4 ms·

I've tested the lightning in El Salvador to lightning payments and they work in 4/5 seconds in the merchants that accept them. There's also the local wallet QR

I've tested the lightning in El Salvador to lightning payments and they work in 4/5 seconds in the merchants that accept them. There's also the local wallet QR codes which I haven't had the opportunity to try yet The volatility is what I like the least. Like one day realizing that the Wendy's hamburger I had for dinner was well timed, because a few hours later Bitcoin's value dropped. In El Salvador we've had an stable currency for decades, the USD since 2001 and a stable Colón since the 1990s. Exchange rates is something that most millennial and gen z's have never had to worry about in El Salvador. As our wages, many of our imports and exports are prices in USD. Compare this to other countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey or Lebanon where the exchange rate is daily news. Or like Nicaragua and Costa Rica where prices and payments can be made in both USD and their local unpegged currencies. There are only a few currencies whose value ocassionaly increase compared to the dollar. Sometimes it's the Swiss Frank, the Guatemalan Quetzal or Euro. From this ones, the Quetzal exchange rate is perhaps the only one that could affect El Salvador the most as fruits and vegetables are sometimes priced/paid by importers in Guatemalan Quetzales.

anonporridge 5y ago
All true, however, by using the dollar as your primary currency, you are effectively a vassal state of the United States, your currency getting regularly devalued without getting any direct benefit of that devaluation like American citizens get, and also no representation in the government that controls that implicit tax that is currency debasement. I'm not Salvadorian, so it's obviously not my place to say what you should do. But I don't see being a second class nation state, in implicit subjugation to the currently dominant global superpower to be a terribly stable state to be in for the long view of human civilization. But then again, that's one of the more insidious effects of bad currency. It forces people into short term thinking because the value of their savings bleeds away so quickly in time. Those people who don't subscribe to storing their money in weak currencies tend to take a longer term perspective on life.
- lkrubner 5y ago
  Your comment is less a criticism of monetary policy and more a review of the reality of life in a small, weak nation. No monetary decision can change the more fundamental reality of belonging to a small, weak nation. Reality must be confronted as reality. When the nations of Europe decided they wanted to establish a rival to the USA, they realized they could only do it by joining together, which was one of the driving forces that lead to the establishment of the EU. Likewise, Britain can claim that there is a political act that will give it independence from Europe, but fate has decreed that Britain is some islands off the coast of Europe, and no act of Parliament will ever change that. Now, and a thousand years from now, Britain's fate will be more closely tied to the fate of Europe than it will be tied to, say for instance, Malaysia. Reality is reality and cannot be changed by political decrees. A nation's location on the Earth remains, forever, a large part of its fate, which no political decree can change. The nations of Central America have the same options as were available to the nations of Europe. All of Central America and the northern parts of South America were unified under a single government back in 1820. They decided to break apart into many small, weak nations, due to the selfish interests of the different types of agricultural interests being pursued in each area. But they could borrow ideas from the EU. They could reunify. If the whole region was under a single government, they would have much more room to push back against the dominance of the USA. But by itself, El Salvador is always going to have its life shaped by the USA. There is no monetary policy that will change that.
  - el-salvador 5y ago
    > They decided to break apart into many small, weak nations, due to the selfish interests of the different types of agricultural interests being pursued in each area We've had some advances in integration. Many of them in the early 2000s when most of the Central American governments were at the moment right wing. Unfortunately the left/right wing divide slowed down many integration attempts. > But they could borrow ideas from the EU. They couuld reunify. We've tried to do some of them, with the SICA (our EU equivalent) with varying degrees of success or failure. Some of the successful ones are having our electricity grid interconnected, and the uniform customs regulation for Central America. Some of them have great potential but are not widely used or promoted, like SIPA, the regional interbank payments that could be like the EU's SEPA but is not widely known, as even if banks use them internally, they still charge SWIFT prices to the end customers. Others like the CA4, our Schengen free-movement-like-agreement, have been reinterpreted so many times that the spirit of the agreement is now only a fraction of what it originally was. Then we have some private initiatives like Claro's popular free voice and data roaming in all Central America except Belize. Others used to be great, but have been limited in the past year due to excessive regulations, like some private banking groups Central Ameican banking services, which used to offer easy and affordable inter country bank transfers but now they are very limited and expensive. Some we lack completely, like the easier mobility between countries that EU citizens have. Even now, moving countries between Central America without family ties is expensive, difficult or even next to impossible.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  I understand that other countries have the possibility of being more independent, but for us, due to historical reasons is more difficult El Salvador is linked to the United States in many ways. Currency is only one, but also 20% of our population lives in the U.S, 24% of our GDP comes from remittances from mainly the U.S., 42% of our imports and 34% of our exports, the second largest city by Salvadoran population is Los Angeles California, most of our airports flights are to the U.S, most of our internet is routed in Miami. Using other currency than the USD would make every transaction and remmitance a little bit more expensive due to the exchange rate margin. I'm also aware of the recent inflation in the U.S, which we can't really do much about. In a longer term though, in the past 20 years, the USD has been a more stable currency than any other Latin American currency except perhaps the neighboring country's Guatemalan Quetzal (GTQ).[1] We also have lower loan interest rates than neighboring countries, and can apply to longer term mortgages. [1] There are other exceptions like the Belize Dollar and Panama Balboa which are pegged to USD. Or French Guyana which uses EUR.

