Search Results for: kaesong

No, they’re not “officially” taxes; they’re merely mandatory payments the state collects from citizens. Whatever nomenclature you choose, North Korea is sharply increasing them, having already raised prices dramatically in the course of what it has euphemistically dubbed “economic reform.” In actuality, North Korea is a society with deep state-imposed class divisions, which means that the poor inevitably do most of the starving and dying when the state changes its systems for the collection and distribution of capital. This Amnesty...

What Not to Buy: Via the Nomad, Kaesong “peace pots” will be labelled “Made in DPRK.” Why am I so suspicious? This guy, in part.

What Not to Buy: Via the Nomad, Kaesong “peace pots” will be labelled “Made in DPRK.” Why am I so suspicious? This guy, in part.

Just how out-of-touch is Roh Moo-Hyun with U.S. public opinion, not to mention reality? He’s asked George W. Bush to tag along with him for a visit to the Dear Leader’s workshop in Kaesong. No, this is not from Scrappleface. I say make it a package deal, as long as they both tour Camp 22 first. UPDATE: The Joongang Ilbo reports, via Roh, that Bush accepted, (!) or at least “responded positively.” Later on in the story, the Blue House...

Just how out-of-touch is Roh Moo-Hyun with U.S. public opinion, not to mention reality? He’s asked George W. Bush to tag along with him for a visit to the Dear Leader’s workshop in Kaesong. No, this is not from Scrappleface. I say make it a package deal, as long as they both tour Camp 22 first. UPDATE: The Joongang Ilbo reports, via Roh, that Bush accepted, (!) or at least “responded positively.” Later on in the story, the Blue House...

. . . but I’d bet someone a cup of coffee that before the end of January, we’ll hear that the real cause of the tsunami was secret U.S. nuclear testing, or some other equally goofy blood-in-the-matzo conspiracy theory. Takers? Americans–The New Jews! UPDATE: Umm, I think I’ll call this guy crazy instead. Another Korea blogger no less–the seeing eye blog–is angling to win me my year’s supply of macchiato. I’d never actually read his blog, but what a hoot,...

. . . but I’d bet someone a cup of coffee that before the end of January, we’ll hear that the real cause of the tsunami was secret U.S. nuclear testing, or some other equally goofy blood-in-the-matzo conspiracy theory. Takers? Americans–The New Jews! UPDATE: Umm, I think I’ll call this guy crazy instead. Another Korea blogger no less–the seeing eye blog–is angling to win me my year’s supply of macchiato. I’d never actually read his blog, but what a hoot,...

Who are the real reformers in North Korea? Forget Kaesong. It might just be these people.

Who are the real reformers in North Korea? Forget Kaesong. It might just be these people.

A few days ago, I blogged here that a careful listener would hear secondary explosions near the Blue House during the visit of the mercurial neocon sage Michael Horowitz to Seoul. And without further ado . . . ka-BOOM! Horowitz once advocated changing North Korea through a process like the old Helsinki process, one that I consider hopelessly naive in the North Korean context. Since then, however, Horowitz has joined the militant wing, and Norbert Vollertsen sticks close to Horowitz...

A few days ago, I blogged here that a careful listener would hear secondary explosions near the Blue House during the visit of the mercurial neocon sage Michael Horowitz to Seoul. And without further ado . . . ka-BOOM! Horowitz once advocated changing North Korea through a process like the old Helsinki process, one that I consider hopelessly naive in the North Korean context. Since then, however, Horowitz has joined the militant wing, and Norbert Vollertsen sticks close to Horowitz...

. . . or the sneakier “Made in DPRK” will be the marking on stuff made in Kaesong. So just how much embodied slave labor would it take to make a product carry that label? What if, the leather and plastic come from South Korea and the cutting and stitching are done in the North? Two years ago it was already common to see North Korean stuff for sale in Seoul. I remember several specific examples–walnuts, shoes, generators. The opportunities...

. . . or the sneakier “Made in DPRK” will be the marking on stuff made in Kaesong. So just how much embodied slave labor would it take to make a product carry that label? What if, the leather and plastic come from South Korea and the cutting and stitching are done in the North? Two years ago it was already common to see North Korean stuff for sale in Seoul. I remember several specific examples–walnuts, shoes, generators. The opportunities...

. . . or the sneakier “Made in DPRK” will be the marking on stuff made in Kaesong. So just how much embodied slave labor would it take to make a product carry that label? What if, the leather and plastic come from South Korea and the cutting and stitching are done in the North? Two years ago it was already common to see North Korean stuff for sale in Seoul. I remember several specific examples–walnuts, shoes, generators. The opportunities...

That question requires the unique combination of self-delusion and chutzpah unique to Oh My News. It’s a long, rambling, illogical piece, full of shallow pretensions at understanding America (and for that matter, North Korea). In the process, it touches on everything from Survivor to South Park, without really ever addressing the perfectly good reasons that have united the most polarized American electorate ever in universal contempt for the Dear Leader. By the end of Mr. Kang’s piece, you will be...

That question requires the unique combination of self-delusion and chutzpah unique to Oh My News. It’s a long, rambling, illogical piece, full of shallow pretensions at understanding America (and for that matter, North Korea). In the process, it touches on everything from Survivor to South Park, without really ever addressing the perfectly good reasons that have united the most polarized American electorate ever in universal contempt for the Dear Leader. By the end of Mr. Kang’s piece, you will be...

I�ve always considered myself a free trader, believing that markets do a much better job than regulations when it comes to determining wages and prices. Thirty years ago, there were 40 or 50 wars raging across the world, and famines and plagues in China and India would kill tens of thousands of people. The world, for all its problems, is much better than that today, and I attribute most of that change to two things: the end of Soviet support...

Owen Rathbone has been on a roll this week, which may explain why he’s been getting hate mail from at least one reader. You couldn’t inspire this kind of blind vitriol without having struck the nerve that only unpleasant truths can reach. The correspondent didn’t identify himself, but you don’t need to go far out on a limb to figure that he’s an angry young Korean, dancing to the nong-ak drums of Roh Moo-Hyun’s Red Guards. The muddled thought behind...