Comments by "" (@shauncameron8390) on "The Pathetic Economy Of North Korea" video.

  1. Exactly.
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  2.  @mikutsu5356  Puerto Rico, Guam, USVI, American Samoa, etc. are not starving.
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  3. So was South Korea by the North (USSR). Yet somehow once the bombing stopped, North Korea was wealthier than South Korea.
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  4. Because that's irrelevant to how the Kims ran the country into the ground even with all the financial help it got from China and the USSR. And what was South Korea's excuse as it was poorer at the end of the War?
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  5. Whatever, tankie!
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  6.  @elmohead  Not really. By GDP per capita, North Korea is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  7. Yet that didn't stop DPRK from being wealthier than ROK at the time the war ended.
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  8.  @inkbold8511  No. It's called Juan Peron.
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  9. It is when America hasn't terrorized North Korea since the Korean War. And North Korea is just using America to justify letting its citizens starve.
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  10. Embargoes are not responsible for mismanagement and incompetence.
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  11.  @elmohead  North Korea got plenty of Soviet and Chinese help and yet still went backwards. It's not South Korea's fault that North Korea squandered all the help they received and reduced itself to its current pathetic state.
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  12. Indeed. And North Korea is yet another country that proved Margaret Thatcher right.
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  13. LOL.
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  14. It's surviving on Chinese handouts.
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  15.  @abudgie6909  <people are quick to point out failed socialist states, but where are the successes of capitalism in Asia, Africa and Latin America> Chile, Costa Rica, Botswana, Rwanda, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea. And thanks to capitalist reforms, China and Vietnam. <Except that one was relentlessly bombed, sanctioned and condemned by the USA, while the other received economic aid.> Yet that didn't stop NK from being wealthier than SK when the bombing stopped. And NK received economic aid from the USSR. <And consider that the island has been under internationally condemned US sanctions since 1961. It essentially cannot import any goods.> Yet it has no problem getting food aid and remittances from the very same US just like it had no problem getting Soviet aid, Canadian tourism or free Venezuelan oil. Those sanctions were due to Castro seizing all the US-built and funded businesses.
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  16. Florida is anything but poor or pathetic.
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  17. LOL. But North Korea made poor use of the Soviet and Chinese aid it received.
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  18. What were Japan's or Germany's excuses as they both experienced what you mentioned?
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  19. <These sanctions cause the deaths of thousands of Koreans every year.> No they don't. You have NK's central planning and lack of a viable economy to thank for that even with all the Soviet and Chinese handouts.
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  20. Maybe North Korea wouldn't be embargoed if Kim wasn't threatening to nuke South Korea and Japan and actually spend money on economic development instead of keeping the military beholden to him.
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  21. LOL. North Korea's economy is among the top 50 worst.
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  22. Kleptocracy.
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  23. The former. Communism.
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  24. Forced collectivization of farmland resulting in production decline, shortages and starvation and central planning are results of a capitalist world?
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  25.  @nataliekhanyola5669  How come it didn't cripple Russia or Iran? It's not the sanctions' fault that most of the affected socialist states destroyed their own economies long before any sanction was imposed by price controls, land seizures and wholesale nationalizations of private enterprise killing off whatever tax base or domestic productivity they had like Venezuela.
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  26.  @muslimcrusader5987  LOL. Now that's a good joke!
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  27. It is a bad thing along with being kept ignorant of better options by the government desperate to cling to power.
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  28. More like pathetic excuses socialists keep regurgitating every other time their plans fail.
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  29. Or minimal at best.
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  30. But it's not SK's fault they made better use of that US aid while NK squandered the USSR and Chinese aid it received.
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  31. While North Korea's economy today is based on Chinese help.
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  32. Actually it's pretty pathetic. And Cuba, another communist country under the very same sanctions, is in a much better position.
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  33.  @jbmuggins8815  It's not the US's fault NK squandered all the Soviet and Chinese aid on nukes and keeping the Kims in power at all costs.
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  34. What food? North Korea imports most of its food as it doesn't produce enough to feed the people.
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  35.  @gunterxvoices4101  Maybe when NK stop trying to start a war with them.
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  36. The average American lives longer and better than the average North Korean.
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  37.  @lbesavant  You mean the North as the North is light years behind the South in development.
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  38. Sustainable how? It's living off of Chinese subsidies. God forbid if China cuts them off like the old USSR did in the 90's.
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  39.  @NotSure109  Specifically, the people of the old Yugoslavia.
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  40. The Kims cared more about themselves and military than the overall well-being of the country.
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  41. That's not saying much. And NK is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  42. Pretty much.
