
Brazilian Butchers Who Took over the World - danso
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-07-02/jbs-brazilian-butchers-took-over-the-world
======
tarruda
I wonder why this article doesn't mention PT (Worker's Party) once, even
though it was during PT's government JBS had its meteoric rise. Here's a quote
from Joesley's:

"Foi no governo do PT para frente. O Lula e o PT institucionalizaram a
corrupção. Houve essa criação de núcleos, com divisão de tarefas entre os
integrantes, em estados, ministérios, fundos de pensão, bancos, BNDES. O
resultado é que hoje o Estado brasileiro está dominado por organizações
criminosas. O modelo do PT foi reproduzido por outros partidos"

translation:

"Lula and PT institutionalized corruption. There was this creation of nuclei,
with division of tasks among the members, in states, ministries, pension
funds, banks, BNDES. The result is that today the Brazilian state is dominated
by criminal organizations. The PT model was reproduced by other parties"

(source: [https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-
institucionalizaram-...](https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-
institucionalizaram-corrupcao-diz-joesley-21488054))

While PT certainly didn't create corruption in Brazil, it was brought to whole
new levels during its government.

To anyone interested in why brazilians elected far-right candidate Jair
Bolsonaro in 2018, it was mostly due to fear of PT returning to power. This
was fear was greatly strengthened by the fact that PT has strong ties to
Venezuela's current government (people were afraid that Brazil would become
the next Venezuela). Also see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo)

While there were better alternatives, Jair Bolsonaro was the only candidate
that stood a chance of winning, so most of his votes were anti-PT instead of
pro-Bolsonaro.

~~~
aguilar
The PT did not bring anything new to the Brazilian corruption. Dirty
corruption schemes have existed in Brazil for centuries. The media threw the
spotlight on corruption in the PT government because it was a convenient time
for those who wanted a right-wing government. Great schemes were discovered
that were previously covered up. Most of the blame was attributed to the PT,
but these are criminal practices that have happened in all governments and,
arguably in the name of governability (to be able to approve projects), Lula
continued that.

Joesley would seem to be very interested in blaming the PT in his statements:
in addition to getting out of jail, he would help pull a leftist party out of
power. From January 2nd to August 2019, the value of JBS shares almost
tripled, breaking consecutive records. Coincidence?

And in the last presidential elections, the favorite in the polls was Lula,
unbeatably. He was soon convicted without substantial evidence, based only on
testimony from people who had personal interests in the conviction. The
lawsuit had a trial in record time. The judge who convicted Lula was named
Jair Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice. Chats and voice messages began to leak
shortly thereafter, initially through reporter Gleen Greenwald. Conversations
between Judge Moro and the prosecutors, showing their partiality,
collaboration and mutual interest in the conviction of Lula.

It seems very difficult to believe that it is PT's fault. And looking at the
history of JBS stock value, it seems to me that JBS's meteoric growth is
happening during the Bolsonaro government, and at the expense of the Amazon
rainforest.

