Caracas Chronicles is a Venezuelan blog covering the country's politics, economy and daily life in English.
HN commenters recommend it as a good source on Venezuela and as an independent voice, not a state mouthpiece.
It's not terribly clear I would agree, but what I said was there is a reason crypto adoption is huge in some countries.
For example, El Salvador recently made Bitcoin legal tender. In Venezuela it's in everyday use: https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2021/11/02/a-snapshot-of-crypto-adoption-in-venezuela/
The "reason" I was referring to was the context of the discussion, ie, whether or not crypto is legitimately useful for anything. Well, it is - it's tremendously useful, even vital, to the underprivileged populations of some countries.
One of those uses I gave as an easy example, is cross-border payments, and indeed nevertheless I suppose it could still be argued this could also be "huge" in some places.
Of course mainstream content providers are not going to use BT to deliver content, despite it being well-suited in many ways and would save them a shit-tonne in expenses and benefit consumers greatly. The problem is its unfounded stigma, which is fuelled by precisely the same kind of uneducated hyperbole seen here regarding crypto.
Look, the simple facts are the following:
- the existing monetary system is either collapsing, inefficient, holding us back, or all three
- a new monetary system has been developed that is already replacing the worst excesses and failures of the old one. It's been in use and development for over a decade and has grown into the trillions
There are no other alternatives I'm aware of with even remotely the same level of adoption, person-hour…
This is one prime example where democracy doesn't work.
The resource I'm reading is www.caracaschronicles.com. The article I'm specifically referring to is [0].
Basically, when oil prices were high, the government would subsidize everything extremely heavily. They would give a lot of cash directly to consumers on a card (in the article).
The card was supposedly to buy international goods (trips abroad), but Venezuelans would then go to Colombia where there would be merchants to do all the paperwork and just give them the cash value on the card minus a cut.
Of course the government was extremely popular and got elected by landslide victories. Now, once oil prices/the economy tanked, the government did other stuff to try to curry favor with the electorate.
They would go into electronic stores and demand immediate 30% price cuts on luxury goods, like flat screen TVs, to basically legally buy votes. Once the in-stock goods sold out, guess what? Nobody wanted to produce or import goods to Venezuela for no profit. So the store shelves stay bare, and they claim an international economic war for the hardships.
But it's still technically a democracy until recently, because one person, one vote, and the government gave out massive handouts.
[0] https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-cucutas-past/
I think that the only way to fix this long-term is by winning the hearts and minds of those who think this ban is a good idea, or who are ambivalent about it. Unfortunately, those of us who have been shrilly opposing every move Trump has ever made are perhaps the most poorly positioned to do that. Trump has successfully demonized the voice of the mainstream media and costal cultural elites, and if you're perceived as being in that group, your objections are likely to fall on deaf ears.
We need to find a way to rebuild bridges between different tribes in America, so that we can have a reasonable dialog. I don't pretend to know how to do this, but I'd love to have a discussion about how to get it done. I think that is the only way to keep Trump or someone else like him from capturing the voice of the people long term.
"How to Culture Jam a Populist in Four Easy Steps"
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/
I don't think it's comprehensible at the individual level, but at population scales even the worst leaders tend to maintain a sizeable level of support. Trump and Chavez have alot in common[1], and nearly half of Venezuelans still supported Chavez at the end, when Venezuela had already been wrecked. Even Maduro had double-digit support in the last election (nominally 30% but probably less in reality). Cult of personality is a powerful thing, and can linger even after the personality is gone. I wouldn't expect MAGA to disappear overnight.
[1] Does this sound familiar? https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2003/12/03/the-cornered-narcissist/
As a Venezuelan and victim of Maduro's constant anti imperialist propaganda I strongly believe the operation gedeon is just a fake. If the US would like to remove Maduro from power I don't think they would send 30 poorly trained, barely equipped men, from which the grand majority didn't even have military experience to disembark in one of the most popular coasts of Venezuela just a few kilometers from a navy base.
If you want to read more from a great independent news site
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2020/05/05/the-macutazo-timeline-of-an-absurd-military-adventure/
> in real terms
The amount of land stays fixed while the amount of money changes. Other products can change their supply but land stays fixed.
It's reasonable to believe that land will become relatively more expensive imo. Looks like it's not a guarantee though https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2018/05/03/once-the-safest-bet-against-hyperinflation-real-estate-loses-value/
fwiw I hope land prices plummet here they are already insane https://wolfstreet.com/2019/07/12/changes-in-house-prices-rents-and-household-incomes-since-1960-in-the-us-by-region-and-major-metro/