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  43. Not really. Most of North Korea's woes are self-inflicted.
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  44. Before that, it was the USSR.
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  45. Exactly. Even Karl Marx admitted that capitalism was the better system in the end and any society that foregoes profit maximization is setting itself up for obsolescence.
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  46. No. The sanctions are a recent thing. The damage was already done by the Kims.
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  47. And neither is a system dependent on infinite money and resources which don't exist even in the richest of countries to ostensibly make things fair and equal for all.
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  48. Why should South Korea give them some food?
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  49. No. How about the North Korean government stop starving the North Korean people with that command economy? Yes, because of communism. And interestingly is being kept afloat by US food aid and remittances. LOL @ Laos kicking anything. Laos like North Korea is just living off of Chinese handouts.
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  50. Simple. Its leadership ran the country into the ground worse than its global elite enemies could and has the audacity to blame them for their shortcomings and failures.
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  51. But hardly anyone aside from naive Westerners envy their model.
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  52. @Alberto Fuijimori Pretty much.
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  53.  @grunchidetrap476  Not really. China (namely for that Covid-19 thing) and North Korea are worthy of collapse.
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  54. Nope.
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  55. Brainwashed, helpless and dependent.
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  56.  @pace5865  Typical tankie response.
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  57. @jbl And use public services and infrastructure as a cover for what they really want. And that is a command economy.
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  58. Just ask China.
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  59. But its neighbors, China and Russia do.
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  60.  @nataliekhanyola5669  Sanctions and embargoes are not responsible for the Kim's mismanagement and incompetence.
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  61. While North Korea is backed by China.
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  62. At the hands of their own government.
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  63. Not nearly as much a command economies.
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  64. No. Before the US sanctions, North Korea was already on a decline. The North Korean government is what's been holding North Korea back.
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  65.  @muslimcrusader5987  While North Korea was communist dictatorship backed by Soviet and Chinese interests. Yet even with all that help, North Korea found a way to go backwards.
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  66. Cut off the Chinese aid.
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  67. LOL. No. North Korea is actually poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  68. @michael boultinghouse No they don't. They fear the Kim dynasty and they're forced to love it under threat of either themselves or their loved ones disappeared.
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  69. @michael boultinghouse I don't watch CNN.
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  70.  @weezersthebluealbum9479  Hardly. He's right.
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  71. Agreed.
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  72. Because it's of little consequence. Most of North Korea's economic problems are due to the North Korean government itself and its whole communist/central planning model. Wrong! Most people who die of starvation is entirely due to the North Korean government's policy of forced collectivization of farmland proven inefficient in producing enough to feed the country, hence the shortages. And it certainly doesn't help that most of whatever it does produce goes to the government.
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  73.  @grunchidetrap476  What private property? Everything is state-owned. The only huge amount of sanctions going on is that of the North Korean government against its own people.
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  74. Coupled with a helpless and dependent populace who have been discouraged from doing anything for themselves thanks to the benevolent social programs of said oppressive government dictatorship.
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  75. <I wish there was an actual example of a planned economy that was aimed with the actual goal of bettering the lives of its citizens (As far as I am aware that has not happened).> Bettering or really just controlling the lives of citizens with bribes of free stuff as in the case of most oil-rich Arab countries?
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  76.  @johnnewton3592  You're not going to find one as planned economies are not known for economic or personal freedom allowing people to improve their financial situation with limited government help. The common problem with many poor countries is the lack of economic freedom due to too much government.
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  77.  @nauticalnovice9244  Because famines in socialism are caused by government policy, not drought.
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  78.  @edensharma1629  No, but the military does. Like every other dictatorship, Can't afford to have the military turn on the government.
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  79. <If North Korea had 70 years of protection and economic aid> It did, courtesy of the USSR and China. And the Kims squandered it.
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  80. LOL. No. And not even close.
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  81.  @RunehearthCL  Not Costa Rica. Or most Caribbean countries.
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  82. But removing the sanctions is just enabling the regime all too happy to sacrifice the people just to stay in power.
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  83. All those countries are far ahead of North Korea.
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  84. <ON TOP of the fact that North Korea doesn’t have a single good economic mind in power.> That's not South Korea's problem. And it's not like communists were ever known for fiscal competence.
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  85. Maybe the effects were minimal at best? The sanctions are not responsible for NK's underdeveloped economy and regression even with all the Soviet and Chinese aid.
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  86. Like what Cambodia had with Pol Pot?
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  87. One problem, though. Communists are every bit as prone to corruption and evil and their track record leaves a lot to be desired.
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  88. Simple. Communism is an oxymoron.
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  89. Pretty much. Don't forget US remittances and renting out its medical labor force to other countries.