~~~
fefb
Yes, PT brought new aspects for Brazilian corruption: the size, the
proportion. They fed private big companies with a lot of "opportunities" and
dirty money (JBS is an example of a private corrupted company the grewn up
with PT) . Also, they abused of state companies like Petrobras. Their
corruption reached other countries in South America, Europe and Africa. PT
gave steroids for Brazilian corruption.

~~~
aguilar
This is the lie created to overthrow the PT that eventually elected Jair
Bolsonaro. There is evidence on the internet (leaked audios from authorities)
that there was a major national agreement to take down the PT. These companies
are much older than the PT government. JBS was founded in 1953. The large
building contractors were truly enriched during the military dictatorship
(1964 - 1985). It does not take much in-depth research to realize this.

------
vfc1
I remember watching in a documentary that many environmental activists in
Brazil constantly fear for their lives, as meat companies place hitman on
them.

The meat industry is a true mafia in Brazil, and in the US they also have huge
power. If we have a look at Brasil exports, meat still plays an essential
role, as scrolling down, all the squares the same color as poultry meat are
also animal products -
[https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20t...](https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20top%20exports%20of%20Brazil,HS%20\(Harmonized%20System\)%20classification).

If you click on those, most of the meat is getting exported to China, Russia
(pork meat), the middle east and Japan in general, it's like the EU and the US
and Canada almost don't buy it from Brazil.

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dmix
> Temer is thought to have only survived by upping budgets to individual
> lawmakers and making concessions to Brazil’s powerful agribusiness lobby.

It’s amazing how much power these agricultural companies have in government.
It’s a big problem here in Canada with dairy production and the US with corn,
both of which happen to be tied to key political battlegrounds.

You rarely hear about them like you do big banks and recently big tech,
probably because they have bipartisan support in the high upper tiers.

It’s a very dangerous thing politically to stand up against, even if it’s
heavily counter to representative interests outside of a few farming
communities living off the fat of government protectionism. Which they claim
they couldn’t exist without and we benefit because something something “local
Canadian jobs” despite heavy automation, massive consolidation to a few mega
companies, higher consumer prices, or worse far higher bad ingredients in food
because it’s artificially cheap (see corn syrup in everything). I see plenty
of regular people in comment sections and Twitter buying into this idea
probably with some paid shills from their industry organizations.

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klhugo
Brazilian politics is complex and dirty. Those interested in understanding a
bit more of it I recommend the TV series "The Mechanism". My personal opinion
(as a brazilian myself) is that significant progress has been been achieved
last 10 years, but we are still quite far from the level of corruption found
in developed countries.

~~~
airstrike
Brazilian politics are so backwards its very independence from Portugal was
declared by the Portuguese king, who had fled Europe years before when his
home country was invaded by Napoleon, and who was subsequently crowned Emperor
of Brazil...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_I_of_Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_I_of_Brazil)

~~~
curiousC
His father fled Napoleon, Pedro I was a child when his family fled to Brazil.
He declared independence pressured by the nobles in Brazil who were opposed to
restrictions coming from Portugal that limited their commerce to Portugal only
and no other countries.

~~~
airstrike
Contrast that with the French Revolution or the American Independence War, to
name only a couple of geographically close examples

------
abraCadabstrax
A while ago I helped translate an investigative journal piece on the labor
practices of this company's supply chain. It left me feeling ill for quite a
while.

Worth a look: [https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-
punching...](https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-punching-and-
beatings-the-life-of-cows-turned-into-meat-at-jbs/)

~~~
jessaustin
Yeesh. The face-branding is awful. A lot of the sketchy herding practices
(shocking, beating, yelling, etc.) seem inevitable with a big enough
operation. The cattle don't know the people, and the people haven't been
around cattle enough to know how to act.

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aitchnyu
Waiting for the Indian counterpart to this story. India exported as much
(water buffalo) beef as Brazil in 2016, but cattle are considered sacred in
places, buffalo can be legally slaughtered, and people get killed over
allegations of eating beef.

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major505
Oh yeah. Easy to that with stolen money from the brasilian tax payer, and a
litle help of the corrupt goverment that they laundred money in order to help
win the election.

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f00zz
This company, and others, got a ton of public money, subsidies and tax breaks
back in the Workers' Party days, when the country was swimming in oil money.
Ostensibly it was an effort to create world players (or "national champions").
All it managed to create was the worst recession in Brazilian history.

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Animats
The King Ranch in Texas used to be the biggest beef producer in the US. At
peak, they owned most of four counties in Texas and had operations in
Australia and (?) Argentina. They were the primary supplier to McDonalds.

But they cut back. More oil drilling, fewer cattle.

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chrischen
It says 51% of their revenues come from the US, but I only gleamed one US
subsidiary (Pilgrim's Pride) that sells poultry. What are the other
subsidiaries in the US?

~~~
jfim
You can actually see the list of brands on their corporate website.

[https://jbssa.com/our-business/beef/brands/](https://jbssa.com/our-
business/beef/brands/) [https://jbssa.com/our-
business/pork/brands/](https://jbssa.com/our-business/pork/brands/)
[https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/](https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/)

I haven't checked their beef products, but the Swift premium brand of pork is
pretty common and carried at Costco, for example.

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hugoromano
This is an example of plea deals ("delação premiada") gone wrong, as these
guys keep going by throwing more money.

