Stay Classy, Pyongyang
A cautionary tale for macroeconomists everywhere. Why does this not surprise me anymore?
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea executed an official of the ruling party last week, holding him responsible for unrest sparked by a botched currency revaluation aimed at reasserting the regime’s grip on power, according to media reports.
Pak Nam Gi, who was fired earlier this year from his post as Workers’ Party head of finance and planning, was shot in Pyongyang for intentionally harming the country’s economy, Yonhap News reported, citing people it didn’t identify. Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors in Seoul, yesterday reported widespread rumors of the execution.
Read the whole thing, and wonder.
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Re: a botched currency
Re: a botched currency revaluation aimed at reasserting the regime’s grip on power
Inflation was not a problem; the revaluation was apparently done for political purposes (to reassert control vs. what exists of a middle class, and perhaps ostensibly to punish corrupt officials who have enriched themselves). The descriptor "botched" for the revaluation begs the question of whether or not such a revaluation under such circumstances could have been done well (not "botched), as opposed to such adverse consequences being an inevitable result of such action.
I'm reminded of when, in the mid-80s, Secretary of State Shultz called the Sandinistas "a bunch of incompetent Marxists". Would he have preferred they be competent Marxists? And how well can Marxists perform as managers of an economy?