Which so far is close to ZERO... I live here and I can tell you that so far no big business has opened operations in here "thanks to bitcoin". Our beauty pageant contestant turned US ambassador Milena Mayorga has organized several excursions to the country for "bitcoin investors" including some Thether funders and her now best buddies/cheerleaders Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert. I still have to see the payoff of those excursions aside from free helicopter rides for the assistants [1] ...
As a Savadorean: It is not... the RECOVERY on tourism is most likely due the relaxation on rules regarding COVID-19, a negative COVID-19 test or even proof of vaccination is no longer required to enter the country. You no longer are required to use a mask to enter restaurants or pretty much any public place. That alone was enough motive to entice enough people (particularly Antivax Salvadoreans leaving abroad) to come visit and cause that rebound on pre-pandemic levels.
But that serves no good to the agenda of the pro-bitcoin, maxis and the goverment itself, so...
> but it's an incorrect and very misleading way of presenting the data.
As a Salvadorean I can tell you that is pretty much the way the goverment propaganda machine works... Misleading, inaccurate data or straight up lies. On this particular case the reality is that levels of tourism are back to 81% of its pre-pandemic levels, which is good on its own right, but wasn't good enough for the goverment agenda... so they starting pushing the "tourism is up 81%" thing and slapped bitcoin (which as little to nothing to do with that) on top. if you dig deep enough even the own goverment clarifies that they are talking about recovery and not growth on some publications underneath the propaganda [1]
As a Salvadorean I have to say the "El Salvador seems to be up" argument is bullshit, I suspect you are already aware given that your source for claiming "tourism is up 81%" is Cointelegraph... but just to clarify those numbers that the goverment and its propaganda machine made sure to spread:
1 - It is not growth it is RECOVERY, tourism is back to 81% of its pre-pandemic levels. Even the own goverment sources say that if you read the pages below the propaganda [1]. So no, tourism is not up compared to pre-pandemic levels, instead we recovered 8 out of every 10 visitors we had before the pandemic...
2 - No, it is not because of Bitcoin. I understand if you are pro-bitcoin, that's alright. But reality in here is that pretty much no business is accepting Bitcoin any more, even plenty of the business that did accepted it when the law passed have gone back to not taking it. The large lines you used to see on the Bitcoin ATMs are gone now that pretty much everyone that wanted to claim the $30 USD bonus have got it (and the overwhelming majority of them converted it to cash immediately... ) and the Bitcoin ATMs are as empty as a ghost town except for the occasional BTC enthusiast/speculator that uses it to cash out some money.
I live here... But if you believe I'm wrong or biased, I invite you to come here and check things for yourself, you may be up for a reality check regarding the goverment propaganda, but you will still have a good time doing tourism.
Yeah, it seems that the tourism number was mispresented.
Still, Bitcoin strategy put El Salvador on the global map, and I think it'll be positive for the country in the long run. In the history books, El Salvador will always be the first country to adopt bitcoin. I'm pro-bitcoin, but I'm pretty grounded on reality and I never expected it to transform the country overnight. It's a long game, which El Salvador is currently leading compared to other countries.
Nope. As a Salvadorean the "they've blown about 1% of their annual budget" argument irritates me...
First of all: "annual government budget of about $5.6B" this is misleading, the government is 100% reliant on NEW debt to operate, there is NO "disposable income" not even a penny...
Heck, the goverment just approved a new $650M debt package to execute a "last resort" strategy and try to pay old debt by buying bonds expiring on early 2023 at below face-value price, because lenders have pretty much lost faith on the goverment having the capacity to pay, so they are "cutting loses".
1% may look like nothing at face value, but when you are even a little bit informed about Salvadorean reality you know that $104M is A LOT of money for a country where the ICUs of the most important hospital of the public network get FLOODED every time there is a couple of hours of rain [1] and rebuilding the whole hospital would cost $170M...
I'm have the desire to make an attempt of developing a new type of EMR system, putting special focus on the documentation part of things.
Is there any health care practitioner around here with time for a 15-minutes phone interview or willing to exchange a few emails so I can better understand his/her needs?
This article is shameless self-promotion... "to compare a printed circuit board and its chips and components with the intended design..." So every company now has to design its own servers, routers and every other piece of hardware from the scratch to avoid "spy chips" ? Yeah... Sounds like a good idea...
