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Outside poorest central asia and sub-saharan africa, North Korea is the poorest. Certainly was in 90-s. Now it's getting better thanks to small business, trade
by guard-of-terra 12y ago
Outside poorest central asia and sub-saharan africa, North Korea is the poorest.
Certainly was in 90-s. Now it's getting better thanks to small business, trade with China and limited agri reforms,
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoThere are probably some countries in SE Asia that are poorer (New Guinea, Myanmar, Laos, maybe even Cambodia). If DPRK reunited with ROK (under the ROK government, of course), it would probably only take a generation or so to catch up to ROK. They have a culture of high literacy and industry, only their government is holding them back (less developed countries have much less to work with).
- guard-of-terra 12y agoEven ex-DDR still did not catch up with the rest of Germany - and one generation did pass. And they were just 3x poorer, where DPRK is more like 15x poorer than ROK. I doubt that SE countries you listed lost 100k+ people due to hunger (in 90-s and 00-s anyway). Sure they are poor, but they can handle it better than command economy. They're used to be poor, not shocked by it.
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoThere are just SE countries that haven't been rich and have or are are going through their fair share of poor governance. My only point was that there are plenty of other ways to be poor, even poorer. Now I have to get back to my view screen in my beijing apartment, 大哥 is watching.