The best way to abet such growth is to follow the Clinton path of working with Republicans to reduce spending and regulation and reform the tax code and entitlements.
Mr Sarkozy threatened to legislate to enforce these, but he has since accepted a form of self-regulation in the shape of a code of good governance for companies.
With Mr Palocci at his elbow, Lula might have scaled back the ruinously expensive pension system, brought sanity to labour-market regulation and simplified a fiendishly complex tax code.
The proposed reforms include a new tax code, liberalisation of agriculture and the gas market, bank regulation and faster privatisation of big companies.