Rising fuel costs and a surge of inflation is threatening Brazil’s economic recovery. In response to the crisis, President Bolsonaro is floating the idea of privatizing the country’s national oil company, Petrobras. Privatizing Petrobras may reduce the political fallout for the Bolsonaro administration caused by rising fuel and other energy prices, but the task may be easier said than done. A massive surge in inflation is threatening Brazil’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Latin America’s largest economy was savaged by the coronavirus with Brazil suffering the third most COVID-19 cases and second-highest deaths globally. As a result, Brazil’s 2020 gross domestic product shrank by just over 4%. Since the economy began recovering inflation has surged to over 10%, on an annualized basis, causing the fiscal outlook for Latin America’s largest economy to deteriorate. This forced Brazil’s central bank to hike the benchmark Selic rate by 1.5% to 7.75%, the sixth increase […]