Video deceives when saying that Minister Barroso wants to socialize investments by Brazilians – 05/11/2023 – Politics

A video that alleges that Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), proposed to socialize the investments of individuals in the financial market so that the State makes social investments is misleading. The piece of disinformation takes out of context images of the speech made by the magistrate on April 20, 2023, during a plenary session at the STF that discussed ADI (Direct Action of Unconstitutionality) 5090.

Requested by the Solidarity party in 2014, the action in the Supreme Court questions the use of the TR (Referential Rate) as a criterion for readjusting the values ​​of the FGTS (Guarantee Fund for Length of Service). The FGTS value is adjusted annually by the TR plus 3% per year.

In practice, as verified by the Comprova Project, ADI argues that the fact that the FGTS is readjusted based on the TR + 3% causes losses in the benefit in relation to inflation. As the Fund’s resources are used, as a loan, to finance works of collective interest, Barroso said in his vote that he does not consider it fair that the worker receives a low remuneration to finance government projects, and defended that the income should be, at least , equal to the savings account.

When citing the upper middle class, the minister did not propose that this group’s investments be socialized, he just made a comparison of people’s reactions if this rule applied to the FGTS impacted those who make high investments: “The world would fall”, said Barroso , adding that accusations of “confiscation, violation of property rights and collectivism” would arise.

Comprova classifies as misleading all content removed from the original context and used in another so that its meaning undergoes changes; that uses inaccurate data or that induces an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that is confusing, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.

Reach

Comprova investigates suspicious content with greater reach on social networks. The investigated video reached 7,000 views on YouTube by the morning of May 10, 2023.

How do we check

First, Comprova Googled the excerpts from Barroso’s speech used in the video to understand when and in what context the statements had been made. After identifying that the speech had been taken from a speech by the minister during a plenary session on April 20, 2023, Comprova located the original video and transcribed his speech in full.

What Barroso said

Minister Barroso’s speech took place in the second block of the plenary session of the STF, on the afternoon of April 20, 2023, during the judgment of an ADI that questioned the criteria for readjusting the value of the FGTS of Brazilian workers. After the opening of the second part of the session by the President of the Supreme Court, Minister Rosa Weber, Barroso begins to present his vote and speaks for about 20 minutes, until he reaches the section that was distorted in the investigated video.

The speech in full is available on the official channel of the STF on YouTube, and the excerpt, starting from the distorted point, is transcribed below, starting at minute 25:04 of the video:

“Here, I would ask people from the upper middle class, President, for a drop of empathy, which is not difficult, in this case. Imagine the Brazilian upper middle class, which invests in fixed income, in stock funds, in multimarket funds and in exchange and you have your investments there, if suddenly a rule came along that said: all of your investments will have a predetermined return below savings because the country needs to make important social investments. What would happen if today edited this rule saying that? The world would fall apart. ‘Confiscation, violation of property rights, collectivism’, from there on down. Because that’s exactly what’s happening here, that’s exactly what’s done here. A very similar compulsory financial application to savings in which shareholders are forced to accept extremely low remuneration and lower than any other investment in the market without having liquidity. Because savings, the holder of savings can take the money there and put it in shares, if he wants to, put it in exchange rate, but the FGTS holder cannot. Therefore, the borrower of that money, be it the Union or the Caixa that manages it, does not run any risk of disorderly withdrawal, the money just stays there and the rule normally in the financial market is: the greater… the lower the liquidity, the greater compensation, not the other way around. Therefore, what happens here, respecting all opposing positions, is a functionalization of the workers’ private property – who also have the right to private property – in circumstances that, in my view, exceed the limit of what would be reasonable, because it imposes on a hyposufficient group the full cost of a collective interest policy without remuneration consistent with this situation. (check here [PDF] the complete transcription of the passage checked by Comprova).

