National Mint of Bolivia
The National Mint of Bolivia or the Mint of Potosí is a mint located in the city of Potosí in Bolivia. It is from this mint; the coinage minted during its period became so well known in the world that a saying, memorialized by Miguel de Cervantes came into use: valer un potosí, "to be worth a potosí". Silver mining at Cerro Rico, a growth of population and a commercial expansion coupled with Potosí's notable height, prompted a necessity to organise a coinage centre. Minting began on the basis of a rudimentary technology that remained for the next 212 years, from 1572 to 1767. A proposal by the Spanish viceroy Francisco de Toledo, Count of Oropesa set about the initial construction of the first mint. In 1572 the foundations near the Royal Palaces in the Plaza del Regozijo under the auspices of the architect Jerónimo Leto, who finished the work in three years; the overall costs exceeded 8,000 pesos, the equivalent of around ten million dollars in today's currency. Charles III of Spain is said to have remarked on hearing the cost of the mint, "the whole building must be made of pure silver".
Following a scandal and the resulting investigation, plans to reform the old factory were abandoned and a new building was erected in the neighbouring plaza del Gato. The new factory saw its construction begin in 1757 and finish in 1770 amongst a number of difficulties. Hammered coinage, the technique whereby coins were produced by placing a blank piece of metal of the correct weight between two dies, striking the upper die with a hammer to produce the required image on both sides, used since the first coins at Potosí continued at the old factory until 1773; the first screw-press coins were produced in 1767 as used as such until 1869 when moveable steam presses were installed. The Republic of Bolivia was formed on the 6 August 1825. Little after a conflict that stretched 15 years with the support of Simón Bolívar and Antonio José de Sucre, the administrative organization and monetary unit was established, albeit with numerous difficulties. Two years would have to pass, whilst Spanish currencies continued circulating, before the first Republican coin would be struck.
In 1933 the abandoned Mint was used as a headquarters during the Chaco War was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of a great part of the Gran Chaco region of South America. It was subsequently used as a stable for the peasants who traveled to the Potosí market from the countryside; the colonial and republican machinery is conserved in the mint for museum purposes. It is considered one of the most important museums in Bolivia; the building has UNESCO World Heritage status under the City of Potosi listing in 1987. "Potosí". Euromint. Retrieved 2007-12-15. "Mint of Potosi - Coins for the Argentine Republic 1813-1815"
Central bank
A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is the institution that manages the currency, money supply, interest rates of a state or formal monetary union, oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base in the state, generally controls the printing/coining of the national currency, which serves as the state's legal tender. A central bank acts as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of financial crisis. Most central banks have supervisory and regulatory powers to ensure the solvency of member institutions, to prevent bank runs, to discourage reckless or fraudulent behavior by member banks. Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally independent from political interference. Still, limited control by the executive and legislative bodies exists. Functions of a central bank may include: implementing monetary policies. Setting the official interest rate – used to manage both inflation and the country's exchange rate – and ensuring that this rate takes effect via a variety of policy mechanisms controlling the nation's entire money supply the Government's banker and the bankers' bank managing the country's foreign exchange and gold reserves and the Government bonds regulating and supervising the banking industry Central banks implement a country's chosen monetary policy.
At the most basic level, monetary policy involves establishing what form of currency the country may have, whether a fiat currency, gold-backed currency, currency board or a currency union. When a country has its own national currency, this involves the issue of some form of standardized currency, a form of promissory note: a promise to exchange the note for "money" under certain circumstances; this was a promise to exchange the money for precious metals in some fixed amount. Now, when many currencies are fiat money, the "promise to pay" consists of the promise to accept that currency to pay for taxes. A central bank may use another country's currency either directly in a currency union, or indirectly on a currency board. In the latter case, exemplified by the Bulgarian National Bank, Hong Kong and Latvia, the local currency is backed at a fixed rate by the central bank's holdings of a foreign currency. Similar to commercial banks, central banks incur liabilities. Central banks create money by issuing interest-free currency notes and selling them to the public in exchange for interest-bearing assets such as government bonds.
When a central bank wishes to purchase more bonds than their respective national governments make available, they may purchase private bonds or assets denominated in foreign currencies. The European Central Bank remits its interest income to the central banks of the member countries of the European Union; the US Federal Reserve remits all its profits to the U. S. Treasury; this income, derived from the power to issue currency, is referred to as seigniorage, belongs to the national government. The state-sanctioned power to create currency is called the Right of Issuance. Throughout history there have been disagreements over this power, since whoever controls the creation of currency controls the seigniorage income; the expression "monetary policy" may refer more narrowly to the interest-rate targets and other active measures undertaken by the monetary authority. Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs when a worker is searching for, or transitioning from one job to another. Unemployment beyond frictional unemployment is classified as unintended unemployment.
