Good Friends say North Koreans have rallied against the new rules in defiant shows of protest in a country where opposition earns severe punishment.

“When people talk about (leader) Kim Jong Il, they just call him ‘Jong Il’ not like in the past when they referred to him as ‘great general comrade Kim Jong Il,”‘ Seo said.

The affront comes at a great risk. If caught, they would be sent to one of the North’s notorious political prison camps, he said.

If true, I see it as further indication of the unraveling.

And just to thank Kushibo for re-posting his comment after I stupidly deleted it, I’ll recommend you read his post on the sacking of Pak Nam-Ki. Give credit where it’s due: Kushibo saw the significance of the currency revaluation immediately.

Ha ha, thanks for the hat tip. I just wish I had been able to recall the wording I’d used in the first one, which I think was better.

Anyway, as far as seeing the significance of this particular move, I think it has to do with the public health and sociology background from which I’m approaching this. What happens in North Korea has political science aspects, economic aspects, and sociology aspects, among others, often all rolled together, and to gain a grasp on what’s going on we need a variety of people all giving their input. Trying to channel C. Wright Mills has served me well (imagining yourself in a given sociological situation and then trying to predict the social, political, and legal mechanisms which would guide or deter behavior), even if I think a lot of stuff coming out of sociology is froufrou crap that misses the point because of him.

This is likely to be further bad news for North Korea. There is always a premium to exchange gold, a discount from the official gold price. The DPRK’s dollar forgeries mean that the premium to exchange gold for dollar notes is likely to be high — but if the punishment for holding large quantities of foreign currency is death, then the incentive to sell all foreign notes is extremely high, with the result that the internal quantity of foreign currency will diminish, with the government eventually holding a disproportionate quantity of its own forged dollars. In an unstable currency like North Korea’s, foreign exchange reserves are stabilizers — and I think they are parlously low on that form of stability.

Gold has always been a hedge in times of financial crisis — and I suspect “merchants” and senior military officers for their own account are cutting their losses by buying gold at a huge paper loss, — but also officials with access to foreign funds must do so too. that creates its own problems for institutional loyalty to the regime.

The recent order to identify and return “reserve” foodstuffs is not just a potential famine relief procedure, but it is also a way to suss out those officials who have already depleted official food stocks in the black market. Their motives could be private gain, or simple humanity in local distribution to their workforce. Nonetheless, their punishment is likely to be death, and their loyalty is suspect as a group and individually. Likewise, “bankers” or custodians of foreign funds who are called upon to account for their monetary supplies are also likely to be disloyal if they have used their funds to buy gold wafers.

As you know, I think that regime change by military intervention with the consent of China is imminent — and this is another group of disaffected but enterprising citizens who will go with the flow against the Kims. But, beside mere speculation, is there any general understanding of the gold wafer trade to North Korea?

Anyway, the comment was drawing your attention to news about the sacking of Pak. Ha ha, as if you wouldn’t have picked up on this yourself.

In my own post about that, I also noted, regarding Daily NK’s news that the markets are being reopened, that even if this means food will be back on the shelves and starvation will be staved off for many, that doesn’t necessarily remove the impetus for people to rise up. After all, their savings have still been obliterated and moreover, they have now gotten a taste of how displays of anger and threats of violence can be used to challenge the authorities.

I think I said it better the first time, but that was the gist.