> How much of a gamble is any action when you don't have much to lose?
As a Salvadoran it really hurts to read you describing everything we have there "not much to lose".
I mean. We are in the middle of most statistics in the world. It's not like we are in the bottom for everything. Perhaps crime, but that's been improving for the past 5 years.
1) Reality is not always pleasant or politically correct. It is not my desire to be insulting, but at the same time, it's hard to have a discussion about real world events and and not say some things that some people might prefer not to hear. Some feelings might be hurt, but the world would be better off if more frank discussions were had.
2) If I understand this right, a short time ago in this very thread, you posted that El Salvador lost Visa Free Travel to the UK due to 17x increase in asylum requests. Again, I'm not trying to be insulting, but that's the kind of data point that tells a lot of the story about the state and direction of a country.
3) Let me add that I genuinely want El Salvador to do well: it's in your country's and my own best interest.
4) Nobody can 100% predict the future, but I think your president has given your people the absolute best chance they have at prospering, even if it will take some time to materialize. Even if Bitcoin never truly moons, establishing your country as a crypto friendly jurisdiction seems like a far-sighted move that most people won't really understand the long-term benefits until a long time later.
5) I'm sure you understand El Salvador far better than most people. If I've said any facts you think are incorrect, I always invite correction or clarification. I'd definitely be interested on what specific things you think your country can do to improve the long-term outlook other than providing generic platitudes about doing better in crime or education.
> Let me add that I genuinely want El Salvador to do well: it's in your country's and my own best interest.
Me too.
> Establishing your country as a crypto friendly jurisdiction seems like a far-sighted move that most people won't really understand the long-term benefits until a long time later.
I don't work directly with law, but El Salvador is becoming an an increasingly complicated jurisdiction to work in.
There have been more than a handful contradictions between written law, tweets, and government official declarations.
Doing business, in a country with conflicting interpretations of law is complicated, wether plain old business or crypto.
Laws changing on Sunday evenings, optimized for social media engagement instead of business hours. Or laws coming onto force before they are officially published.
Tweets or government official declarations used as an official 'interpretation' of law. Sometimes the interpretation being close to the opposite of what the law states. Who to believe? The interview, the tweet, the written law, the supreme court?
This confusion permeates everything. From complex stuff:
Like for the past months, a big pension reform has been announced. No drafts available of course. Will the individual pension accounts be nationalized? (Equivalent to the US IRA/401k/Employer contributions) There's no public info about that.
To the day to day stuff:
If the police detains someone and posts their picture on and convicts you for 20 years in prison in twitter. Is the tweet a valid conviction or not? I don't know. Judgement via social media?
Can police stop someone and check their phone? Yes
Have people been sent to prison for not carrying a phone? Yes
Have people been sent to prison for a 20 second TikTok video using the 'wrong' background song? Yes.
Can a business be taken over by the government? Yes, it happened at least once. It didn't even follow a normal law process and was a very confusing procedure with conflicting official declarations.
Can the police force the door open while a couple is in a 'love hotel' with your gf/bf and post their picture in social media, in underwear, your car, license plate, or your ID card? It has happened before too. Security checks.
Will having the wrong local rap song in the Spotify history send someone to prison? Probably.
Thanks for sharing. I can see some of this stuff unfortunately being true, but some of it sounds pretty ridiculous and I'd guess might be embellished a little.
That being said, is some of this justice system stuff being worked on? I think your president was focusing on crime issues in addition to the crypto stuff, but I don't really follow all of the El Salvador news too closely.
The interpretation being close to the opposite of what the law states, for example the reinterpretation of the constitution regarding consecutive reelection:
As a Salvadoran it really hurts to read you describing everything we have there "not much to lose".
I mean. We are in the middle of most statistics in the world. It's not like we are in the bottom for everything. Perhaps crime, but that's been improving for the past 5 years.