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  90. Being better than some bottom-tier countries isn't saying anything. North Korea isn't even better than Cambodia, another socialist/communist failure.
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  91. That's because Kim is just going to use the money to further enrich himself, his regime and the military. The common people can eat tree bark and feces for all he cares.
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  92.  @4.mnj1  Like post-Barre Somalia?
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  93. US sanctions is not what's stopping North Korea from prospering. It's the leadership and its model.
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  94. Judging by the result they produced, the differences are negligible.
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  95. And labor-outsourcing.
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  96. Because the last thing it needs is a pro-US capitalist country right at its doorstep.
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  97.  @croesuslydias6488  Exactly. And to top it off, some of those countries live in fear of Russia.
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  98.  @dregrant6828  Exactly.
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  99. Aside from maintaining regime loyalty so that the military doesn't turn on Kim and try to overthrow him.
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  100. No. They are starving and in duress because of Kim Jong-Un and his central planning communist model that has proven itself to be inefficient and inadequate.
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  101.  @neeneko  Um. No. You know that many 3rd world countries had or still have socialism as their main model since independence, right?
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  102.  @joplin8433  Thanks to the suburbs surrounding Detroit.
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  103. You mean Democrats.
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  104. Except the black market.
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  105. And it really doesn't help that the people in charge care more about feeding the military and staying in power letting citizens suffer than economic development.
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  106. While small nations have a unique hobby of blaming the Western world for their own incompetence and poor political and economic choices with North Korea being one example.
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  107. Or Iran. Or France. Or Pakistan. Or even South Africa before they voluntarily scrapped it.
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  108.  @ma.s2386  BS! NK has been strangled by the Kims who could barely be bothered to develop an actual economy of its own worthy of the Juche name. And even with all the Soviet and Chinese subsidies was and still is a basket case.
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  109. North Korea hardly does any manufacturing. China is what keeping it afloat.
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  110.  @jumboridesagain7336  No. That's North Korea.
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  111. Respect what? North Korea's economy is pathetic even with all the Chinese aid it gets.
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  112.  @henrylootens6578  North Korea began as a Soviet outpost.
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  113.  @blueciffer1653  Not in the case of Tanzania, Mongolia or Albania.
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  114.  @IMP_ROM  It is.
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  115. To keep the West via South Korea at bay.
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  116. Just like the USSR backed North Korea economically.
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  117.  @zelimirmarinovic6800  <Problems of the world woul be solved if the world bannes USA to set foot outside the atlantic.> LOL. Like what? I don't think you have any idea how worse off the world was before the US became a superpower. Especially with countries constantly at war against each other. Care to name another country with the US's political, military and economic might that can uphold and enforce world peace?
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  118. Maybe, but the countries the US supported made better use of the aid than the countries the Soviet Union supported.
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  119. Because it had little impact on the political and economic decisions NK made on its own and the results of them? And also, sanctions or no sanctions, the US and the West have no obligation to do business with North Korea.
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  120. It is bad.
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  121.  @Lord1885  Yes they are.
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  122. Namely in the capital. What about the rest of the country?
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  123. North Korea is as communist as they come. Total state control.
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  124. Or thrown into a labor camp.
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  125. From the wealthiest country in South America in the 1980's and 90's to the poorest country in South America right now.
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  126.  @croesuslydias6488  It also applies to nations that have gone socialist like Zimbabwe (Mugabe), Tanzania (Nyerere) and Venezuela (Maduro).
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  127. Bhutan would like a word with you on that.
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  128. Like much of Africa.
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  129. China needs North Korea as a buffer between itself and the US via South Korea.
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  130.  @flappingflight8537  Actually they don't produce much and are dependent on China for their goods including food.
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  131. Tell that to Rhodesians during the last years of Smith's rule.
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  132.  @elephantman2112  Or Ethiopia in the early 1980's.
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  133.  S, Lianis  That's not saying much when NK isn't militarily good enough to invade anyone.
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  134. Better than perpetually stunted development and state-imposed poverty.
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  135. Which are the results of central planning and centralized systems.
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  136. Oh yes it is. That is communism.
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  137. Not really. NK's beholden to China.
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  138. It's not the IMF or World Bank's fault that those nations bankrupted themselves with said different idea on how to run things prior to running to them for help.
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  139. Pretty much.
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  140. But is propped up by China. Used to be propped up by Russia.
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  141. LOL. North Korea doesn't care about economic development as much as keeping Kim in power and the military beholden to him. North Korea isolated itself. It's not called the Hermit Kingdom for nothing. And what is the lifting of sanctions going to accomplish besides further enriching the regime as the money will not reach the people anyway?
