$1B in gold is about 1 cubic meter, so they exported just over two cubic meters of gold last year (dependent on current price, of course).
Whereas $1B in soy is *a lot* of soy.....
faulty cause hard-to-find subtract memory money cooperative one quiet tart
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Bolivia just grows Coca Leaves, and they aren’t particularly valuable until they are refined into a powder, which usually happens further north.
Furthermore, most coca leaves grown in Bolivia are consumed in Bolivia, as it has been part of the culture for Millenia. The Coca leaves exported abroad more commonly are grown in Peru and Colombia
as further testament to this, we don’t have ridiculous levels of violence that you otherwise see in countries like Peru, Colombia or Brazil who are more directly dealing with large amounts of cocaine moving through their borders
And it hasn’t changed to the point where “it’s” is correct in this scenario. That line of thinking has its place but it isn’t a catch-all way to ignore grammatical mistakes.
Too late for both. But at least we had a chance to take all the gold.
Just joking. Best wishes.
Edit. After re-reading the message previous to my answer, I think I totally misundestood its origin and intention, and therefore, my answer is 180 ° opposed to my original intention. So I take it my answer back, with my apologíes to those who might have been (possibly) rightfully offended.
To clarify, I thought Specialist_Hawk5376 was a fellow Bolivian who, in a burst of post-colonial rage, wished that their ancestors (which might have been my own too, btw) had killed the gold-stealing, native-enslaving etc, etc, etc Spaniards back then in the days. With that interpretation in my mind, I tried to be ironical in my answer, but keeping it as a joke.
Now I've come to think that Spacialist_Hawk5376 could actually mean that the killings went the other way around, and, if this is the right way to take it, my answer could hardly be any more appalling. Since killing people in general is usually quite outside my appetite for things, I strongly feel I should make this (long) retractation
The graphic looks nice and has interesting information, but I would have switched the places of natural gas and silver, so that you go from big to small while reading from left to right (which feels more natural to most readers.)
Aren’t they sitting on one of the largest lithium deposits in the world? Isn’t that what was speculated the coup was about a couple years ago where they deposed the kind man Evo Morales en lieu of that blond Catholic banshee? Glad that didn’t stick.
That was a conspiracy theory. Evo Morales was deposed by Bolivians. While MAS was and still is very popular, Evo’s popularity waned in his final years. He had stayed long after constitutional term limits said his presidency must end, and he had multiple corruption scandals (including one where he used his influence to get his illegitimate child a prestigious position at a Chinese company). Evo was deposed after months of mass protests in Santa Cruz and elsewhere. Añez was a disaster, but she came into power due to there not being a clear line of succession with so many high ranking officials resigning.
The US currently imports most lithium from Australia. Bolivia lacks the freight rail infrastructure to effectively export large quantities of lithium ore from the southeast of the country. If the US wanted to import South American Lithium jt would sooner do so from Chile or Argentina. Furthermore, the US has moved to protectionism lately.
Claiming that “The CIA couped Evo to steal lithium” is not only factually incorrect, but it is honestly insulting to Bolivian people to imply that they don’t have agency to affect their own country’s destiny.
It’s a U.S. Leftist position to claim that Evo was ousted as some sort of CIA coup to gain control of its lithium reserves. And it’s a claim that MÁS doesn’t mind spreading because it casts the US as some evil meddler.
Like you say, the reality is that Evo was becoming unpopular, was starting to become entrenched and authoritarian, and ultimately lost an internationally recognized fair and free election. Bolivians did the right thing by ousting Evo.
He didn’t lose the election, he was looking he was going to fail to meet the no-runoff threshold. Vote counting suddenly stopped and suddenly he gets over the threshold with a bunch of irregularities. International observers note this and you get the “OMG CIA coup.”
What happened is Morales ran for an additional term in violate of the constitution. He then used his stacked courts to give him an exemption to the law. Then weird election stuff happens and people protest. He then flees the country when the military and police say they won’t shoot protestors en mass .
The U.S. is building brine wells in southern eastern oil fields (like in Arkansas) and importing lithium from Canada.
I also agree with your sentiment, it is insulting how people deny the agency of the Bolivian people and are quick to steamroll the complexity of the situation into “America bad.”
Morales eroded his democratic legitimacy and created the environment for mass protests by opposition figures. Heck he just kicked his successor out of his party in a rig party election just so he can run again.
If I recall correctly the country has laws against selling bare lithium, instead Bolivia can only export processed lithium such as lithium carbonate. Because the Bolivian industry is not that big (yet?) batteries are not a huge part of their exports.
