a barbecue promoted by an NGO to protest the lack of housing in São Paulo. The most violent reactions included vandalism. The statue was painted with graffiti and posters against hunger were put up on it, another theme also alien to the capital market. Depredation spread to the facade of B3 after the withdrawal.
With or without a golden acrylic bull, Brazilian women and men have been a resilient gang since before this word was invented. It doesn’t take a statue to remember that. The hardships of Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazilian daily life in 2021 are enough. But unlike Charging Bull, the Golden Bull placed and removed from the front of the B3 was a reminder of the complex relationship between Brazilians and money, their own and others. Knowledgeable about the subject and the country, Tom Jobim (1927-1994) used to say that being successful in Brazil is a personal offense. A sculpture praising fortune in a society as unequal and with so few opportunities for advancement as ours is a clumsy attempt to take the bull by the horns.
Cláudio Gradilone is finance editor at DINHEIRO.
#bulls #spree #ISTOÉ #MONEY
source https://pledgetimes.com/the-bulls-spree-istoe-money/
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