“Important banks — very important banks — that spent their lives giving advice about Brazil and what we should or shouldn’t do are now broke…they were the super intelligent and we were the poor souls.”

“What crisis? Go ask Bush.”

—Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil

“Part of the board thinks that, since the last meeting, there have been growing signs that activity in the rich economies is deteriorating significantly, resulting in some improvement for the global inflation outlook, partly because of a drop in commodity prices”

“the pace of domestic demand expansion, should it be sustained by factors such as the increase of income and credit, continues to pose a significant risk to the inflationary dynamics”

—Brazil Central Bankers

“As long as there is reducing of leverage you’re going to see this environment and as long as you do, banks in Brazil are going to suffer. There is no question, the banking system in Brazil is definitely one of the most profitable in the world. But the problem is, they’re in Brazil. The growth the past years in Brazil came with the commodity rally and when you have a country growing primarily because of one factor, that growth is not sustainable.”

—Simon Nocera, co-founder of San Francisco-based hedge fund Lumen Advisors