Slashdot Mirror
Venezuelans Flock To Cryptocoins Amid Spiralling Inflation (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
Demand for digital coins is soaring in Venezuela amid an escalating political crisis that has protesters demanding that President Nicolas Maduro step down. Inflation has spiraled to the triple digits, debasing the bolivar and depleting savings, while citizens struggle to find everything from food to medicine on store shelves. "If you're going to be in something volatile, you might as well be in something that's volatile and rising than volatile and falling," says Ryan Taylor, chief executive officer of crypto currency Dash Core, the third-largest digital coin by number of transactions... Bitcoin trading volume in Venezuela jumped to $1.3 million this week, about double the amount that changed hands two months ago, according to LocalBitcoins.com...
Venezuela's currency has become nearly worthless in the black market, where it takes more than 6,000 bolivars to buy $1, while bitcoin surged 53 percent in the past month alone. But it's not just about shielding against the falling bolivar, as some Venezuelans are using crypto currencies to buy and sell everyday goods and services, according to Jorge Farias, the CEO of Cryptobuyer.
Venezuela's currency has become nearly worthless in the black market, where it takes more than 6,000 bolivars to buy $1, while bitcoin surged 53 percent in the past month alone. But it's not just about shielding against the falling bolivar, as some Venezuelans are using crypto currencies to buy and sell everyday goods and services, according to Jorge Farias, the CEO of Cryptobuyer.
It's only a matter of time now. Maduro has armed tens of thousands of militia gang members. The criminals are also armed and looting and killing at will. People are starving to death and will eventually face a choice between a slow lingering death or going down fighting. It will happen quick once it gets started. Mobs will break into the arsenals and loot the weapons. Military units will face a choice of whose side to join, as they did in Syria. Maduro has made many enemies who will take the opportunity to settle scores and lots of hungry young men with nothing to do and no prospects will relish the chance to bleed the elites. All that's needed now is a spark and Maduro is sure to bungle into one sooner or later.
Right now a lot of people use Bitcoin as a gold substitute. It's valuable because it's (relatively) secure and rare, exactly why people used gold for so long. But like gold, it's not actually practical for using as an everyday means of exchange.
Currency exchanges take too long to verify (half an hour or more), cost too much to do so (minor transactions can cost more to verify than exchanged hands), and the whole system sucks up a lot of power. While cryptocurrency as a valid backstop against incompetent governments is a great idea, a more technically proficient cryptocurrency, better designed for everyday transactions, would be a huge boon.
Except authoritarians ruling capitalist countries tend to do far better economically than authoritarians ruling communist countries. Examples: Pinochet's Chile, Nazi Germany, modern day China.
Chile collapsed so quick that Friedman had to cry that he meant to do that.
Germany and China had the benefit of being strong, economically robust states, and able to survive a lot of things, but both of them did make severe missteps. But this is nothing new for either one, or anything else under the sun. It's only been a decade, and yet people forget the last economic crisis. Which in its way, may have been far more devastating to the whole world.
Authoritarianism is bad.
Communism is bad.
But the combination is even worse.
Sure man, now what about chocolate syrup on your pizza? The People's Free Christian Democratic Republican Union of Independent States wants to know!
Pinochet gave up on the Friedman economics pretty quickly, but he tottered on as the dictator until Bush the Elder had to cut him off (and El Salvador's junt and Hussein in Iraq) as the collapse of the USSR meant they know longer needed to keep those guys around to fight the dirty communists. But yeah, the economic plan died in a fire MUCH quicker. But you know, Milton, he meant to do that! It was his plan all along!
Germany? You're buying into the myth that it was an economic wreck, destitute and forlorn. Keynes did too. Not saying the reparations were a good idea, but they weren't as crippling as the myth tells you. In fact, the whole world was suffering under an illusion, as the Great Depression went on with warehouses of produce rotting away and factories sitting idle. But I'm sure there's plenty of people to tell you how Keynes was wrong in other ways. I think I saw roman_mir toddling around.
China? You're confusing the mistake of listening to misinformed Russian advisers with it being the "Communist" parts. No, they just didn't know how agriculture worked differently in China. Same problem as the Dustbowl, or Africa. The techniques failed, not the political philosophy. Though some of it was the difference between Mao (who wanted an agrarian state) and Xiaoping (who wanted an industrial one), but you shouldn't consider either one acceptable. One would put you to backbreaking labor on the farm, the other would put you to backbreaking labor in a factory.
Neither one would blink when it came to shooting your ass anyway. You're getting the details wrong, and believing in the numbers.
Do try to learn some more examination of the details, statistics are an easy way to make the facts lie for you.
And go thank Norman Borlaug, now that guy, that guy figured out how to improve yields!