For example, structural unemployment is a form of unemployment resulting from a mismatch between demand in the labour market and the skills and locations of the workers seeking employment. Macroeconomic policy aims to reduce unintended unemployment. Keynes labeled any jobs that would be created by a rise in wage-goods as involuntary unemployment: Men are involuntarily unemployed if, in the event of a small rise in the price of wage-goods to the money-wage, both the aggregate supply of labour willing to work for the current money-wage and the aggregate demand for it at that wage would be greater than the existing volume of employment.—John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment and Money p11 Inflation is defined either as the devaluation of a currency or equivalently the rise of prices relative to a currency. Since inflation lowers real wages, Keynesians view inflation as the solution to involuntary unemployment. However, "unanticipated" inflation leads to lender losses as the real interest rate will be lower than expected.
Thus, Keynesian monetary policy aims for a steady rate of inflation. A publication from the Austrian School, The Case Against the Fed, argues that the efforts of the central banks to control inflation have been counterproductive. Economic growth can be enhanced by investment such as more or better machinery. A low interest rate implies that firms can borrow money to invest in their capital stock and pay less interest for it. Lowering the interest is therefore considered to encourage economic growth and is used to alleviate times of low economic growth. On the other hand, raising the interest rate is used in times of high economic growth as a contra-cyclical device to keep the economy from overheating and avoid market bubbles. Further goals of monetary policy are stability of interest rates, of the financial market, of the foreign exchange market. Goals cannot be separated fr
Juana Azurduy de Padilla
Juana Azurduy de Padilla was a guerrilla military leader from Chuquisaca, Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. She fought for Bolivian independence alongside her husband, Manuel Ascencio Padilla, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, she was noted for her strong support for and military leadership of the indigenous people of Upper Peru. Juana Azurduy was born on July 12, 1780, in Chuquisaca, Upper Peru, a territory of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, her father, Don Matías Azurduy, was patrón of an hacienda in Toroca. Her mother, Doña Eulalia Bermudez, was a chola from a poor family in Chuquisaca, her family was unusual under the strict casta system of Spanish colonial rule, under which Juana was considered mestiza. She had an older brother, who died in infancy, a younger sister, Rosalía. After the death of her mother in 1787, she developed an close relationship with her father. Despite the staunchly Catholic and conservative gender roles of colonial society, Don Matías taught her to become a skilled rider and sharpshooter, she accompanied him to work the land alongside indigenous laborers.
As well as her native Spanish, she became fluent in Quechua and Aymara, the languages of the local indigenous people, she was known to spend days at a time in their villages. In her early teens, the death of their father left the Padilla sisters orphans, they became wards of their aunt Petrona Azurduy and her husband Francisco Días Vayo, who administered the properties left by Don Matías to the girls upon their adulthood. Doña Petrona found Juana's unconventional behavior both difficult to control. A tutor was hired to provide her both academic and social instruction, but failed to tame Juana's frequent rebellious outbursts; when Juana rebelled against her aunt's control, she was sent away to the prestigious Convento de Santa Teresa de Chuquisaca to become a nun. During her time there, classmates remember Azurduy idolizing the warrior Saint Joan of Arc and declaring her aspirations for the battlefield. Due to her rebellious temperament and clashes with the Sisters, Azurduy was expelled from the convent at the age of 17.
In 1797, Azurduy returned to live on her father's hacienda, spending her days with the indigenous people who lived on his land. She witnessed the brutality of their work in Spanish silver mines, became a passionate ally to the indigenous revolutionary movement. In 1805, Azurduy married her neighbor and childhood friend Manuel Ascencio Padilla, a fellow revolutionary who left a Royalist law school to join the independence movement, their marriage was remarkably progressive, with Padilla standing alongside his wife on and off the battlefield. Before their military engagements began, the Padillas had two sons. Both would die tragically young due to malnutrition in military camps. On May 25,1809, Azurduy and her husband joined the Chuquisaca Revolution, which ousted the governor of the Real Audencia of Charcas, Ramón García de León y Pizarro, in September 1810, established a governing Junta de Buenos Aires; the revolutionary government was forced out of Chuquisaca in 1811 by royalist troops, but across the Viceroyalty, rebels maintained control of a patchwork of republiquetas, or independent territories.
