Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil • Hacker News Board

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#101

Post by lenilsonjr » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

gomox wrote: post #60

lenilsonjr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take this one, for instance: https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/6185347 R$239.50 or $74. That's 25% the minimum wage here in Brazil. This means that this congressman was paying for someone else's meal, which is in itself an act of corruption. And even if that's not the case, most Brazilians can't afford a 40 BRL meal on a regular basis, so why should a politician be able to do so with our money? If you di…

I think there are two separate issues. I don't know whether paying for someone else's lunch is OK according to regulations for meal stipends in Brazil. I wouldn't call that corruption off hand, but it might be forbidden. I defer to you on this. Personally I live in Buenos Aires and I regularly spend USD 15 on a no frills lunch menu in a fancy-ish neighborhood (nothing fancy for the food itself, no desert, the kind of…

You're missing one important thing here.

These spendings that Serenata's robot tweets are literally reimbursements that congresspeople receive from the federal government for spendings needed while "on duty".

They aren't paid using their salaries. If that was the case, there would be no problem (legally speaking).

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#102

Post by badosu » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

epx wrote: post #63

coliveira wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe that Shell/BP can buy politicians to have easy access to oil, you should better get acquainted with the politics of other countries [0]. This is the first thing I thought about when I heard about big oil reserves in Brazil. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/a9e193de-2044-11e7-a454-ab0442897...

I am not naive, and you should not be naive to the "bad bad foreigners" mantra that is tailored for the reptilian brain layer of the voters, either.

Dude, this hapoens and is not as negligible as you imply.

Sure, there's an agenda to appeal for a certain rhetoric, but you must accept some facts.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#103

Post by cjalmeida » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 4:26 AM UTC

forinti wrote: post #89

pedro_hab wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmn, do you mean corruption is not as bad as income inequality? Because one can argue that corruption foster inequality, where government workers steal money from the people, they give favor to rich "friends" making them richer. I can guess your solution is to give more power to the state to solve the inequality issue, which actually worsens the corruption caused inequality.

I don't think cutting corruption to zero would impact people's lives as much as having a progressive tax system. If you look at overall tax burden, the lowest tier pays close to 50%. The highest tier, a bit over 25%. Trump tried to lower corporate tax to 15% and not even his party thought it was reasonable. In Brazil, corporate tax is zero. One of the richest people in Brazil, Steinbruch, was caught trying to evade a…

You're wrong. In Brazil corporate income is taxed at 34,5% (base 15%, plus additional 10% for medium to big sized companies, plus 9,5% for social security)

That amount is on par or above OCDE counties, and much higher than most developing nations.

What we don't have is dividend tax. Unlike corporate tax that one must pay every quarter, you only pay dividend tax if you give money back to shareholders, so reinvestments are not taxed.

Usually countries balance income and dividend taxes so the government has a stable income but doesn't penalize investments as much. In Brazil, we opted for screwing investors.

Not to mention that companies pay an enormous amount of money in combined sales taxes. A manufacturing company usually pays 17% for state sales tax, another 9,35% federal social security, and sometimes an extra 5% to 15% for "luxury good" (like shampoo).

So, again, you're completely wrong and companies (read YOU) pay a hell lot of taxes in Brazil.

Source: I worked in investment analysis in another life.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#104

Post by vit05 » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 5:57 AM UTC

Some people are missing the point. The project does not have the idea of seeking congressmen who spend a lot on their meals. Of course, that could help them spend a little less.

But the idea is to find irregularities. That is, a congressman who says he had lunch at such a restaurant, but by analyzing the invoice and the address we find that this restaurant never existed. Or a gas station that does not really work anymore.

This is very common. It is not an analysis of what they do with their wages. These congressmen receive compensation beyond their wages to spend when working in their regions. This compensation has a value of four to five times more than their salary.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#105

Post by ymgch » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 6:55 AM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

Another 'vira-lata' here. Thinking about braziL causes me nausea. Hope that 'country' be better but I really doubt.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#106

Post by argonaut » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

neves wrote: post #50

TremendousJudge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil is much, much worse off than the US. There the corruption goes all the way to the lowest levels of government. In the US local politicians don't pay a couple of bucks to a thousand dirt poor voters to vote in the county elections so they can win. In Brazil this happens everywhere.

