Bureaucracy and Business in Brazil Don't put anything here Page Content Page Name (for URL) Page Title Breadcrumb Text To take a break from Europe photos, here is a Brazil story. I've been in Brazil for almost a week now, and since I have a visa for seven months I had to go and register with "federal police." Having spent some time in line, we were given a list of things that I needed to get registered, which included photos of particular size, photocopies of documents, and a $40 fee, which had to be paid in a rather unusual manner: I was supposed to go to a website, fill in a form online, print it out, take it to the bank, pay there and bring back the receipt. There was not paper form that I could just fill in in the office. This seems to require that we either go back home and come back the next day or look for an Internet cafe with a printer, which also seemed like a hassle - until we stepped outside and notice a man holding a sign advertising both instant photos and Internet access for the purpose of filling in forms for fee payment. As we looked around, we saw at least three places offering similar services. As it turned out, they even do the data entry for you: you give them your passport, they give you back the filled in form. I just finished re-reading Peter Evan's "Embedded Autonomy" the day before which talked (in a rather different context) about the importance of state and business playing complimentary roles, and this seemed like a great illustration. A friend of mine earlier told us how he saw a man renting pants in front of the federal police buildings because you are not allowed to enter public buildings in shorts here, which I guess is a similar kind of thing. Advanced Fields Category 2002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014E. AsiaE. EuropeL's FamilyL's FriendsN. AmericaN. EuropeS. AmericaS. AsiaW. EuropeY & LY's FamilyY's Friends Prototype Redirect Permissions0 Actions Config Markup Module HTML/Meta/Keywords HTML/Meta/Description Save Hook Don't put anything here HTML Fields Main Head Body Header Menu Logo Content Template Page Sidebar Footer Tags Allowed for XSSFilter HTTP Fields Cache-Control Expires Guru Fields Templates Translations Fields Edit UI Admin Edit UI A summary of your changes Don't put anything here Edit Summary Don't put anything here Don't put anything here Don't put anything here save preview cancel