anonporridge 5y ago

All true, however, by using the dollar as your primary currency, you are effectively a vassal state of the United States, your currency getting regularly devalued without getting any direct benefit of that devaluation like American citizens get, and also no representation in the government that controls that implicit tax that is currency debasement. I'm not Salvadorian, so it's obviously not my place to say what you should do. But I don't see being a second class nation state, in implicit subjugation to the currently dominant global superpower to be a terribly stable state to be in for the long view of human civilization. But then again, that's one of the more insidious effects of bad currency. It forces people into short term thinking because the value of their savings bleeds away so quickly in time. Those people who don't subscribe to storing their money in weak currencies tend to take a longer term perspective on life.

lkrubner 5y ago
Your comment is less a criticism of monetary policy and more a review of the reality of life in a small, weak nation. No monetary decision can change the more fundamental reality of belonging to a small, weak nation. Reality must be confronted as reality. When the nations of Europe decided they wanted to establish a rival to the USA, they realized they could only do it by joining together, which was one of the driving forces that lead to the establishment of the EU. Likewise, Britain can claim that there is a political act that will give it independence from Europe, but fate has decreed that Britain is some islands off the coast of Europe, and no act of Parliament will ever change that. Now, and a thousand years from now, Britain's fate will be more closely tied to the fate of Europe than it will be tied to, say for instance, Malaysia. Reality is reality and cannot be changed by political decrees. A nation's location on the Earth remains, forever, a large part of its fate, which no political decree can change. The nations of Central America have the same options as were available to the nations of Europe. All of Central America and the northern parts of South America were unified under a single government back in 1820. They decided to break apart into many small, weak nations, due to the selfish interests of the different types of agricultural interests being pursued in each area. But they could borrow ideas from the EU. They could reunify. If the whole region was under a single government, they would have much more room to push back against the dominance of the USA. But by itself, El Salvador is always going to have its life shaped by the USA. There is no monetary policy that will change that.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  > They decided to break apart into many small, weak nations, due to the selfish interests of the different types of agricultural interests being pursued in each area We've had some advances in integration. Many of them in the early 2000s when most of the Central American governments were at the moment right wing. Unfortunately the left/right wing divide slowed down many integration attempts. > But they could borrow ideas from the EU. They couuld reunify. We've tried to do some of them, with the SICA (our EU equivalent) with varying degrees of success or failure. Some of the successful ones are having our electricity grid interconnected, and the uniform customs regulation for Central America. Some of them have great potential but are not widely used or promoted, like SIPA, the regional interbank payments that could be like the EU's SEPA but is not widely known, as even if banks use them internally, they still charge SWIFT prices to the end customers. Others like the CA4, our Schengen free-movement-like-agreement, have been reinterpreted so many times that the spirit of the agreement is now only a fraction of what it originally was. Then we have some private initiatives like Claro's popular free voice and data roaming in all Central America except Belize. Others used to be great, but have been limited in the past year due to excessive regulations, like some private banking groups Central Ameican banking services, which used to offer easy and affordable inter country bank transfers but now they are very limited and expensive. Some we lack completely, like the easier mobility between countries that EU citizens have. Even now, moving countries between Central America without family ties is expensive, difficult or even next to impossible.
el-salvador 5y ago
I understand that other countries have the possibility of being more independent, but for us, due to historical reasons is more difficult El Salvador is linked to the United States in many ways. Currency is only one, but also 20% of our population lives in the U.S, 24% of our GDP comes from remittances from mainly the U.S., 42% of our imports and 34% of our exports, the second largest city by Salvadoran population is Los Angeles California, most of our airports flights are to the U.S, most of our internet is routed in Miami. Using other currency than the USD would make every transaction and remmitance a little bit more expensive due to the exchange rate margin. I'm also aware of the recent inflation in the U.S, which we can't really do much about. In a longer term though, in the past 20 years, the USD has been a more stable currency than any other Latin American currency except perhaps the neighboring country's Guatemalan Quetzal (GTQ).[1] We also have lower loan interest rates than neighboring countries, and can apply to longer term mortgages. [1] There are other exceptions like the Belize Dollar and Panama Balboa which are pegged to USD. Or French Guyana which uses EUR.