Jorge Serrão: Pesquisas eleitorais não medem corretamente a força do antipetismo

For many Americans, life has changed rapidly and dramatically. The times that we live in are causing many of us to make adjustments that we would not have imagined just a couple of years ago. But this should not come as a surprise as history has shown that the current economic cycle has repeated itself throughout recorded history.

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and long-time Chairman of conglomerate colossus Berkshire Hathaway, emphatically stated in 2002 that derivatives were “time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system”. Given the deleterious role these securities had in the recent economic crisis, the “Oracle of Omaha” certainly evinces prescience in addition to his mythic business acumen. Yet, what will likely choke off economic growth in the U.S., and by percolation, usher in global economic disequilibria, is managing mammoth entitlement benefits due to – or rather, promised to – millions of Americans over not only a year or two, but decades in their lifetimes, once they face thorny existential episodes such as illness, old age, disability, or loss of employment.