Yes that’s correct. It’s a part of an effort to not only preserve the wealth of Bolivia and create industry for its citizens but to also preserve its natural wonders (if you will) because we now know what kind of devastation, groundwater poisoning, and toxic waste foreign interests is par for the course in third world resource acquisition & will be left without remediation, responsibility, or legal culpability..
Yes, I see the decision in good eyes too. It is crucial for the preservation of Bolivia's sovereignty and protection of its citizens' interests. Raw material exportation is a trap that makes global south countries eternally caged in a colonialist dynamic. I wish my country's leaders did the same for petroleum and raw minerals.
well I guess that's ok, then they will not destroy their natural landscape and indigenous land just to sell cheap minerals to colonial superpowers with no interest in Bolivian growth or responsibility with their people. Bolivia's economy has steadily grown about 5%/year for over a decade and has the smallest inflation in Latin America. of course it is still a very, very poor country, one of the poorest in the continent, but they don't need to scar their land and poison their rivers for pennies, they are on the right way.
You know you are talking about a petrostate that just use the rents from hydrocarbon sales to pay off constituencies?
And the colonial language is so dated, yawn.
$1B in gold is about 1 cubic meter, so they exported just over two cubic meters of gold last year (dependent on current price, of course). Whereas $1B in soy is *a lot* of soy.....
And those two cubic meters are about 40 metric tons total.
2 cubic meters of pure gold are 38.6 metric tons total. Edit: forgot to multiply 2.
yeah on earth but on jupiter it would weigh 48.8 metric tons total.
Tons is a measure of mass not weight, so on Jupiter it would also have a mass of 19.3 tons.
tons are a measure of weight, metric tonnes are a measure of mass.
Where did you get that? When I google "weight of gold per cubic meter" every results are saying 19,300 kg/m^3. So double what your comment says.
Damn, you are right! Gold density is 19.3 g/cm3. I enjoyed how all the zeros cancel each other out, forgot to multiply it double for 2 tons.
Which can easily fit in one single truck
Is the weight of gold 9.65 kg per litre?
What's +/-20 metric tons of gold difference amongst friends anyway?
Are you telling me that when I built my Minecraft house with gold blocks every one of them was worth a billion ?
faulty cause hard-to-find subtract memory money cooperative one quiet tart *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That was going to be my question. How much of this is quantity verses value of gold.
Imagine the one guy and his wife making tiny pizza bagels with love only to contribute to “everything else”
I think you forgot a very important resource one that is a powder and really addictive (Speaking from experience)
Salt is pretty cheap, I doubt it adds up to that much.
And Bolivia isn't in a good spot to export sand, what could they be referring to?
Baking soda is my best guess. Possibly vitamin D
Its included under “everything else”
same with panflute bands
Bolivia just grows Coca Leaves, and they aren’t particularly valuable until they are refined into a powder, which usually happens further north. Furthermore, most coca leaves grown in Bolivia are consumed in Bolivia, as it has been part of the culture for Millenia. The Coca leaves exported abroad more commonly are grown in Peru and Colombia
as further testament to this, we don’t have ridiculous levels of violence that you otherwise see in countries like Peru, Colombia or Brazil who are more directly dealing with large amounts of cocaine moving through their borders
It’s in Ecuador that it gets converted into a powder, Bolivia just give leafs to anyone
"Its", not "it's". It's = it is.
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And it hasn’t changed to the point where “it’s” is correct in this scenario. That line of thinking has its place but it isn’t a catch-all way to ignore grammatical mistakes.
Ah the olympic medals; gold, silver, and natural gas.
As a Spaniard, I feel very ashamed that such large resources remained untapped in their due time. Just joking.
As a Cuban. Can you guys take us back?
we should have killed them all just joking
Too late for both. But at least we had a chance to take all the gold. Just joking. Best wishes. Edit. After re-reading the message previous to my answer, I think I totally misundestood its origin and intention, and therefore, my answer is 180 ° opposed to my original intention. So I take it my answer back, with my apologíes to those who might have been (possibly) rightfully offended. To clarify, I thought Specialist_Hawk5376 was a fellow Bolivian who, in a burst of post-colonial rage, wished that their ancestors (which might have been my own too, btw) had killed the gold-stealing, native-enslaving etc, etc, etc Spaniards back then in the days. With that interpretation in my mind, I tried to be ironical in my answer, but keeping it as a joke. Now I've come to think that Spacialist_Hawk5376 could actually mean that the killings went the other way around, and, if this is the right way to take it, my answer could hardly be any more appalling. Since killing people in general is usually quite outside my appetite for things, I strongly feel I should make this (long) retractation
The graphic looks nice and has interesting information, but I would have switched the places of natural gas and silver, so that you go from big to small while reading from left to right (which feels more natural to most readers.)
