El Salvador and Bitcoin City

[rudder]

Let's talk about El Salvador. There's been a lot of talk and a lot of hype for a while now, but still no real news on what's going to come of it. Personallif I were Bukele right now, I'd be shaking in my boots watching the price of bitcoin tank and my economically distressed nation about to sink with it into the pacific ocean bringing the poor of the poor to even deeper depths of poverty. How about some diversification? There are lots of other cryptos that are more secure and have better tech.

Max Keiser and his wife have been going down there and meeting, but I can't find much news about it other than a couple articles in Spanish. Looks like they're expecting to get some sort of fast-track citizenship just by advising the government about the bitcoin bond idea.
https://www.criptonoticias.com/comunida ... -consigue/

[rudder]

Is this what happens when you dump the IMF?
No Mask
No Vax
No Test
No Quarantine

[WilliamSmith]

Let's talk about El Salvador. There's been a lot of talk and a lot of hype for a while now, but still no real news on what's going to come of it. Personallif I were Bukele right now, I'd be shaking in my boots watching the price of bitcoin tank and my economically distressed nation about to sink with it into the pacific ocean bringing the poor of the poor to even deeper depths of poverty. How about some diversification? There are lots of other cryptos that are more secure and have better tech.

I'm curious about this as well. Has anyone ever seen him give a detailed explanation of how it will impact them when Bitcoin's crashing and theoretically enters another multi-year bear market after a huge sell-off?
I certainly wish them luck getting the tentacles of the NWO off of their nation.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... -82588223

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- The government of El Salvador on Monday rejected a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund to drop Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country.

Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya angrily said that “no international organization is going to make us do anything, anything at all.”
Zelaya told a local television station that Bitcoin is an issue of "sovereignty.”

“Countries are sovereign nations and they take sovereign decisions about public policy,” he said.

The IMF recommended last week that El Salvador dissolve the $150 million trust fund it created when it made the cryptocurrency legal tender and return any of those unused funds to its treasury.

The agency cited concerns about the volatility of Bitcoin prices, and the possibility of criminals using the cryptocurrency. After nearly doubling in value late last year, Bitcoin has plunged in value.

Zelaya said El Salvador has complied with all financial transaction and money laundering rules.

The trust fund was intended to allow the automatic conversion of Bitcoin to U.S. dollars — El Salvador’s other currency — to encourage people wary of adopting the highly volatile digital currency.

The IMF also recommended eliminating the offer of $30 as an incentive for people to start using the digital wallet “Chivo” and increasing regulation of the digital wallet to protect consumers. It suggested there could be benefits to the use of Chivo, but only using dollars, not Bitcoin.

“In the near-term the actual costs of implementing Chivo and operationalizing the Bitcoin law exceed potential benefits,” the report said.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had been dismissive of the IMF’s recommendation’s concerning Bitcoin.

Government officials told the IMF that the launch of “Chivo” had significantly increased financial inclusion, drawing millions of people who previously lacked bank accounts into the financial system. They also spoke of the parallel tourism promotion targeting Bitcoin enthusiasts.

The government did not see a need to scale back the scope of its Bitcoin law, but agreed regulation could be strengthened, according to a report.

Bukele led the push to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly made the country the first to do so in June and the Bitcoin law went into effect in September.

El Salvador and the IMF have been negotiating $1.3 billion in lending for months.

[WilliamSmith]

I was curious what the veteran speculator and "International Man" founder Doug Casey thought of El Salvador as an expat location for people with (more or less) libertarian sentiments, and guess he doesn't think much of it, LOL:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixC1o8vXzZo&t=3332s
[/youtube]
He said he'd have chosen El Salvador last as a promising libertarian country (he's said such things before in print interviews, but this is recent, and since they started up the policy of formally making Bitcoin legal tender).

Rough transcription here from a robo subtitle-grabber:

okay um what's doug's take on salvador

uh becoming a libertarian paradise now

that they've made bitcoin legal tender

Doug Casey:

