I still don't know what to make of him. He's clearly a dictator, but people love him. He's got a higher approval rating than pretty much any politician in the entire world (which has been confirmed by third parties who didn't believe it). It fluctuates between a 75% and 90% approval rating. Anyone familiar with politics knows that those are insane numbers, especially for someone who bends the law so they can run for a second term.
I hear that crime is down 95% in El Salvador, also an insane and unbelievable statistic. I hear that Bukele threatened active gangs by torturing (or threatening to torture) gang members that were already in prison. Apparently that strategy worked pretty well? Obviously that is shady as hell but the country seems to be on the rise.
Many media agencies have come forward declaring that El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin has been a complete and utter failure. After all, they bought a lot at $40k+ (and a tiny bit at $30k). Everyone is reporting that they are "down bad". But is that actually accurate? Nayib Bukele seems to have come forward and written his own blog post on this exact topic. I did not realize it was actually written by him personally (or at least by a ghost writer). You don't see that every day.
On September 7, 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the history of the world to adopt bitcoin, the world’s new currency.
Remember those words, as they will be engraved in the history of money.
It was the only obvious move, the only logical one. For those who understand, the real question is not if other countries are going to adopt bitcoin, but when.
I've said as much myself, even before El Salvador adopted it.
On this occasion, I will not analyze the supporters, but the detractors. They can be separated into three groups:
- The ones who genuinely think it was the wrong decision.
- The ones who think it’s a good decision, but for the wrong reasons.
- The ones who are afraid of our decision.
Now, the interesting part is that the first and second groups exist mostly because of the third.
Because the most vocal detractors, the ones who are afraid and pressuring us to reverse our decision, are the world’s powerful elites and the people who work for or benefit from them.
Again, none of this is new. We all understand the propaganda machine. First it was drug-dealers who used Bitcoin. Then "terrorists" (a word that now means nothing because of how often it is used). No longer does this propaganda work, so they've moved onto the energy FUD and the volatile nature of the asset. "By 2020, Bitcoin will use more energy than the entire world does today." Yeah, that one didn't age so well, but they are still pushing the false 'green' agenda.
And with that, of course, they also own the armies, the loans, the money supply, the credit ratings, the narrative, the propaganda, the factories, the food supply; they control international trade and international law. But their most powerful weapon is the control of the “truth”.
And they are willing to fight, lie, smear, destroy, censor, confiscate, print, and do whatever it takes to maintain and increase their control over the “truth”, and everything, and everyone.
And as we all know, Bitcoin's ultimate product is truth on a financial baseline. It is no wonder that the powers that be would want to continue debasing the idea of a currency owned by no one.
Just think about the hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about how El Salvador’s economy was supposedly destroyed because of its “bitcoin gamble”, about how we are inevitably heading to default, that our economy has collapsed, and that our government is bankrupt.
Well, you just need to read their articles and listen to their “experts” saying that all of this happened after El Salvador lost around $50 million because of bitcoin’s plummeting price on exchanges. Since we are not selling any bitcoin, this statement is obviously false.
But for the sake of making a more profound analysis, let’s say it was entirely true, which of course it’s not, but bear with me.
Really? A whole country’s economy was destroyed by a $50 million loss?
Yes, El Salvador is a relatively poor country, but in 2021 alone, we produced $28 billion in products and services. Pushing the idea that a $50 million loss — less than 0.2% of our GDP — would destroy or even put our country’s economy in trouble is far more than stupid; it is revealing.
But rather an obvious lie spouted off by the most obvious liars.
You would think the economic geniuses at Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc., would have enough analysts and editors well versed in these topics to tell them not to publish that nonsense. You would think these absurd articles wouldn’t pass those editorial boards, but they do. And sometimes they even get a very large space, like a full-page spread in The New York Times.
So the argument that we have lost $50 million worth of bitcoin is false, because we simply have not sold any bitcoin.
And even if you want to accept that absurd argument as true, which would mean you ignore math or basic logic, still, you will have yet to ask yourself why these worldwide media corporations would give so much time and space to such a small country like El Salvador.
Were they talking about El Salvador before? Did they care about what happened in our country? Did they report the $37 billion that the previous governments stole from our country’s treasury?
Ask yourself these questions; a few years ago, did you know where El Salvador was located on a map? Did you know the name of the previous president of El Salvador? Did you know about their failed economic policies?
In 2021, our GDP rose 10.3%, income from tourism rose 52%, employment went up 7%, new businesses up 12%, exports up 17%, energy generation up 19%, energy exports went up 3,291%, and internal revenue went up 37%, all without raising any taxes. And this year, the crime and murder rate have gone down 95%.
They have also told you that there are huge anti-Bitcoin protests in El Salvador; they have been anything but huge. Furthermore, why would my government have a 85-90% approval rating according to every poll conducted in the last year, including several polls conducted by the opposition and several by independent international polling firms, if we were handling things so badly?
By the way, what’s your president’s approval rating?
see how one of the poorest nations in the continent and the previous murder capital of the world is changing to rapidly become the best place it can be.
And then, ask yourself; why are the world’s most powerful forces against those exact transformations. And why should they even care?
This kid really jacks you up!
It's basically impossible to argue against any of these points.
The propaganda machine is railing hard against El Salvador.
And even people on Hive are talking about how they've failed.
And yet, they haven't even sold at a loss.
While I do not agree with a lot of the tactics employed by Nayib, desperate times call for desperate measures. Look at how much pain they've already saved themselves by not having their own fiat currency. Look no further than Lebanon. I hear crypto adoption there is also at all time highs because the fiat currency is worthless and people have lost everything. Slowly, then all at once.
Don't believe everything you hear. The elite have El Salvador in their crosshairs because they don't approve of Bitcoin adoption, and it shows. Nayib may be a dictator, but he is also a benevolent one. Beloved even. I would prefer that scenario to what we have here in America today. It's a classic example of how centralized leadership is risky and prone to corruption, but they also can get shit done at a rate that is essentially impossible within a republic. We will continue to report on their progress. I get the feeling their will be much progress to report on in the years ahead. El Salvador is way ahead of the curve. Perhaps even on par with South Korea.
