The growing wealth can be sensed in the elegant shops.
In downtown Sao Paulo there is no shortage of money to spend and the beautiful people are not coy about spending it.
Some 60,000 new dollar-millionaires emerged in 2007 and it is said that many of the luxury brands have their highest global sales per square metre in Sao Paulo.
Despite the boom, Brazil's economic rise is not entirely smooth. Red tapes drives businessmen to despair, there are 75 taxes companies may be called upon to pay, and income inequality is rife.
Around the corner from many parts of the affluent city there are the favelas - effectively slums, though the word itself refers to a tenacious plant that grows on hills and is virtually impossible to eradicate.
In reality, the favelas are indeed usually on steep land that no one else want, where people live in tiny corrugated iron shacks.
If it weren't for the stifling heat you would think you were in Dickens's London. Life is nasty, brutish and short.
Tiago has lived in the favela all his life. He is doing a course across the river, on the rich side. In economic terms, it may as well be the other side of the world.
"Newspapers say life is better for Brazilians but that's not accurate," he says.
"In Sao Paulo there's a huge contrast between rich and poor.
"There are always luxury apartments being built next to the favela, so the world thinks it's getting better. But here in the favela it's not improving."
Winners and losers
Brazil's cumbersome tax system does not help.
Including indirect taxes, the poor end up paying proportionately far more in Brazil's topsy turvey system.
People who earn up to three times the minimum wage pay 48% tax. Wealthier people who earn 30 times the minimum wage pay 24%.
As yet, the money has not trickled down sufficiently to the lowest in society, but the wealth is certainly being created.
Many within the authorities are keen to have Brazilians participate more broadly in the success of the economy.
For example, at the stock exchange they welcome 16,000 young visitors a year to explain to them how to buy stocks and shares to become a part of this brave new world.
The students seem receptive, even entranced by the drama of a buy-sell re-enactment on the stock exchange floor.
Brazil clearly has a long way to go before income equality reaches acceptable levels.
But with its commodities, its fledgling property boom and its taming of past inflationary fears, it is well along the path to becoming a developed economy.
Tough life
The growing wealth can be sensed in the elegant shops.
In downtown Sao Paulo there is no shortage of money to spend and the beautiful people are not coy about spending it.
Some 60,000 new dollar-millionaires emerged in 2007 and it is said that many of the luxury brands have their highest global sales per square metre in Sao Paulo.
Despite the boom, Brazil's economic rise is not entirely smooth. Red tapes drives businessmen to despair, there are 75 taxes companies may be called upon to pay, and income inequality is rife.
Around the corner from many parts of the affluent city there are the favelas - effectively slums, though the word itself refers to a tenacious plant that grows on hills and is virtually impossible to eradicate.
In reality, the favelas are indeed usually on steep land that no one else want, where people live in tiny corrugated iron shacks.
If it weren't for the stifling heat you would think you were in Dickens's London. Life is nasty, brutish and short.
Tiago has lived in the favela all his life. He is doing a course across the river, on the rich side. In economic terms, it may as well be the other side of the world.
"Newspapers say life is better for Brazilians but that's not accurate," he says.
"In Sao Paulo there's a huge contrast between rich and poor.
"There are always luxury apartments being built next to the favela, so the world thinks it's getting better. But here in the favela it's not improving."
Winners and losers
Brazil's cumbersome tax system does not help.
Including indirect taxes, the poor end up paying proportionately far more in Brazil's topsy turvey system.
People who earn up to three times the minimum wage pay 48% tax. Wealthier people who earn 30 times the minimum wage pay 24%.
As yet, the money has not trickled down sufficiently to the lowest in society, but the wealth is certainly being created.
Many within the authorities are keen to have Brazilians participate more broadly in the success of the economy.
For example, at the stock exchange they welcome 16,000 young visitors a year to explain to them how to buy stocks and shares to become a part of this brave new world.
The students seem receptive, even entranced by the drama of a buy-sell re-enactment on the stock exchange floor.
Brazil clearly has a long way to go before income equality reaches acceptable levels.
But with its commodities, its fledgling property boom and its taming of past inflationary fears, it is well along the path to becoming a developed economy.
