Adoptive Carioca via N. England. Author, editor, opinionator on Brazil & beyond. @WashingtonPost @LATimes. Ex @bopinion @estadao @Newsweek @TheEconomist
Rio de Janeiro
Joined June 2009
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Mac Margolis retweeted
The Norwegian Consumer Council made a video about enshittification and got 2.5M views and 168K likes on IG. (If the style feels familiar, it was created by NewsLab, the same advertising agency that made the brilliant Visit Oslo video from a few years back.)
De férias da PUC-Rio Design, mas a todo vapor, Nina Cortez não fica quieta. Resultado: um desenho animado, à trilha sonora de Vanessa da Mata, "Não me deixe só". 81 'frames' e umas 8 horas mais tarde, eis a obra.
instagram.com/reel/DbZjWgAxr…
Mac Margolis retweeted
Gravação, em Roma, da trilha sonora de Por Um Punhado de Dólares (1965) de Ennio Morricone.
As Brazilians kick back and indulge in another Carnaval, what's that sound coursing over the web & radio? Gospel, of course. Christian devotional music is the 2d most popular genre after sertanejo. Cue the new Brrazilian songbook. bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Mac Margolis retweeted
My column on Epstein’s helpful mega-famous friends - who just didn’t care that he went to jail for soliciting minors
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
Tribunal do estado da Califórnia começa a testar os limites dos oligeeks das redes sociais, para quem vale tudo em nome do algoritmo. @luciaguimaraes analisa o tema, seus protagonistas e os danos colaterais que se multiplicam. www1.folha.uol.com.br/coluna…
Fighting organized crime, Brazilian pres. Lula insists, takes smarter policing not blunt force. Brazilians demur. With elections looming, he's now recalibrating his message for meaner times & voters spooked by the specter of lawlessness. @andrewrosati bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Mac Margolis retweeted
Scottish comedian Lewis MacLeod just did a Donald Trump impression so accurate it feels like evidence.
Gracias, maestro!
Fascinating @NatGeo piece by the ever-insightful #Brazil watcher @macmargolis about the #sertanejo music boom.nationalgeographic.com/cultu… via @NatGeo
That girl from Ipanema? Now she comes with rhinestones, a Stetson, and a playlist that is turning Brazil inside out. Welcome to the land of Sertanejo.
With the fabulous @photoluisadorr
nationalgeographic.com/cultu…
Mac Margolis retweeted
Back in March, President Trump imposed the same 25% secondary tariff on countries purchasing Venezuelan oil. The tariff was impracticable and was never actually put into effect. The Venezuelan executive order, in fact, delegated the determination of which countries to impose a tariff on to the Secretary of State. China, however, continued buying Venezuelan oil, and Secretary Rubio never made the determination necessary to impose a 25% tariff on China.
Taxing the trade of countries that do business with Iran or Venezuela attempts to extend the concept of secondary sanctions—that is, imposing sanctions on a foreign firm that does business with a sanctioned entity—to the level of countries. But that effectively means penalizing huge levels of trade without a clear threshold as to what levels of purchases would trigger it. It also assumes that a country has control over the foreign trade of its firms and individuals, which is generally not the case. As a result, the punishment—taxing all of a nation’s trade—is so disproportionate to the activity that it seeks to restrict, namely any purchase by someone in that country from Iran, that it makes little sense to impose it in practice.
Most likely, the 25% tariff on countries trading with Iran will meet the same fate as the one imposed on Venezuela: it will never be implemented.
Raffish psychopaths, grifters, damaged nerds, aristocratic has-beens and overgrown underachievers who carom from ennui to meltdown... Young Brazilians can't get enough of horror fiction writer Raphael Montes. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Yes, everybody hates Maduro — but Trump should not turn drugs into Venezuela's WMD
On the money, como siempre, from @TimPadgett2 wlrn.org/commentary/2025-09-…
As lideranças e a massa (falida) cinzenta: Como os governantes protagonizam a perda cognitiva política global. No texto perfeito da @luciaguimaraes . www1.folha.uol.com.br/coluna…
Mac Margolis retweeted
People don’t realize just how much of the economy is dependent on illegal immigration.
Like it or not, you would cause an absolute catastrophe deporting all illegal immigrants.
Mac Margolis retweeted
❌ CLAIM 2: "We've gone from 11 vaccines in 1986 to 69-92 vaccines today"
✅ REALITY: About 48-51 shots today (including annual flu). The "92" comes from creative accounting.
The 1986 schedule:
DTP x5
OPV (oral polio) x4
MMR x1 = 10 injections + 4 oral doses
Today's routine schedule (2025), using lowest-dose brands, excluding Covid:
48-51 total injections
2-3 oral doses (rotavirus)
Where does "92" come from? Creative accounting - counting each flu shot separately over 18 years, adding optional vaccines, even counting combination shots multiple times. It's dishonest math.
"Mandatory"? Mandates are state-determined, not ACIP-mandated:
Covid required in ZERO states
HPV required in 3 states (DC, RI, VA)
Flu required in 2 states (CT, MA)
Most states require ~30-32 total shots
cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-sch…