In the fighting, Azurduy was captured and held prisoner in her home by Spanish soldiers, but Padilla killed her guards in a successful rescue. The Padilla couple escaped Chuquisaca in 1811 to the republiqueta of La Laguna, where they continued to organize rebel forces. In 1811, the couple joined the Army of the North under José Castelli and Antonio Balcarce, sent from newly independent Buenos Aires to fight the Spanish occupation of Upper Peru, they attempted to block invasion of Upper Peru by the Spanish army of the Viceroyalty of Peru, but were outnumbered and defeated, in the June 20 Battle of Huaqui. The hacienda properties of the Padillas were confiscated and Juana Azurduy and her sons were captured, though Padilla managed to rescue them, taking refuge in the heights of Tarabuco. In 1812 Padilla and Juana Azurduy served under General Manuel Belgrano, the new head of the Army of the North, helping him to recruit 10,000 militiamen across the republiqueta system. Azurduy was a famous recruiting force, inspiring indigenous people and other women, known as the Amazonas, to join the cause.
When their mountain territories became overrun by royalist forces, their militia served as the rear guard for generals Belgrano and Eustoquio Díaz Vélez as they retreated and regrouped in independent Argentina. Azurduy took charge of the "Loyal Battalions," a fighting force of indigenous men and women known for their fierce loyalty to their commander. With only slingshots and wooden spears, the "Loyals" beat back Spanish forces in the Battle of Ayohuma on November 9, 1813. General Belgrano was so impressed with her leadership and the bravery of her soldiers that he gifted her his own sword, symbolic of his military power; the Argentine Army of the North and outgunned, was beat back to their border, the Padilla couple began a phase of guerrilla warfare. During an 1815 battle at Pintatora, Azurduy left the battlefield to give birth to her fourth son. In an act that would become legend, returning hours to the front lines to rally her troops, captured the standard of the defeated Spanish forces.
On March 3, 1816, near Villa, Azurduy led 30 cavalry, including her Amazonas, to attack the La Hera Spanish forces. The women captured their standard and a valuable cache of rifles and ammunitions for their undersupplied forces. On March 8, 1816, Azurduy's cavalry forces temporarily captured the Cerro Rico of Potosí
Torotoro National Park
Torotoro National Park is a national park and town in Bolivia. The town was founded about 250 years ago by the Spanish, it is located in the eastern mountain ranges of the South American Andes cordilleras in the area of Potosí. Torotoro National Park was established in 1989, it is situated in 140 km south of Cochabamba. It covers 165 km2, in a semi-arid landscape at altitudes between 2000 and 3500m above sea level, with canyons as deep as 300 meters, it includes typical features of karst terrain like caves and dolines and Cretaceous calcitic deposits with fossils, landscapes eroded by wind and waters. Dinosaur bone fragments and more than 2,500 dinosaur footprints have been found in the park, they belong to biped and quadruped dinosaurs and sauropods from the Cretaceous period 120 million years ago. Llama Chaki, an archaeological site southeast of the town of Torotoro, has remnants of the Quechua culture
La Paz Department (Bolivia)
The La Paz Department of Bolivia comprises 133,985 square kilometres with a 2012 census population of 2,706,359 inhabitants. It is situated at the western border of Bolivia, it contains the Cordillera Real. Northeast of the Cordillera Real are the Yungas, the steep eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains that make the transition to the Amazon River basin to the northeast; the capital of the department is the city of La Paz and is the administrative city and seat of government/national capital of Bolivia. The Department of La Paz is divided into 20 provinces which are further subdivided into 85 municipalities and - on the fourth level - into cantons; the provinces with their capitals are: The chief executive office of Bolivia's departments is the Governor. The current governor, César Cocarico of the Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples was elected on 4 April 2010 and took office 30 May. Under the 2009 Constitution, Bolivian departments have an elected legislature, known as the Departmental Legislative Assembly.
The La Paz Assembly has 45 members including five indigenous / natives minority representatives. The most recent election results are as follows: The languages spoken in the department are Spanish, Aymara and Guaraní; the following table shows the number of people belonging to the recognized group of speakers. Apolobamba Integrated Management Natural Area Cotapata National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Communal Lands Lake Titicaca Chacaltaya La Paz City Guide Weather in La Paz Bolivian Music and Web Varieties Full information of La Paz Department
Giant hummingbird
The giant hummingbird is the only member of the genus Patagona and the largest member of the hummingbird family, weighing 18–24 g and having a wingspan of 21.5 cm and length of 23 cm. This is the same length as a European starling or a northern cardinal, though the giant hummingbird is lighter because it has a slender build and long bill, making the body a smaller proportion of the total length; this weight is twice that of the next heaviest hummingbird species and ten times that of the smallest, the bee hummingbird. In Bolivia, the giant hummingbird is known in Quechua as burro q'enti, the Spanish word burro referring to its dull plumage. Members of P. gigas can be identified by their large size and characteristics such as the presence of an eye-ring, straight bill longer than the head, dull colouration long wings and moderately forked tail, tarsi feathered to the toes and large, sturdy feet. There is no difference between the sexes. Juveniles have small corrugations on the lateral beak culmen.
The subspecies are visually distinguishable. P. g. peruviana is yellowish brown overall and has white on the chin and throat, where P. g. gigas is more olive green to brown and lacks white on the chin and throat. The giant hummingbird glides in flight, a behavior rare among hummingbirds, its elongated wings allow more efficient glides. The giant hummingbird’s voice is a distinctive loud and whistling “chip”. Belonging to the family Trochilidae, P. gigas is one of 331 described species in this family, making it the second largest group of new world birds. Trochilids are further divided into about 104 genera, it is thought that the species is comparatively old and, for the most part, a failed evolutionary experiment in enlarging hummingbird size given it has not diverged and proliferated. Traditional morphologic taxonomic inquiries show P. gigas to be different from the other taxa of hummingbirds. A 2008 phylogenetic review found a 97.5% likelihood that P. gigas has diverged enough from the proposed the closest phylogenetic clades to be considered belonging to a single-species clade named Patagonini.
This is in accord with International Ornithological Union’s taxonomic classification of P. gigas in a genus of its own. Two subspecies, P. gigas gigas and P. gigas peruviana, are recognised. These subspecies are thought to have emerged as a result of partial geographical separation of populations by volcanic activity in the Andes predating the Miocene; the proposed phylogenetic system for hummingbirds suggested by McGuire et al. accommodates the possible elevation of these subspecies to species rank. The giant hummingbird is distributed throughout the length of the Andes on both the east and west sides. P. gigas inhabit the higher altitude scrubland and forests that line the slopes of the Andes during the summer and retreat to similar, lower altitude habitats in winter months. The species persists through a large altitude range, with specimens retrieved from sea level up to 4600 m, they have shown to be resilient to urbanisation and agricultural activities. P. G. peruviana occurs from Ecuador to the southeastern mountains of Peru and P. g. gigas from northern Bolivia and Chile to Argentina.
Contact between subspecies is most to occur around the eastern slopes of the north Peruvian Andes. The range of Patagona gigas is sizable, its global extent of occurrence is estimated at 1,200,000 km2, its global population is believed to be not less than 10,000 adults. Hummingbirds are agile and acrobatic flyers partaking in sustained hovering flight used not only to feed on the wing but to protect their territory and court mates. P. gigas is typical in that it will brazenly defend its precious energy-rich flower territory from other species and other giant hummingbirds. These birds are seen alone, in pairs or small family groups. P. gigas hovers at an average of 15 wing beats per second slow for a hummingbird. Its resting heart rate is 300 per minute, with a peak rate of 1020 per minute. Energy requirements for hummingbirds do not scale evenly with size increases, meaning a larger bird such as P. gigas requires more energy per gram to hover than a smaller bird. P. gigas requires a estimated 4300 calories per hour to sustain its flight.
This huge requirement, along with the low oxygen availability and thin air at the high altitudes at which the giant hummingbird lives, suggests that P. gigas is to be close to the viable maximum size for a hummingbird. P. gigas is feeds on nectar, visiting a range of flowers. The female giant hummingbird has been observed ingesting sources of calcium after the reproductive season to replenish the calcium used in egg production. A nectar-based diet is low in proteins and various minerals, this is countered by consuming insects on occasion. P. Gigas feeds from the flowers of the genus Puya in Chile, with which it enjoys a symbiotic relationship, trading pollination for food; as a large hovering bird at high altitudes, P. gigas has high metabolic requirements. It is known to feed from columnar cacti, including Oreocereus celsianus and Echinopsis atacamensis ssp. pasacana, Salvia haenkei. We do not know the exact scope of its diet, but
Central Bank of Bolivia
The Central Bank of Bolivia is the central bank of Bolivia, responsible for monetary policy and the issuance of banknotes. The current president of the BCB is Pablo Ramos Sánchez; the bank was established by Law 632, passed on July 20, 1928. On April 20, 1929, its name was changed to Banco Central de Bolivia, on July 1, 1929, the bank began operations. Bolivian boliviano Economy of Bolivia Banco Central de Bolivia official site
Bolivia
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