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Fojar38 posted:I'd love to hear about the completely reliable data being used in this assessment. It comes from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization e: the economy growth statistics come from the SK central bank Red and Black fucked around with this message at 01:44 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 00:57
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https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/999792956402958336 Normal diplomacy. North Korea looking like the actual adults in the room by offering to still talk.
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May 25, 2018 01:19
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R. Guyovich posted:by all accounts dprk food security has been stable for years and the economy is growing at a faster rate than the eurozone. this idea the dprk is just limping along needs to go away. it hasn't been true since the 1990s or early 2000s at the latest Their economy is just going to hobble along crippled by sanctions. Meanwhile SK gets richer every year and actually makes progress leaving NK further behind in regards to K-pop girl bands. Waiting costs the US/SK nothing—they just live their lives like normal while NK gets left further behind. It’s NK that needs a deal not the other way around.
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May 25, 2018 01:37
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Chomskyan posted:It comes from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Neither of those organizations have access to the necessary data to accurately assess the state of North Korea's economy. The only ones who do are the North Korean government and it is not in their interest to release anything but positive data.
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May 25, 2018 02:03
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fishmech posted:I have no doubt that North Korea, a country that has spent 20 years recovering from near total collapse of society and economy, can post better percentage growth figures than 20 years of the Eurozone which started off rather well off and has mostly been stable ever since. 2% growth in the Eurozone means a vastly greater accumulation of wealth than 20% growth in North Korea. Not to mention that in order to take advantage of the single largest driver of commerce, efficiency and knowledge exchange over the past thirty years would require them opening themselves up to the Internet on a mass scale. Freedom of information exchange is rightly regarded as highly suspect in all socialist regimes. What's next...freedom of thought? Freedom of association?
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May 25, 2018 03:07
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What socialist regime? It's not exactly as if the average north Korean has any stake in the means of production.
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May 25, 2018 03:16
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I really thought the point of the North Korea summit was to pivot to demonizing Iran (moreso than usual) so we could wage a pointless and disastrous war there. Which would be stupid as poo poo, but at least there'd be an internal logic, right? But no, literally no one has any idea what they're doing in this administration. A chess grandmaster can think 10 moves ahead. These people think zero moves ahead, they just move their pieces around the board at random until they lose. Stairmaster posted:What socialist regime? It's not exactly as if the average north Korean has any stake in the means of production. Please do not summon Homework Explainer back into this thread.
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May 25, 2018 03:20
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https://twitter.com/thejihyelee/status/999809970467094528
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May 25, 2018 03:43
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Tacky-rear end Rococco posted:2% growth in the Eurozone means a vastly greater accumulation of wealth than 20% growth in North Korea. I don't think anyone anywhere thinks north korea is anything but very very poor right now. But a lot of people haven't mentally updated their picture of north korea since the 90s and treat the famine from 20 years ago as current events when all indications are that korea is now just regular very poor like a bunch of other third world countries are poor instead of the absurd levels of hunger and collapse it was facing in the 90s where it was basically as close to real life apocalypse fiction as you get. They basically have upgraded from widespread starvation to widespread malnutrition and that still isn't a great way to live, but it's not how it was in the past either.
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May 25, 2018 04:12
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https://twitter.com/ShibleyTelhami/status/999833579856285696
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May 25, 2018 04:56
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Was wondering since the "it may still happen" comment if this was effectively a threat to cancel disguised as an actual cancellation, and now sounding more like that's the case.
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May 25, 2018 06:39
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My take on the North Korea situation: For decades, the leaders of North Korea were the craziest man in the room. Nobody really wanted a war, and this allowed NK to say and do whatever they wanted, as long as they occasionally set up talks and acted like they might possibly play nice. Everyone else had to be the reasonable adult and try to compromise, because - this guy's crazy! Who knows what he'll do?! With the election of Donald Trump, there's now a new craziest man in the room. Now Trump is the one who might possibly go start a war just for the hell of it, which forces North Korea to take on the role of being reasonable and responsible, because NK doesn't really want their country destroyed in a war. The question is how Trump will use this advantage. If he's just acting like the craziest man in the room, or if he listens to wiser voices around him, he might actually force North Korea to do all sorts of things that nobody else has been able to get them to do. On the other hand, sometimes the craziest man in the room really is crazy, and goes and gets everyone into a nice big war just for the hell of it.
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May 25, 2018 07:27
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For Trump to reap the advantages of being the stupidest loving person in the room would require him not to be the stupidest loving person in the room. A paradox if there ever was one
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May 25, 2018 07:40
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Vladimir Putin posted:Their economy is just going to hobble along crippled by sanctions. Meanwhile SK gets richer every year and actually makes progress leaving NK further behind in regards to K-pop girl bands. Waiting costs the US/SK nothing—they just live their lives like normal while NK gets left further behind. It’s NK that needs a deal not the other way around. The South Korean economic boom of the late twentieth century already happened. Now the economy is stalled much like Europe is, and Moon Jae-in has only just started to repair the abominally lovely reputation the South Korean government has for favoring handouts to giant corporations while normal people are stuck working increasingly hellish work weeks for increasingly little pay. And he may yet fail. A lot of the naivete on Korean peninsula issues is twofold. It's not just that people assume the worst possible interpretation of North Korean data to the point that Fojar38 posted:Neither of those organizations have access to the necessary data to accurately assess the state of North Korea's economy. they literally refuse to believe any non-negative information on the dumbest excuses. It's also that very few people have any idea what South Korean politics is actually like. It's very fundamentally ludicrous to assume that the South Korea government will use the power of money to bring freedom and a high standard of living to the North Korean people when up until recently, they weren't even willing to do that for their own people. Wealth inequality is the bedrock upon which North Korea's anti-South Korea propaganda is based. In a way they actually kind of have to engage with Moon, because he's such a obviously vast improvement over Park Geun-hye they can't drag him through the mud as easily.
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May 25, 2018 08:56
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fishmech posted:I have no doubt that North Korea, a country that has spent 20 years recovering from near total collapse of society and economy, can post better percentage growth figures than 20 years of the Eurozone which started off rather well off and has mostly been stable ever since. good thing i was using it as evidence conditions in the dprk are improving rather than as proof they've outstripped europe in quality of life metrics and everyone is zooming around in futurama tubes fojar won't read this but here's a source https://apjjf.org/2014/12/18/Henri-Feron/4113/article.html
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May 25, 2018 09:13
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R. Guyovich posted:good thing i was using it as evidence conditions in the dprk are improving rather than as proof they've outstripped europe in quality of life metrics and everyone is zooming around in futurama tubes I did read it, actually, and the only decent argument in that entire essay is that North Korea is probably experiencing a trade boom (relative to the previous state of virtually no trade whatsoever). The rest of it leans on the DPRK's self-reported figures, and Westerners who were shown around Pyongyang by state handlers, mixed with a bunch of "it would be logical to assume" and "it would be reasonable to believe" and other kinds of sophistry. I thought it was pretty funny that a guy spent so many words essentially claiming North Korea is fine and SK and Japan are loser idiots and the US should throw in the towel because his crystal ball said so, but then I noticed he wants a PhD from Tsinghua for some reason, and so it's smart of him to grease the wheels as necessary.
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May 25, 2018 09:59
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Tsingtao is a super prestigious university (I believe the president of China has a degree from there) and anybody should be happy with a PhD from there.
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May 25, 2018 12:31
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Orange Sunshine posted:My take on the North Korea situation: GWB was the one to deliberately torpedo the last agreement with North Korea. The US has frequently been the more erratic and unpredictable negotiating partner in the past few decades, and that strategy hasn't really been borne out by the results. The idea that the N. Koreans would really like to be irrational but are being shocked into sobriety out of fear of Trump is... I don't know the right word - infantalizing, maybe? Approaching Westmoreland territory. Juffo-Wup fucked around with this message at 12:47 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 12:36
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I don't think there's a lot of evidence that the North is afraid of Trump given that they escalated their testing and proved their ICBM capability at the same time he was making the loudest threats.
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May 25, 2018 13:07
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Fojar38 posted:I did read it, actually, and the only decent argument in that entire essay is that North Korea is probably experiencing a trade boom (relative to the previous state of virtually no trade whatsoever). The rest of it leans on the DPRK's self-reported figures, and Westerners who were shown around Pyongyang by state handlers, mixed with a bunch of "it would be logical to assume" and "it would be reasonable to believe" and other kinds of sophistry. Is there any specific reason to doubt that the economy of NK has improved since the time they had the worst famine in their entire history? Is there any reason to like, reject multiple sources saying it including the UN and go with "maybe it did, maybe it didn't"? Other than "I got a mental image of korea and gently caress you if you think I'm updating it".
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May 25, 2018 13:10
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Anyway, by looking at specifically relative trade data, you can tell the structure of the North Korean economy changed even if North Korean exports (officially) to China dropped since Chinese exports to North Korea are obviously still going strong since China is happy to subsidize North Korea with credits. Also, 2015 data shows North Korea has actually diversified exports to an extent from simply coal and now has a pretty active export-oriented textile industry. Import data also shows actually a fairly diverse mix of goods as well including consumer goods. If North Korea was on the edge of famine like in the 1990s, why are still importing such a wide variety of consumer and industrial goods and relatively little food? Why has volume clearly increased? Also, there is also growing evidence at least in Pyongyang there is a fairly active economy, including private auto traffic, and satellite data has confirmed infrastructure construction in the countryside as well as the growth of central marketplaces. If you want to make the arguement that North Korea is still far behind, fine, but to pretend they just were trapped in time, it is very hard to ignore trade data. So the regime has the choice of the current path were development is continuing to happen with the safety of nuclear weapons, or to unilaterally give them up hoping that the US lives up to its word in exchange for "maybe" sanction relief.
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May 25, 2018 14:43
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Ardennes posted:So the regime has the choice of the current path were development is continuing to happen with the safety of nuclear weapons, or to unilaterally give them up hoping that the US lives up to its word in exchange for "maybe" sanction relief. Well, that's a poo poo choice, and framed like that of course they have to keep their nukes. But nukes are expensive, and despite many, many provocations, we haven't gone to war with them in 70 years, so maybe just seek an easing of tensions so that they can use the funds from a nuclear and military drawdown to continue to develop the economy to Cuba-like levels. Unlike Iran, where AIPAC lusts for Iranian death every day, there's no real lobby for war with North Korea. The South Koreans are explicitly opposed, Japan has expressed no enthusiasm, and oh yeah, just like last time, NK's biggest ally is China, the single state we do not want to mess around with most.
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May 25, 2018 15:02
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Tacky-rear end Rococco posted:Well, that's a poo poo choice, and framed like that of course they have to keep their nukes. But nukes are expensive, and despite many, many provocations, we haven't gone to war with them in 70 years, so maybe just seek an easing of tensions so that they can use the funds from a nuclear and military drawdown to continue to develop the economy to Cuba-like levels. Maintaining nukes isn't going to be as expensive as the program to build them and their delivery systems in the first place, and if anything allows the North Koreans to shift funding from other parts of defense. It is obvious the US is seeking complete surrender while basically teasing that we are completely untrustworthy and that we will still destroy them the second they let down their defenses. SK, on the other hand, seems to be willing to negotiate with some degree of honesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some improvements going forward even if it isn't a comprehensive agreement. North Korea obviously won't get rid of its nuclear weapons just through negotiations with South Korea but there are could be some type of timeline put in place. In the end, South Korea isn't a colony of the US, and if they wanted to move forward on bilateral negotiations they have the ability to even if they can't control the existence of US troops or unilaterally the end war (although they can essentially defacto end it). There is no reason for NK to trust the US through especially now and the US media would probably still be down for a war...really any war. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 15:34 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 15:25
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OneEightHundred posted:Was wondering since the "it may still happen" comment if this was effectively a threat to cancel disguised as an actual cancellation, and now sounding more like that's the case. Yuuuuup.
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May 25, 2018 16:44
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Juffo-Wup posted:
The North Korean people, of course, have no say at all, living in a police state. Assuming you meant the leadership, I think what I'm saying is not terribly controversial, and is basic human psychology. If two people or groups have mixed feelings on a topic, they will often take up opposing sides on the issue. If one side unilaterally takes an extreme position, this forces the other side into being the reasonable party, or else both sides go extreme at the same time. During a negotiation which both sides want to succeed, the more unreasonable person is more likely to get what they want, as this forces the other person to either be reasonable or let the whole thing fall apart. On the other hand, the unreasonable person is also more likely to have negotiations collapse on them, so it's not a risk free strategy.
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May 25, 2018 18:08
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Ardennes posted:Maintaining nukes isn't going to be as expensive as the program to build them and their delivery systems in the first place, and if anything allows the North Koreans to shift funding from other parts of defense. It is obvious the US is seeking complete surrender while basically teasing that we are completely untrustworthy and that we will still destroy them the second they let down their defenses. SK, on the other hand, seems to be willing to negotiate with some degree of honesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some improvements going forward even if it isn't a comprehensive agreement. North Korea obviously won't get rid of its nuclear weapons just through negotiations with South Korea but there are could be some type of timeline put in place. In the end, South Korea isn't a colony of the US, and if they wanted to move forward on bilateral negotiations they have the ability to even if they can't control the existence of US troops or unilaterally the end war (although they can essentially defacto end it). If NK and SK were to negotiate without the US what do you think a good outcome would be?
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May 25, 2018 18:24
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Ardennes posted:Maintaining nukes isn't going to be as expensive as the program to build them and their delivery systems in the first place, and if anything allows the North Koreans to shift funding from other parts of defense. It is obvious the US is seeking complete surrender while basically teasing that we are completely untrustworthy and that we will still destroy them the second they let down their defenses. SK, on the other hand, seems to be willing to negotiate with some degree of honesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some improvements going forward even if it isn't a comprehensive agreement. North Korea obviously won't get rid of its nuclear weapons just through negotiations with South Korea but there are could be some type of timeline put in place. In the end, South Korea isn't a colony of the US, and if they wanted to move forward on bilateral negotiations they have the ability to even if they can't control the existence of US troops or unilaterally the end war (although they can essentially defacto end it). Also, the main things NK presumably wants are 1) assurances of security for the regime and 2) trade/elimination of sanctions. Without the US, SK can't really do anything about 1, so that leaves only 2. If SK additionally announces they're going to start ignoring US sanctions against NK, how do you think the Trump administration is going to react to that?
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May 25, 2018 18:59
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mystes posted:So let's say NK and SK ignore the US and negotiate an incremental approach to denuclearize that directly contradicts the US's stated requirement for immediate complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. How do you think the Trump administration is going to react to that? Yeah I agree with this. And I would add that if SK risked it and settled any kind of agreement without US involvement the only way it would work is a total reordering of that region. SK would have to seek allies that can counter the US in that region. And really that means China, so that SK would swing quickly from a US ally to a strong Chinese ally in exchange for a peace that probably doesn’t resolve reunification. That’s not really a great move in my opinion.
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May 25, 2018 20:54
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Is there any specific reason to doubt that the economy of NK has improved since the time they had the worst famine in their entire history? Is there any reason to like, reject multiple sources saying it including the UN and go with "maybe it did, maybe it didn't"? Other than "I got a mental image of korea and gently caress you if you think I'm updating it". Oh, it's probably improved, but the extent to which is has is unknown. And get this; all those sources, including the UN, have to get their data from somewhere, and unless they're getting it directly from the NK government all they have is wobbly proxies. The thing about economic data that people don't seem to realize is that it's virtually entirely self-reported, even when it shows up in IMF or UN statistics. The entire thing is based on the honor system, so "is this a country where data is likely to be presented for political rather than economic purposes" is a pertinent question that always needs to be asked. poo poo, one of the biggest problems with the post-Bretton Woods international financial system is that it assumes everyone will report accurate data because it is in everyone's economic interests to do so, even though it has since expanded to encompass numerous autocratic states where data is political, not economic.
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May 25, 2018 21:58
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https://twitter.com/YonhapNews/status/1000108380751519744
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May 25, 2018 23:04
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Orange Sunshine posted:The North Korean people, of course, have no say at all, living in a police state. Assuming you meant the leadership, I think what I'm saying is not terribly controversial, and is basic human psychology. If two people or groups have mixed feelings on a topic, they will often take up opposing sides on the issue. If one side unilaterally takes an extreme position, this forces the other side into being the reasonable party, or else both sides go extreme at the same time. I think when you're at the point of drawing conclusions about geopolitics from first-principles speculation about psychology, of all things, you're not going to find much room to be 'not very controversial.' That, plus, you've ignored the possibility (which was the point of my earlier post to indicate) that the North Korean leadership is behaving basically rationally because they're basically rational, and always have been, rather than that they've been 'forced into' that position, apparently by some sort of Nixonian madman theory nonsense.
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May 26, 2018 01:41
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https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1000174070061813761?s=21 Now the summit may be back on. 
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May 26, 2018 01:43
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Fojar38 posted:Oh, it's probably improved, but the extent to which is has is unknown. And get this; all those sources, including the UN, have to get their data from somewhere, and unless they're getting it directly from the NK government all they have is wobbly proxies. I think you are absolutely right that any sort of detailed information from north korea is nearly impossible, but at the same time it's not really wakanda, it's closed to western and american visitors but has generally had periods recently of being as reasonably open with some other countries. Like in no way would I claim that a guy from china visiting his grand uncle or a chinese company pouring concrete for some waterline are getting inside information to the point they can estimate tonnage of corn produced then report it to the US, but at the same time it limits the level of really wacky deception north korea could be pulling. If they say they are making 8.4 tons of sorghum or something and it's really 7.2 that seems like a thing they'd get away with but it's not so infinitely closed up they could hide a near universal famine that was killing up to 5% of the population a year with an average ration less than a third of what the UN says is the minimum needed to live like was going on in the 90s without someone bothering to mention that was happening.
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May 26, 2018 02:00
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North korea has a great slave trade route too guys. Booming economy. great folks those koreans, love korean bbq. Glad kims giving his people a great deal.
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May 26, 2018 07:47
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Now now. Technically it's impossible for us to know anything about North Korea. It may well be a magical land where the natives wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people, with all information indicating otherwise simply being an elaborate front by the North Korean government intended to deceive us. Why, those crazy North Koreans must think we're morons!Fojar38 posted:poo poo, one of the biggest problems with the post-Bretton Woods international financial system is that it assumes everyone will report accurate data because it is in everyone's economic interests to do so, even though it has since expanded to encompass numerous autocratic states where data is political, not economic. As in, morons stupid enough to believe that data anywhere is economic rather than political. You might have noticed that America's currently god-awful situation is correlated in large part our supposedly democratic press spending the better part of two years huffing their own farts about how obviously impossible it was for Trump become president because America Is Already Great. And we're not the only ones.
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May 26, 2018 09:22
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any info leaking about the sudden Kim/Moon meeting?
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May 26, 2018 14:15
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https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/1000345442528497664
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May 26, 2018 14:43
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They are saying they just discussed how to have the summit between North Korea and the US. The whole summit was arranged between NK and SK in the first place so this isn't that interesting a development necessarily. https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-south-koreas-moon-meet-amid-uncertainty-over-u-s-summit-1527334020 quote:The two leaders exchanged frank opinions on the implementation of the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration and the successful staging of a U.S.-North Korean summit,” said Yoon Young-chan, a spokesman for South Korea’s presidential office, in a statement Saturday evening.
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May 26, 2018 15:14
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SK is going to get burned playing the middle man
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May 26, 2018 15:15
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It's incredible that this meeting is technically cancelled when everybody involved, and the American President in particular, is so thirsty for it.
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May 26, 2018 16:37
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