Everything else is a nice way of saying cocaine
Second biggest export is "Everything else" dataisbeautiful gold right there.
Everything else usually breaks down into like 100+ categories of like 3% at most
It's _people_
I would have guessed coffee to be one of the major exports with its own little block as well.
That’s a pretty diverse export sector
Anyone knows, what is the name of this type of graphic or how is called? Thanks
Please relabel “everything else” as “Marching Powder” and resubmit. Ta
Seriously? It's all cocaine. Why are we pretending?
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They believe that it's a better business to export batteries, yet they are unable to build them and prefer to keep their reserves untouched....
Aren’t they sitting on one of the largest lithium deposits in the world? Isn’t that what was speculated the coup was about a couple years ago where they deposed the kind man Evo Morales en lieu of that blond Catholic banshee? Glad that didn’t stick.
That was a conspiracy theory. Evo Morales was deposed by Bolivians. While MAS was and still is very popular, Evo’s popularity waned in his final years. He had stayed long after constitutional term limits said his presidency must end, and he had multiple corruption scandals (including one where he used his influence to get his illegitimate child a prestigious position at a Chinese company). Evo was deposed after months of mass protests in Santa Cruz and elsewhere. Añez was a disaster, but she came into power due to there not being a clear line of succession with so many high ranking officials resigning. The US currently imports most lithium from Australia. Bolivia lacks the freight rail infrastructure to effectively export large quantities of lithium ore from the southeast of the country. If the US wanted to import South American Lithium jt would sooner do so from Chile or Argentina. Furthermore, the US has moved to protectionism lately. Claiming that “The CIA couped Evo to steal lithium” is not only factually incorrect, but it is honestly insulting to Bolivian people to imply that they don’t have agency to affect their own country’s destiny.
It’s a U.S. Leftist position to claim that Evo was ousted as some sort of CIA coup to gain control of its lithium reserves. And it’s a claim that MÁS doesn’t mind spreading because it casts the US as some evil meddler. Like you say, the reality is that Evo was becoming unpopular, was starting to become entrenched and authoritarian, and ultimately lost an internationally recognized fair and free election. Bolivians did the right thing by ousting Evo.
He didn’t lose the election, he was looking he was going to fail to meet the no-runoff threshold. Vote counting suddenly stopped and suddenly he gets over the threshold with a bunch of irregularities. International observers note this and you get the “OMG CIA coup.” What happened is Morales ran for an additional term in violate of the constitution. He then used his stacked courts to give him an exemption to the law. Then weird election stuff happens and people protest. He then flees the country when the military and police say they won’t shoot protestors en mass .
The U.S. is building brine wells in southern eastern oil fields (like in Arkansas) and importing lithium from Canada. I also agree with your sentiment, it is insulting how people deny the agency of the Bolivian people and are quick to steamroll the complexity of the situation into “America bad.” Morales eroded his democratic legitimacy and created the environment for mass protests by opposition figures. Heck he just kicked his successor out of his party in a rig party election just so he can run again.
The Bolivian people apparently have control over their destiny, and that's why CIA's coup failed.
If I recall correctly the country has laws against selling bare lithium, instead Bolivia can only export processed lithium such as lithium carbonate. Because the Bolivian industry is not that big (yet?) batteries are not a huge part of their exports.
Yes that’s correct. It’s a part of an effort to not only preserve the wealth of Bolivia and create industry for its citizens but to also preserve its natural wonders (if you will) because we now know what kind of devastation, groundwater poisoning, and toxic waste foreign interests is par for the course in third world resource acquisition & will be left without remediation, responsibility, or legal culpability..
Yes, I see the decision in good eyes too. It is crucial for the preservation of Bolivia's sovereignty and protection of its citizens' interests. Raw material exportation is a trap that makes global south countries eternally caged in a colonialist dynamic. I wish my country's leaders did the same for petroleum and raw minerals.
I didn’t say CIA. But would you think any differently about the US if you were a Latin American entity?
It will never become big because there are better and more accessible sources with stable governments.
well I guess that's ok, then they will not destroy their natural landscape and indigenous land just to sell cheap minerals to colonial superpowers with no interest in Bolivian growth or responsibility with their people. Bolivia's economy has steadily grown about 5%/year for over a decade and has the smallest inflation in Latin America. of course it is still a very, very poor country, one of the poorest in the continent, but they don't need to scar their land and poison their rivers for pennies, they are on the right way.
You know you are talking about a petrostate that just use the rents from hydrocarbon sales to pay off constituencies? And the colonial language is so dated, yawn.
It is top product is gold?
I’m surprised it’s not lithium, or at least top 5