A 'Responsible Start' - Lula's economic team, and austerity message, are playing well with the markets By Mac Margolis When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil's 30th president Jan.1, many people held their breath. This bearded union man was not just a Wall Street's worst nightmare. There were fears that this administration would ruin South America's biggest economy, and take the rest of the region down with it. Instead Brazilian currency and bonds have rallied, and the prophets of imminent debt default have gone quiet. Even the long drought of international credit may be easing. Now, three weeks into office, Lula seems more like the Latin millennium bug, a political tragedy that didn't happen. It is not that the president has changed, so much as sentiment about him has. He's begun his term much the same way he ended his campaign, preaching parsimony and political compromise. But his repeated pledges to honor Brazilian debts, fight inflation and plump up the budget surplus, if necessary, finally seem to have made a mark. "You sound like a Republican", exclaimed George W. Bush when Lula called on him last month. There are reasonable doubts whether Lula can make good on his hugely ambitious campaign agenda - paying off the "social debt" to the poor, reforming the spendthrift Constitution, resuscitating industry - and still keep the creditors happy. But hardly anyone is asking anymore when he will tear off his tie, bare a Che Guevara tattoo and raise the capitalist-bashing banner of his lefty past. (Newsweek, 27.01.2003.) A agenda de campanha de Lula é descrita no texto como ambiciosa porque previa