Yesterday, Dilma Rousseff, the beleaguered Brazilian President, was impeached in a 61 – 20 Senate vote. She was accused of manipulating the books to give a false impression on the state of the Brazilian economy. She was also accused of being part of a scandal involving Petrobras, Brazil's largest company that has implicated over 50 of Brazil's leaders.

During the Olympics I wrote a blog about the Brazilian economy. In the blog I discussed how undisciplined fiscal spending and poor monetary policy resulted in the economy's rapid growth. Commodity prices fell. The government had less money to continue spending, but the government continued to spend. Its addiction to spending resulted in the demise of Brazil's credit rating. The economy went from being the envy of the emerging countries to economic shambles. It is now suffering from a severe recession and high inflation. To learn more about the Brazilian economy read our blog post, Lessons from Brazil's Economic Story.