This chart just blows me away. Feel free to take all your prejudices about left wing governments not being able to run an economy correctly and throw them out the window.
It needs some explanation for the 99% of human beings that are normal and are not into this wonky stuff, however. What we have here is the combination of two numbers.- The first number is Bolivia's M2, which is a term used by the bankypeople that basically means "the money in circulation inside a country".
- The second number is the amount of international currency reserves held by Bolivia's Central Bank.
So what we can do with those two numbers is divide M2 by reserves. This is the result you see on that line above, and what it shows you ishow many Bolivian Pesos are in circulation compared to the number of dollars tucked away as savings.
Frankly, it's remarkable. When Evo took office, there were 15 Bolivianos for every dollar saved by the country. Now there are six for every dollar. What this means is that the Bolivian currency has become far stronger under the current government than it was before. This has many beneficial effects, not least of which is that inflation will be far easier to control in the country going forward.
Compared that to The USA, where the printing presses are rolling like never before and everyone fears the stoking of inflation down the line; Bolivia's monetary policy beats the Fed's hands down. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the above chart is a great visualization of the newly found financial security of Bolivia, a policy that will serve the country well into the future.
Ben Bernanke, consider yourself well and truly pwned by an ex-coca leaf grower.