Can anyone help me on a question about Brazil?

Question

Why is Brazil, a country almost as large as the United States geographically, filled with valuable natural resources, and blessed with a benign climate, so wretchedly poor and undemocratic while the United States is rich and democratic?

Answer 1

Brazil is improving, but primarily history is against it.

The Portugese were fairly brutal, importing the largest number of slaves to the New World to Brazil, where the slaves were treated very poorly.  Also, like Spain was an extracting colonizer--there was no effort to develop any infrastructure before they left, and much of the governance was done through corruption and bribery.  All of this led to a sort of feudalism, and the ethnic mix was against those who were black or part-black--you still see that today.  No universal education, frequent military coups, etc. all have contributed to Brazil's problems.  

However, they are improving, along with Chile (where there was no slavery) and Argentina (also not many slaves).  Large World Bank projects done in the 70s and 80s helped very few people, only those already wealthy who got hefty contracts.