 All right, this is the story that Christian has been waiting for for, I don't know, weeks now. It turns out that the president of El Salvador has announced that El Salvador will eliminate taxes on technology innovations with the goal of fostering economic growth. And of course, the question is, you know, does this turn El Salvador and potential Hong Kong, does this change dramatically the future of El Salvador? And I'd say this by itself, no, I think the much more important story going on in El Salvador is the story I covered extensively a while back. And I don't know why you can't donate from Spain. I mean, you can donate from lots of other countries, lots of other countries step in. So I wonder if it's because the card is from the US and you're in Spain, maybe you have to reside in the place where your card is or something like that. Who knows what the requirements are for YouTube. But anyway, so Salvador, the real news about El Salvador is what they've done to eliminate crime. You know, and there's the potential they've gone overboard to do it. But here's the point. You're not going to have any economic success. You're not going to establish real markets. You're not going to have production and wealth creation until you eliminate or you significantly eliminate physical force until you make the country safe, safe to transact, safe to interact, safe to live in, safe to produce and safe to create in. That is safety, safety in the physical sense, safety from violent force, safety from crooks and criminals and murderers and gangs and cartels. That is the number one job of government. And only once you establish that safety can you then start talking about production and creation and building and wealth and all the rest of it. Now, to El Salvador's credit, that's exactly what's been done in El Salvador over the last year and a half. Now, one could argue about the cost of this, but there's no question El Salvador moderates a plummeted crime generally has come down significantly. El Salvador now is as violent as, you know, let's say a medium to bad American city, but it used to be the most violent place on planet Earth and is clearly trending, trending in a positive direction in terms of in terms of the violence. And so it's the first thing to remember about El Salvador is they've cut crime dramatically, which has created a situation where it's a much more livable place than it was before. It's a place where people will now consider investing and building creating. In that context, starting to eliminate taxes on particular industries, you know, might make sense. But I think the problem, there's a real problem here and that is the attempt to pick and choose the industries that you want to eliminate taxes on. Ideally, what El Salvador would do is create a structure of robust protection of property rights, robust protection of, you know, contract law and business and business, you know, business transactions. And then dramatically cut taxes on all business sectors and let, in a sense, the market decide on what the comparative advantage is of El Salvador. It might be that El Salvador's comparative advantage is technology, but it might not be. It might not be because it doesn't have the talent. It might not be because the talent doesn't necessarily want to move to El Salvador to live. It might be for a lot of reasons. So why not let the market figure out what the comparative advantage is by just making El Salvador an amazing place to invest money. Cut taxes, but first cut regulations, cut constraints of starting businesses. That will also benefit Salvadorians, never mind immigrants. Eliminate restrictions on immigration. Allow people to come in to the country, whether in technology or anything else. Allow immigration in. And, you know, then also if you want to add to that an elimination of taxes on a particular sector, but see that's not how Hong Kong became rich. Hong Kong became rich by not trying to pick winners and losers. Hong Kong became rich not by choosing the sector that was going to do well. It became rich by making the rule of law, you know, and no, very little regulations at all. A stable money. We'll get the money in a minute. And that's what every country needs. And that's what El Salvador needs. And again, this idea that they will pick and choose and they will decide and they will, is probably not going to result in a positive outcome. Positive outcome. Now, when it comes to money, El Salvador is really interesting because it has two things. One is El Salvador uses the dollar as basically its currency. That's the US dollars. It's a dollar-wise economy. It does not have a central bank that issues its own currency. So that gives us an advantage to the extent that the Federal Reserve is as bad as it is, is better than most third world countries' central banks. It has an advantage of the stability of the dollar. But the other thing that, you know, El Salvador did a few years ago, I think, was made a Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador. So you could buy and sell stuff in Bitcoin in El Salvador. The problem there, of course, is Bitcoin. The price fluctuation of the last few years of Bitcoin from $15,000 to $60,000 back to $15,000 to now $30,000. There's not exactly reassure one, or there's not exactly position Bitcoin as a good money to be used, given how volatile it is. So El Salvador has real potential. It's moving in the right direction. I think the main issue is the crime issue. If they can really continue to make headway in terms of crime and eliminating violent crime and eliminating property crime, and they can then institute real protection for contracts and property rights and profits and from businesses, and then, you know, they've now got to eliminate taxes and technology, but if they can then eliminate or reduce taxes on all businesses, there's no reason not to just eliminate taxes on all businesses. It's not like the Salvadoran government spends a lot of money on a lot of things. It can be pretty small. Yeah, El Salvador could become a real bastion of freedom in Central America. It could really change the dynamic of the region, but it would have to be consistent. And my fear is that this is not consistency. This is just a play, a play to be cool, a play to a certain constituency, an attempt to pick winners and losers again. Does El Salvador have local talent to facilitate a major technological center? Does it have the infrastructure? Instead of that, just allow capital to flow in, allow people to come in, allow them to do that with very low taxation and very low burden on regulation. And then let's see what happens. Let's see what evolves. Let's see what's ideal. Thank you for listening or watching The Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com. I go to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see The Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.