61 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 31 Mar
This is more like a book than an article. Great resource. It's going to take me a while to read the entire thing.
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76 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Mar
Indeed is like a book. Bookmarked. Need to read it with more attention.
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @halalmoney 31 Mar
Notes from my skim-reading:
Putting a bunch of assault rifle-wielding soldiers in the town square is not exactly a subtle way to fight systematic extortion, but it works, and the Salvadoran people could see it in action.
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Bitcoin as a legal tender has been a bust for Bukele. But other aspects of Bukele’s Bitcoin affection have been more successful.
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“A report in El Faro, which analyzed 1,251 pages of official arrest records from the Attorney General’s Office from the first weeks of the state of emergency, found that authorities frequently cited things like “suspicious appearance,” (apariencia sospechosa), “nervousness” (nerviosa), “anonymous accusations” (denuncias anónimas), and “having tattoos” (tener tatuajes) as sufficient reason to detain suspects.”
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While I have a generally high opinion of Salvadoran law enforcement and think their arbitrary abuse rate was low, there is a giant caveat I want to put on this analysis. Salvadoran law enforcement has a documented history of extrajudicial killings with permission from higher-ups.
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Of the 77,000 arrests made during the raids, only an estimated 32,331 individuals were full-fledged gang members. Most of the arrests were of “collaborators,” a rather loose term that could refer to a wide range of activities. Many of these collaborators profited, aided, and abetted the gangs, and deserve their fate, but many others likely collaborated under the threat of coercion, or to pay off debts, or were in some other nebulous grey space that exists in gang-dominated impoverished Central American slums.
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Dictatorships concentrate power to permit more state dynamism but at the expense of this dispersed risk.
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Democracy is generally good, especially compared to alternative forms of government, but there are contexts in which democratic institutions can hinder the prosperity of a nation. Voters in a democracy can elect bad leaders, either due to bad judgment or manipulation. The democratic checks and balances between branches of government can be exploited by bad faith actors for cynical political gain.
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Yeah, Bukele probably is capricious and arrogant and ultimately self-serving. As are 95% of politicians, especially the highly successful ones.
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There is probably a theoretical tipping point in any democratic state when the numerous inherent pitfalls of democratic institutions become so powerful that the government ceases to function effectively and requires a reset that can only be achieved undemocratically. This is a risky proposition that can go wrong in a million ways, but it can also work out (ex. Jerry Rawlings, Ataturk, Caesar, arguably Napoleon, etc.).
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 31 Mar
There’s a Stacker who is Salvadoran American. I can’t remember who off the top of my head. Your article helped me understand how his ancestors first came to America
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 2 Apr
"In 2016, arguably at the peak of their power, there were an estimated 60,000-70,000 gang members and maybe half a million collaborators, constituting 8% of the entire population. The gangs operated in 94% of municipalities, extorted 70% of businesses, and between the extortion, violence, and general instability promulgated by their presence, the gangs cost the Salvadoran economy an estimated $4 billion annually, constituting about 15% of GDP. In 2014, its most violent year, El Salvador suffered almost 4,000 murders."
15%, wow, that's crazy, almost half of the US percent of GDP that the Government spends!
Gonna have to come back to this and keep reading tomorrow.
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1 sat \ 1 reply \ @amaurel 31 Mar
El Salvador, the new Eldorado?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiedOnTitan 31 Mar
Waiting for the Baltics to follow El Salvador. Especially Estonia, considering the way they have positioned themselves lately: e-Estonia. There is more to "digital innovation" than getting 99% of your government services available online. It would be an amazing move if they did it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kevin 1 Apr
What a fantastic blog. Ended up reading many of the older ones as well.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 1 Apr
Thanks for sharing. This love seems these. We are gaining unstoppable momentum!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @orange_crush 31 Mar
Matt's book is good.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 31 Mar
Indeed, that's too long. I doubt if @TonyGiorgio had finished reading it by the time he post d here. 😜
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 31 Mar
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