In Brazil, It’s Buy Now or Maybe Never : Economy: Inflation continues to rock this South American country. Some say that panic is just around the corner.

A few Brazilian tips for surviving rampant inflation: Buy enough food for a month. Fill up with gas every day in case the price goes up at midnight. Spend your money now, not later.

Cesar Neto, a 28-year-old electrician, said he couldn’t make ends meet and would ask the boss for a raise, of 147%.

Even such a whopping increase would make up only for the buying power he had lost since May, Neto said.

Three modest bonuses have done little good, he said, and “I’ve reached the breaking point. If I don’t get a salary readjustment, I’ll have to start selling lemons on the street to pay my rent.”

Neto speaks for millions of Brazilian workers whose wages buy less every day, mocking President Fernando Collor de Mello’s promise to end inflation.

Collor, who won election by a landslide and took office in March, 1990, likened himself to a hunter and promised to kill the “tiger” of inflation with a single shot.

His shot was a radical anti-inflation plan that froze 80% of all bank accounts for 18 months and imposed wage and price controls.

Monthly inflation quickly fell to single digits, but state governors spent lavishly on election campaigns, big companies found loopholes to unblock their money and the tiger was up and running again.

Prices rose 20% in January and Collor tried another freeze, but inflation continued, hitting 13% in July and 23% in October.

“The country is so disillusioned with the government that panic and hyperinflation are right around the bend,” said an economist, Paulo Rabelo de Castro.

Brazilians managed to live with high inflation for decades before Collor because pay and bank savings were indexed, increasing monthly at an equal rate. The government had to print more money to pay the bill, however, making the problem still worse.

Collor scrapped the practice, telling workers to negotiate raises with their employers, and also abolished rent controls. Workers have begun holding rallies and strikes to press for the return of indexing.

“Social chaos will explode soon without indexation,” said Mario Henrique Simonsen, another economist.

Inflation provides chaos enough.

Air travelers with paid tickets from Sao Paulo to Rio were told before takeoff they would have to pay a “readjustment” tax of 20%.

A strawberry milk shake costs as much as a movie ticket. The price of a gas range in one store will buy only a blender in another.

Newspapers are filled with reports of sharp increases and wild variations in prices. Television and radio commentators advise listeners how to deal with inflation, suggesting most often that they go shopping.

Investors buy real estate or U.S. dollars. Auto sales doubled in October, and many dealers tell of families buying two or three new cars at a time.

“I spend hours every day shuffling funds around from account to account or buying dollars on the black market to keep my money from devaluing,” said Sandra Brunoro, 34, who manages a lighting firm in Sao Paulo.

Businesses cannot make long-term plans. To keep accounts current, many invent their own currency units. Some tie prices and employee salaries to the dollar.

Inflation is pushing a growing number of people into poverty. More Brazilians than ever are working as unlicensed street vendors.

Rio city officials succumbed to popular pressure in November and ordered yellow lines painted on business-district sidewalks to designate areas where the vendors could operate.

Scores of families are forced out of their apartments into shantytowns on the fringes of cities. One-fourth of Rio’s 10 million people live in slums, up from 14% in 1985.

Jose Almeida, a 44-year-old doorman, supports a family of four on the equivalent of $34 a week. In September, they left their tiny apartment in Rio’s poor Inhauma district for a one-room shack in the notorious Jacarezinho slum.

“There was no choice,” he said. “Now, at least, we have enough to eat.”