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  142. Only after it adopted capitalism.
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  143. Chinese subsidies.
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  144. That's leftists in general.
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  145.  @DarckAngel11  And they're not legally allowed to have an honest opinion.
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  146.  @hades2679  <Communism is a stateless classless society> Like post-socialist Somalia was?
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  147.  @mmercier0921  Exactly.
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  148. The country or the capital as that's the only part of the country that's developed? It figures when that's where all the elites live.
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  149.  @SR-wm1kr  Yet millions have no problem risking their lives to live in free-market capitalist countries. Hardly anyone is risking their lives to live in command-economy socialist/communist countries, not even the biggest socialist/communist cheerleader.
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  150.  @SR-wm1kr  What about Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Mongolia, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Benin? None of those countries were meddled with by so-called free-market powers and yet they still failed. Even ones that got said so-called free-market support like Somalia, Yugoslavia and Guyana.
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  151.  @josef7461  If not then they seized US-built and funded private enterprises without compensation as in the case of Cuba.
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  152.  @handsomejustin  Like Singapore? South Korea? Japan? Switzerland?
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  153. North Korea currently lives off of China. And before that, it was living off of the USSR. Yes it can be described as pathetic as it found a way to regress with all the help in the world.
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  154. And even harder with a severe command economy. The NK government is what's holding North Korea back, not US sanctions.
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  155. As if they were ever in any position to.
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  156.  @kingfish2703  They would if they could just like Haiti tried to invade the DR once.
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  157. But it will be long overdue.
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  158. And the DRC has been suffering from kleptocracies and political instability since independence.
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  159. Easy to have "full" employment when they had forced labor. 100% literacy yet no jobs aside from state jobs to make any use of it in. 0 homelessness due to the homeless being banished out to the countryside. Just like the Potemkin Village of their yesteryears.
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  160. BS! NK's government is what's holding NK's economy back. Not foreign sanctions. Maybe if you remove its central planning model and allow some private enterprise and actual economic development, it will grow.
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  161. The NK government is what's holding NK back, not the embargoes.
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  162.  @dopaminedreams1122  Very much.
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  163. It's hard for sanctions to kill an economy that hardly existed because the Kims barely even bothered to develop it. . And North Korea already hit rock-bottom before any sanction was imposed due to communism and mismanagement. <Because the Chinese are communist and have the best economy> Thanks to Deng's capitalist reforms and Clinton's outsourcing of US jobs.
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  164. No it's not. People are starving because NK's agricultural system isn't sufficient enough to feed everyone and depends on China for food which is a consequence of their centrally planned forced collectivization model.
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  165.  @user-xs1is9yd5o  But you have to generate revenue like a capitalist in order to spend like a socialist.
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  166. Yet they live off of China just they used to live off of the USSR. LOL @ them being self-reliant practicing Juche.
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  167. And succeeded. Otherwise they would have collapsed like every other communist regime.
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  168.  @dopaminedreams1122  Pretty much.
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  169. But they're kept afloat by Chinese subsidies.
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  170. Neither does Iceland.
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  171.  @AlexCab_49  And had US military protection so it didn't end up under the Soviet jackboot like the rest of Eastern Europe.
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  172. Under threat of jail, torture and death to either themselves or their loved ones if they don't.
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  173. Typical communist response every time an attempt at communism devolves into yet another sh*tshow.
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  174.  @tatertom2641  No. North Korea is being held hostage by North Korean government as they have hardly bothered to develop a viable economy since God knows when.
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  175. No. And not even close.
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  176. Don't forget Vietnam ending Cambodia's communism and Pol Pot's reign.
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  177. Naive Westerners and bitter 3rd-worlders.
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  178. Not at all. North Korea is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  179. North Korea is the worst Korea and a communist puppet of China.
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  180. The USSR.
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  181.  @DanaTheInsane  Yet the results they produce are more or less the same. Whether it's communist Cuba or socialist Nicaragua or Venezuela. Communist Cambodia or socialist Burma. Communist Ethiopia or socialist Tanzania or Somalia.
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  182. North Korea is Atheist heaven, though.
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  183. Capitalism (South Korea).
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  184. That's not saying much.
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  185. No talks of internal corruption and mismanagement?
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  186. Not as much as the overall inefficiency of communism as it cannot produce enough to sustain itself having to eventually rely on outside help to stay afloat.
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  187. Like Ethiopia? Or Yugoslavia even with Western support?
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  188.  @painfultruth1846  Only for human nature to rear its ugly head and it's back to square one.
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  189. Social is just codeword for state. And what Kim is doing is just par for the course.
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