<story><title>Is El Salvador Up?</title><url>https://www.iselsalvadorup.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>superb-owl</author><text>To put the numbers in context:&lt;p&gt;- El Salvador has spent $104M on BTC&lt;p&gt;- They have lost about $47M on their investment&lt;p&gt;- They have a GDP of about $28B [1]&lt;p&gt;- They have an annual government budget of about $5.6B [2]&lt;p&gt;So they&amp;#x27;ve blown about 1% of their annual budget on BTC. Far from catastrophic.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;gdp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;gdp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;government-spending&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;government-spending&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>otto_ortega</author><text>Nope. As a Salvadorean the &amp;quot;they&amp;#x27;ve blown about 1% of their annual budget&amp;quot; argument irritates me...&lt;p&gt;First of all: &amp;quot;annual government budget of about $5.6B&amp;quot; this is misleading, the government is 100% reliant on NEW debt to operate, there is NO &amp;quot;disposable income&amp;quot; not even a penny...&lt;p&gt;Heck, the goverment just approved a new $650M debt package to execute a &amp;quot;last resort&amp;quot; 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 &amp;quot;cutting loses&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;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...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.elsalvador.com&amp;#x2F;noticias&amp;#x2F;nacional&amp;#x2F;tormenta-bonnie-hospital-rosales-nayib-bukele-ministerio-de-obras-publicas-&amp;#x2F;973541&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.elsalvador.com&amp;#x2F;noticias&amp;#x2F;nacional&amp;#x2F;tormenta-bonnie...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Is El Salvador Up?</title><url>https://www.iselsalvadorup.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>superb-owl</author><text>To put the numbers in context:&lt;p&gt;- El Salvador has spent $104M on BTC&lt;p&gt;- They have lost about $47M on their investment&lt;p&gt;- They have a GDP of about $28B [1]&lt;p&gt;- They have an annual government budget of about $5.6B [2]&lt;p&gt;So they&amp;#x27;ve blown about 1% of their annual budget on BTC. Far from catastrophic.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;gdp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;gdp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;government-spending&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;el-salvador&amp;#x2F;government-spending&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;So they&amp;#x27;ve blown about 1% of their annual budget on BTC. Far from catastrophic&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Bitcoin decision is single handedly marching San Salvador into a currency crisis [1]. Food and fuel are among their top imports, so that likely leads to political crisis.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=32487630&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=32487630&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>