You know things are not going well in a country when businessmen begin commuting to work in helicopters, not to avoid traffic jams but to avoid being kidnapped or shot on the streets. Things are not going well in Sao Paulo, according to The Washington Post:
Michael Klein quietly stared out the window. His pilot clipped low over the honeycomb-like slums and clogged highways below. More than halfway through a nine-minute commute, the copter grazed over a cluster of inner-city prisons. A squad of machine-gun-toting guards stood near a perimeter wall, their gaunt faces squinting upward as Klein’s copter buzzed by. “The perspective is different from up here,” remarked Klein, a graying hulk of a man and executive director of Casas Bahia, one of Brazil’s largest electronics retailers. Over the din of the blades, he told a reporter that “it even looks beautiful sometimes. Up here, however, it is safe. Down there — .” He paused, staring across the metal and glass horizon. “Well, it’s another story.”
