To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature.

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I hope you are enjoying the World Cup.

This podcast is going to be part of our World Cup series, the series that

we are bringing you dispatches from the World Cup largely based on countries that we find

interesting, economies that we find interesting, political, geopolitical, geostrategic backdrops, and, of course,

economic history that we find

interesting. And today we are going to do, for many people, the big one in football, the country

that is most romanticized, the country that has a grip on people's imaginations, the country that

has delivered generation after generation of extraordinary talented players, the country that has delivered generation after generation of extraordinary talented

players, the country where the expression, the beautiful game comes from. And that, of course,

is John is on the cook of Cucco, Cucco, Urbana as we speak. Brazil. That country is, of course,

Brazil. We are going to look at Brazil. This podcast will

have been recorded before the Brazilian Scottish game, so we don't know the result of that.

Obviously, we would have loved the Scots to do a job in Brazil, but...

I saw Brazil's first game, and they are not up to par at all.

No, and without your man, Vinnie Jr., they look like a pretty average team.

And I think a lot of Brazilians, particularly the Brazilians who are living and working here,

if you talk to them in bars or cafes, they'll say, like, this is not a great Brazilian team.

But, you know, not a great Brazilian team doesn't mean they're going to lose, you know.

Well, that's true because they do tend to grow into tournaments, but it was really interesting

...