, Columnist
How the Megarich Soak Brazil
A new book, "Brazillionaires," chronicles the nation's fortunes through the rise and fall of its wealthiest class.
Trickle-down economic pain.
Photographer: CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
When Alex Cuadros arrived in Brazil as a young reporter in 2010, there was much to marvel. Here was Latin America's biggest underachieving nation finally shrugging off decades of torpor, ready to claim its rightful share of glory that had for so long dangled just beyond reach.
"Brazil threw away the 20th century," then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said, as he stood on a Petrobras drill ship to celebrate the discovery of a fabulous cache of deep-sea oil. "The 21st century will be Brazil's and Latin America's."