i would have picked salvador

would have been my last choice for a

place to become a

beacon of freedom in

in the world

yeah

i mean it's a horrible little country

i mean

overpopulated and dangerous and their

main export is

you know

gangs

you know

so off listen anything can happen

yeah i mean maybe a place that's that

desperate you know maybe

you know maybe there's maybe that's when

opportunity is created it certainly is

certainly did

they had to have pissed off a lot of

people at like the

bank of international settlements and

the imf for uh you know for basically

for for for making bitcoin a legal

tender there i mean it had to upset

people which is i mean i'm impressed

that they were willing to do that

but yes it'll be interesting to see what

comes next

well look

you got to remember

hong kong and for that matter singapore

and for that matter dubai

i mean all

hong kong and singapore

you know had great ports okay but they

had no money

just full of ignorant almost illiterate

chinese

and they transformed those two cities

and into the

you know two of the most successful and

dynamic places in the world in a couple

of generations

and what happened in dubai was even more

spectacular quite frankly

i mean when i first went to dubai it was

just to go through the airport back in

1980

and the airport was kind of a dump and

the airport was no bigger it was a

little airport about the size of aspen's

airport it was nothing

and now i think dubai probably has the

largest airport in the world and the

place is unbelievable what they've done

with that

so

can could the same thing happen to sing

to el salvador yes it could

because it's happened

you know

what dynamics would be required though

if you take those three examples it's

like hong kong

singapore and dubai and what are the

what are the commonalities between what

they did that then that could be applied

to make el salvador

you know the next dubai

well i'm not going to say

you know i i would add all kinds of

things about personal freedom in there

something which

you know singapore is not famous for and

neither is dubai quite frankly

but um

it's i think it's basically stability

and the rule of law

i think in a stable environment

you know most people are not interested

frankly

except you know

little personal things most people

aren't interested in philosophical

issues and that includes personal

freedom and

they really don't care all most people

want to do and it's quite understandable

is just

you know

plant their own garden and watch it grow

and not be stolen from and

you know right

be reasonably safe from the attack of

bandits and things like that so if you

create an environment like that

where the taxes are not onerous

which is also a very important thing the

regulations are not onerous

yeah it'll grow

organically

so well especially

the thing about hong kong and uh and

singapore though is that they had this

huge national or natural resource there

with their ports

that were just you know

and i don't know if uh el salvador has

anything like that you know what i mean

as like as an anchor that can

because if you have that great

natural resource essentially it gives

you and you have a good stability and a

good legal framework good tax structure

low regulations all that you know

something interesting has certainly

occurred but without that i wonder you

know i mean without having some

natural resource

i mean dubai had they they had oil

wealth that they were willing to dump

into it you know what i mean to like

make it something so huge they they one

guy could make a decision the crown

prince to dump huge amounts of personal

capital really uh the country's capital

into making that some uh a place that

would cater to all kinds of interests

and he could demand the certain legal

structure and all that

but

the other places had a natural resource

and i just don't know i don't wonder if

it could be done with just good

stable

stability and good regula a good

regulatory framework

well i think it could

actually because in hong kong

they didn't have a ruler like likai

shingen in singapore who

transformed things or the sheik in dubai

so it was really just the free market

that made uh

under under the british aegis

you know uh that

made hong kong what it was

yeah i think it could happen in salvador

what do they have

we've got some sea coasts they've got

some beaches

but uh

other than that what do they produce

there coffee

and bananas i don't think anything else

that i can think of frankly

yeah i'm not sure i i should look into

it more but

it is interesting and i certainly like i

it's it's hard to be

to be a nation-state and be an innovator

today i think because of all the

pressures that are on you for trade and

for you know

the with the imf stuff and all this so

it's it's cool to see they're doing it

and i hope i hope it's really successful

i really do

i'm sure the u.s i'm sure the u.s

government is very unhappy

about what they're doing

[gsjackson]

How's Doug's libertarian sanctuary in Argentina doing these days? Last I heard it was pretty much in full police state mode.

[WilliamSmith]

Argentina's not on my personal list, but here's what Casey and his host had to say re: Salta, Argentina as a bolthole, about 25 minutes into this.
At 1:07:12 they also ask about "Doug the next President of Argentina?," but he says the deep state there is too entrenched.

How's Doug's libertarian sanctuary in Argentina doing these days? Last I heard it was pretty much in full police state mode.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unoakqX_Y-A&t=1499s[/youtube]

[rudder]

Is there a podcast version of this?

I was curious what the veteran speculator and "International Man" founder Doug Casey thought of El Salvador as an expat location for people with (more or less) libertarian sentiments, and guess he doesn't think much of it, LOL:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixC1o8vXzZo&t=3332s
[/youtube]
He said he'd have chosen El Salvador last as a promising libertarian country (he's said such things before in print interviews, but this is recent, and since they started up the policy of formally making Bitcoin legal tender).

Rough transcription here from a robo subtitle-grabber:

okay um what's doug's take on salvador

uh becoming a libertarian paradise now

that they've made bitcoin legal tender

Doug Casey:

i would have picked salvador


i'm sure the u.s i'm sure the u.s

government is very unhappy

about what they're doing

[shawnberwick]

I certainly wish them luck getting the tentacles of the NWO off of their nation.

The El Salvadorian flag has a blatant Masonic symbol on it. I think it's a strange coincidence that the first country adopting Bitcoin has a Masonic flag.



I believe Bitcoin has been infiltrated. It's now an institution coin. Video explaining...



Monero is genuinely hated by the establishment.

[WilliamSmith]

Heheh, well not sure what's going on with El Salvador and BTC, but a few Fintwit tweets caught my eye today so thought I'd share:

If BTC and/or any altcoins or others help win the battle against a globalist evil empire I'm all for it, but must say I'm glad I'm a trader and not a hodler who listened to the know-it-alls talking about how BTC was supposedly going to be a contrasset or safe haven when stocks crashed, and/or whatever it was about how "the mathematics" made it a sure thing to be over $300k by Q1 2022 :


Apparently President Bukele thinks its OK: