Brazil’s dragon rears its head, again

Brazil’s fight to prove it can keep the “scourge” of inflation under control suffers yet another setback. Even after the Central Bank raised interest rates in an attempt to quell inflation, financial analysts surveyed by the Bank upped their predictions for just how much prices would rise this year and next. Neither estimate is catastrophic, but it’s the seventh time in a row they’ve gone up. Analysts predict the price of goods and services will increase in price by 5.53 percent this year. And, for the first time, they’ve predicted that inflation in 2012 will be above the government’s stated goal of 4.50 percent—just .04 percent above, but still.