According to a report out last week, depsite growing appreciation of the global economic crisis, Brazilians perspectives for the year ahead are largely positive. Either the study reveals a nation in serious denial or as we would expect more likely goes to show the severe limitations of attempting to understand a populations attitudes and understanding of the issue through such quantitaive on-street questionnaires.

The report – Perspectivas 2009, conducted by IBOPE, states that 81% of Brazilians have in general had a good or a very good year and that 74% of people believe that next year will be better. If anybody knows whether such figures are universally consistant we’d be interested in knowing more. The real issue with the research is that it then goes on to look at attitudes to the current global economic crisis, as if the two issues can be closely correlated. 86% of those surveyed believe that there is an economic crisis and 59% of Brazilians are worried or extremely worried about the consequences of the crisis. Most interestingly most respondents seem to feel that the problems of inflation and unemployment are already affecting the country but not yet their immediate families. In terms of changes in personal behaviours – the biggest impact is likely to be seen in less personal borrowing (48%) reduced leisure spending (40%), putting off of travel plans (29%).

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