MacroScope

Shining a light on the dismal science

Asking a banker about the Olympics

Nov 4, 2009 05:05 EST

Henrique Meirelles, Brazil’s highly rated central bank president, gave unusual insight into current thinking at the International Olympic Committee in a speech in Oxford the other night.

Diverging from his main theme on Brazil’s remarkable journey from economic basket case to emerging market superpower, Meirelles said that he had gone to Copenhagen last month as part of Rio de Janeiro’s successful bid for the 2016 Olympics. The reason: The IOC asked him to come.

Meirelles said that the IOC knew that Brazil currently had all the conditions needed to host the Games, but wanted to know about how predictable it was that this would carry through over the next seven years. “They wanted to know what is really happening,” he said.

Essentially, the IOC wanted to check with the top economic manager that the country’s finances will still be shining when the Games are held.

 Perhaps they were thinking of London 2012.

Comments

Well, they came off financially pretty unscathed by having adequate capital ratios. The Rio shanty drug wars do not look pleasant.

Posted by Casper | Report as abusive
 

yeah lets have Brasil invest all their time and capital into the upcoming olympic and world cup games. While there is a full out civil war and widespred govt corruption going on all around the country. Shouldnt they worry about the real issues first?

Posted by JonB | Report as abusive
 

Post Your Comment

House Rules:
  • We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the story directly or with relevant tangential information
  • We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous.