Wednesday, June 3, 2009

North Korean Money...

I found this interesting article about where Kim Jong Il and North Korea get their money for "nukes". The article goes on to "disprove" many myths surrounding both North Korean poverty and its supposedly stagnant economy. It was interesting to see that the North Korean military gets up to 40% of the annual budget, and the country also makes money from investments in various stock exchanges (yes, this includes the NYSE), selling its gold reserves, and from a relatively small black market missile production/sales operation. Considering how we have recently been talking about South Korean economic growth it was interesting to see that North Korea "now aims to shift from recovery to growth, with a focus on steel production, mining and light-industrial manufacturing," or, it seems, at least partially, to be focusing on some similar aspects adopted earlier by South Korea. Interesting article...

1 comment:

  1. That is an interesting article. I, too, had come to think of North Korea as an impoverished nation, hopefully in the dusk of its existence. So, assuming that they are making more money than we think/thought, why is it that we (America) and other nations continue to send aid? Perhaps we have discontinued that practice--I am not sure. If we still are, however, are we supposed to be picking up the slack of the "Dear Leader" by feeding his people when he ought to be? I wonder how exactly he explained the incoming-aid to his people, when their "Joo-chae" ideology is centered on, amongst a few other things, self-sufficiency?

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