It is very usual to buy votes in USA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/selling... "The price of one bona fide, registered American vote varies from place to place. But it is rarely more than a tank of gas." A good book that descibes it is "Washington, D.C: A Novel (Narratives of Empire)." of Gore Vidal.

Did you read your own article? It says: "Voter fraud, by any method, is still rare. A study by News21 — a consortium of journalism schools — found 867 cases since 2000 in which someone had admitted guilt or been convicted of a voter-fraud offense. That was out of about 146 million registered voters."

The headline is super misleading, the point of the article is that selling votes is more common than outright impersonation or other forms of voting fraud.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#107

Post by lbrito » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #92

lbrito wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue. I've lived in Arizona for a year; have you heard of sheriff Joe Arpaio? http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/criminal-enterprise-a-cu... One could say the US is just as corrupt, or more, than Brazil.

One could, but it would be a statement completely divorced from reality.

How so? I can cite a single corruption episode that trumps maybe 99% of the Brazilian corruption scandals.

40 billion USD in cash sent to Afghanistan by plane just "vanished". https://www.cnbc.com/id/45031100

For the sake of comparison, the largest corruption scandal of Brazil to this date revolves around 42 billion BRL, which is about 13 billion USD. http://g1.globo.com/pr/parana/noticia/2015/11/pf-estima-que-...

Of course, one might argue "oh, but 40 bilion dollars in cash going missing is not corruption, it's just unfortunate/bad management/insert excuse here". "Corruption" is just one of those words of which the meaning changes depending on the object it refers to - it's always the other person's, never your own.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#108

Post by bighi » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

gomox wrote: post #62

bighi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking about meal prices on richer countries. I am a software developer, so I get paid more than the average Brazilian. And I spend 14~18 BRL (4.3 to 5.5 USD) on a good meal regularly. 39 to 75 BRL is very expensive to our standards. The restaurant I take my wife on our anniversary costs 60~70 BRL per person. Someone spending close to 75 BRL per day is the equivalent of eating every day in that nice restaura…

Where do you live? I live in Buenos Aires and in my experience Sao Paulo is pricier. The amounts dont seem crazy to me. Edit: if they actually did it every day then it wouldn't be a statistical outlier :P

> if they actually did it every day then it wouldn't be a statistical outlier :P

True, haha!

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#109

Post by pedro_hab » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

cjalmeida wrote: post #103

forinti wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think cutting corruption to zero would impact people's lives as much as having a progressive tax system. If you look at overall tax burden, the lowest tier pays close to 50%. The highest tier, a bit over 25%. Trump tried to lower corporate tax to 15% and not even his party thought it was reasonable. In Brazil, corporate tax is zero. One of the richest people in Brazil, Steinbruch, was caught trying to evade a…

You're wrong. In Brazil corporate income is taxed at 34,5% (base 15%, plus additional 10% for medium to big sized companies, plus 9,5% for social security) That amount is on par or above OCDE counties, and much higher than most developing nations. What we don't have is dividend tax. Unlike corporate tax that one must pay every quarter, you only pay dividend tax if you give money back to shareholders, so reinvestments…

Idk much about corporate taxes in Brazil, but I do know that the poor pay way too much, a minimum wage employee pays taxes and "contributions" and other forms of taxations, such as FGTS and inflation.

And they pay again when buying goods, I was shocked when I read about the welfare state and the welfare cliff in the US, for the propaganda I was subjected in Brazil it was hard to believe.

So Brazil is way worse for the poor than the US, and getting paid in Brazil as remote for me (as a dev) is cheaper, since I work as a contractor and would pay between 4-6% taxes against ~25% in the US.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#110

Post by triangleman » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 AM UTC

triangleman wrote: post #90

random42_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the others already explained, "vira-latas" is a portuguese term for a stray dog and the idea that they need to flip trash cans to try to find food. However, there is also an expression (whose origin was also explained) that means "Mongrel complex (Complexo de vira-Lata in Portuguese), which is an expression used to refer to a collective inferiority complex felt by some Brazilian people in comparison to Europe or…

Interesting concept, the "reverse Narcissus", especially in this case. Because you see, in the same breath as they complain about their country, Brazilians will tell you that "God is a Brazilian". Perhaps jingoism and mongrelism are two sides of the same coin. It would certainly explain how Trump got elected after a campaign based on complaining about his own country.

Excuse me that's "God is Brazilian"