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Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: MicroBalrog on July 20, 2012, 06:03:53 AM

Title: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 20, 2012, 06:03:53 AM
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/20/us-korea-north-idUSBRE86J08X20120720

Quote
The source added that the cabinet had created a special bureau to take control of the decaying economy from the military - one of the world's largest - which under Kim's father was given pride of place in running the country.

Russian media state further that this occurred at Chinese pressure, and that reforms along the Chinese model are expected.

Millions of starving North Koreans, willing to work cheaply in manufacturing:  soon.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: Boomhauer on July 20, 2012, 10:43:39 AM
And you thought Chinese goods were hit and miss in the QC department...

Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: lee n. field on July 20, 2012, 10:55:06 AM
Quote
Millions of starving North Koreans, willing to work cheaply in manufacturing:  soon.

Yep, you just watch.  The Chicoms price themselves right out of business, and the Norks pick up.  Starving brainwashed industrial serfs making iphones in Foxconn's Pyongyang factory compound.

I've wondered for a while where that chain ends.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: slingshot on July 20, 2012, 10:56:52 AM
This would not surprise me about North Korea.  As a country, I see no reason why they can't do what China did in terms of manufacturing.  The time is coming when manufacturing will be returning to the USA as costs rise in China in particular.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 20, 2012, 11:07:25 AM
This would not surprise me about North Korea.  As a country, I see no reason why they can't do what China did in terms of manufacturing.  The time is coming when manufacturing will be returning to the USA as costs rise in China in particular.

Why wouldn't they move to India? Or African countries?
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: slingshot on July 20, 2012, 11:15:24 AM
India is doing very well.  My sense is that most African governments are not sufficiently stable to attract businesses on a major scale. Plus they don't have the infrastructure to support a lot of development.  I suspect North Korea has a similar problem,
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 20, 2012, 11:30:27 AM
India is doing very well.  My sense is that most African governments are not sufficiently stable to attract businesses on a major scale. Plus they don't have the infrastructure to support a lot of development.  I suspect North Korea has a similar problem,

I seem to remember that there are several African countries experiencing very significant growth, especially with Chinese help.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: slingshot on July 20, 2012, 11:39:09 AM
I can't quote references, but my understanding is that China has been investing in mineral development in Africa.  I suspect China wants to control commodities for future gain and control.  Unless something has changed in the last 10 years, African mining in general is very labor intensive.  The same could be said about some of the South American mining projects, but that has been changing a lot since the early 1980's there.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: brimic on July 20, 2012, 12:20:27 PM
Leading civilizations have been trying to mine and grow subharan Africa since at least the time of the Pharoahs...
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: Scout26 on July 20, 2012, 12:44:54 PM
Or not.


http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-says-u-hostility-forcing-reexamine-nuclear-114332820.html


Kim Jong-un is rattling the nuclear saber again.

Hostility???  I thought we had been pretty much ignoring them....
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: AJ Dual on July 20, 2012, 05:47:47 PM
Or not.
http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-says-u-hostility-forcing-reexamine-nuclear-114332820.html


Kim Jong-un is rattling the nuclear saber again.

Hostility???  I thought we had been pretty much ignoring them....

Eh.. Just as likely a pro-forma display of militancy to help control things with the DPRK military, now that General whoever-it-was has caught a bullet in the head.

If this actually moves things along in a positive direction for the Norks, I think that once they get out of the Vietnam/Nike phase of things, they have a potential future running the entire country as an amusement park with a mock-totalitarianism theme.
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: brimic on July 20, 2012, 05:48:28 PM
Quote
Hostility???  I thought we had been pretty much ignoring them....
Maybe we are hostile in a passive-aggressive sort of way by ignoring them...
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: Blakenzy on July 20, 2012, 10:26:52 PM
Quote
Hostility???  I thought we had been pretty much ignoring them....

If by ignoring you mean stationing a garrison of ~28,000 troops on their border... then yeah, we've been doing that for many, many decades  =D

Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: red headed stranger on July 21, 2012, 09:39:54 AM


Millions of starving North Koreans, willing to work cheaply in manufacturing:  soon.

It's already happening:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/world/asia/07kaesong.html
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: Scout26 on July 21, 2012, 04:15:32 PM
Re: Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are a couple of central African countries that have been somewhat stable for a while and have been developing their textile industry (seems to be the first "industry" a country develops).  I remember seeing more and more Land's End clothing coming from Mauritania, Mali, Central African Republic, Cameroon and couple others I disremember.  The first year at Central States, I handled LE, and there was nothing coming from Africa.  By the time I left about 15-20% of all they imported was from Africa.  
Title: Re: Your next investment location - North Korea.
Post by: Perd Hapley on July 21, 2012, 04:27:11 PM
Yup. Japan and South Korea (with a little push from their Japanese conquerors a few decades ago) developed to the point that they could build quality automobiles and pretty much anything else. So the cheap manufacture of smaller, less complex items moved to places like Singapore and China. (China, of course, has an age-old tradition of exporting silk, tea, metalware, and, well, China. So making widgets for Westerners was right up their alley.) As business improves for the Asians, the labor costs get a little higher, and now it's the Africans' turn.

Though I want my fellow Americans to have jobs, I also want the third-worlders to have jobs. Keeps them from blowing things up and hijacking ships. Besides, liberty and democracy usually come from the growth of a private sector economy that creates a middle class. The bourgeoisie likes to have some freedom and some say in government, at least for itself. That gets the ball rolling.