Upper middle class

Contrary to what the author of the video states, Barroso did not propose to socialize the investments of individuals. What the minister defends in his vote is that it is not fair that the FGTS money, a private property of the worker, be used by the Union to finance projects of public interest without the owner of the money being adequately remunerated. That is, he disagrees that the FGTS can have a predetermined income below the income of the savings account.

The Brazilian upper middle class, which usually makes other types of investments, is cited by the minister not to socialize their investments and start financing projects of collective interest, but to put themselves in the worker’s shoes and be able to understand what is being proposed .

For comparison, Barroso argues that if the money invested by the middle class in equity funds, fixed income, market shares and foreign exchange, for example, were to have a predetermined return below savings, as occurs with the worker’s FGTS, ” the world was going to fall”.

The minister says he thinks it’s right that the FGTS money be used to finance projects of collective interest, but defends a remuneration, at least, equal to that of the savings account: “What is wrong is to use a very low remuneration, making the worker to finance projects that are governmental”, he says. “It is simply not legitimate to impose on a social group, and precisely on a vulnerable group, the burden of financing with its own money, because there is no doubt about that, the projects, the governmental public policies”, he completes.

Terms guide

Faced with the debate around FGTS losses in relation to inflation, Comprova prepared a guide to clarify the meaning of the current rates applied to the fund and possible changes in the benefit:

What is FGTS

The Guarantee Fund for Length of Service is a benefit created in 1967 to provide stability to workers hired under the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT) regime. The FGTS is funded by the employer, who has the obligation to pay the worker a monthly amount equivalent to 8% of the salary agreed between the parties. This resource can be withdrawn by the worker in specific situations, such as dismissal without just cause, purchase of a home and retirement.

Reference Rate

Known by the acronym TR, the Referential Rate corresponds to an interest rate applied to some types of investments, such as savings accounts. The Referential Rate is also used as an FGTS readjustment. The TR is calculated by the Central Bank (BC). On its website, the BC provides citizens with a calculator for correcting a value using the TR.

Inflation

The word inflation can be defined by a scenario of high product prices. Official inflation – used by the government – ​​is calculated monthly by the Brazilian Statistical Geographic Institute (IBGE) using the Extended Consumer Price Index (IPCA+). To calculate inflation, the IPCA considers a basket of 377 products and services analyzed in 16 urban areas.

In the basket analyzed to compose the IPCA, the IBGE analyzes prices in sectors such as food and beverages, housing, household items, clothing, transport, health and personal care, personal expenses, education and communication. In the IBGE basket, each area listed above has a different weight. Food and beverages, for example, is the sector with the greatest weight (19.3%). Communication, lowest (5.7%).

What the person responsible for the publication says

A message was sent to the email of the owner of the channel that spread misinformation on YouTube, but there was no response until the closing of this check.

What can we learn from this check

It is common for disinformation content that seeks to attack authorities to use the image and voice of the victim of disinformation to try to convince the public of a thesis. In these cases, it is important to pay attention to what appears in the content: in general, clippings with short excerpts from a speech are used, which do not show the complete reasoning of the authority, only serve to confirm what the author of the disinformational content wants to highlight.

In this case, a simple search for a phrase that appears in the video leads to the original content and it is enough to watch it to understand that Minister Barroso’s speech was taken out of context.

Another strategy used by disseminators of disinformation is to claim that the press did not disclose anything about that supposedly very important information – yet another indication that the content is dubious. After all, if a STF minister had proposed socializing investments, that would certainly be news.

why do we investigate

Comprova monitors suspicious content published on social networks and messaging apps about public policies and elections at the federal level and opens investigations for those publications that have achieved greater reach and engagement. You can also suggest checks via WhatsApp +55 11 97045-4984. Suggestions and questions related to questionable content can also be sent to Sheet via WhatsApp 11 99486-0293.

Other checks on the topic

The Comprova Project has already denied that Minister Barroso promised to act against Bolsonaro’s reelection, it showed that a 2021 video was edited to state that he was against the PT; it has also already shown that the video that said that the STF wanted to bar Christians from politics was misleading.