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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 f

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

> 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.