Quotulatiousness

April 6, 2013

The madness of Kim Jong Un

Filed under: Asia, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:09

In his weekly “Goldberg File” email, Jonah Goldberg explains why he is much more concerned about North Korean provocations and expostulations:

The problem — I fear — is that Kim Jong Un has himself been duped. I could very well be wrong, but my concern is that unlike his father and grandfather, he’s come to believe the propaganda. Like Hitler in the bunker ordering that non-existent armies be moved into position, I fear he doesn’t realize that his country is, militarily speaking, like a giant bee. It can deliver a horrible sting, but once it does, it will die.

I also think he’s more than a few fries shy of a Happy Meal. People used to say he spent time in the West and so he can’t be all bad or too crazy. I love this kind of horsehockey. You know who else spent time in the West? Lenin, Marx, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Sayyid Qutb, and Michael Jackson just to name a few. Now Michael Jackson may not have been a mass-murderer or advocate of murder, but he was Coo-Coo for Cocoa-puffs. Why? Because from childhood on he lived in a bubble. My guess is that Kim Jong Un’s bubble has always been a good deal thicker than Michael Jackson’s — at least Jackson went on tour. I fear the only difference between King Joffrey in Game of Thrones and Kim Jong Un, is that Joffrey is better looking, albeit with more ridiculous clothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Un has told his aides that if Obama attacks, “I’ll give him a red smile.”

I’m only partly kidding, but it wouldn’t surprise me all that much if a contributing factor to Un’s belligerence was the recent release of the Red Dawn remake on DVD. If you’re a crazy dude who spends his days in pajamas drinking Long Island ice teas in your bunker as Romanian prostitutes let you win at Call of Duty and Dennis Rodman texts you compliments, that movie might just be all the proof you need that the Americans understand what a threat North Korea is. The message of the film, in Nork-Crazy-Talk at least, is that Americans should keep fighting even after the North Koreans crush our military.

Never Again, Again and Again.

Even if we end up appeasing North Korea yet again, and we kick the can down the road yet again, something needs to be said that isn’t said — or at least appreciated — enough. North Korea is really, really, really, evil. And one day, after the regime is finally gone, historians will look back on the Hieronymus Bosch hell that North Korea has been for decades and condemn us all for letting it endure as long as we did. Forced abortions, mass starvation of whole generations of children, torture, oppression and institutionalized cruelty of every imaginable kind is what distinguishes Juche as an ideology.

I am not arguing for invading North Korea — not because it would be wrong to do so but because the price of doing so is just too high. If we could overthrow the regime with a snap of the finger, I would spend my days snapping my fingers until King Jong Un and his whole pajama-clad clan were hanging from their feet in the streets of Pyongyang. But costs and benefits must be considered in foreign policy, and the costs of deposing the band of murderers is just too high. That said, the costs of not doing anything are high too. But since we don’t feel them, we don’t pay them. Doing nothing probably means consigning at least another generation of children to grow up physically stunted and deformed from hunger and mentally stunted and deformed by institutionalized barbarism. That is, if they are granted the privilege of growing up at all.

April 5, 2013

Is the North Korean government crazy like a fox or just plain crazy?

Filed under: Asia, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:47

Tim Worstall has actually had dealings with North Korean military officials. On the basis of those experiences, he’s much more worried that things will go very, very wrong:

My experience comes from working in Russia. The Norks had a special deal on freight rates on the railways. So, if you had a metals deal that would only work if you got cheap rail freight (say, aluminium alloy from Chelyabinsk in the Urals to Japan) then you’d chat to the local Nork KGB guy and cut them in on the deal. Which is how one day I ended up wandering through the Nork embassy, past the mural of Kim Il Sung standing on the mountain top, to present $10,000 in fresh $100 bills to my freight rate fixer.

Do note this was a couple of decades ago when such shenanigans were indeed legal. Not necessarily moral, but legal. This then led to more contacts, including being asked to rewrite into real English the collected works of Il Sung (at $100 a volume, not me, matey) and a request to provide aluminium alloy into N Korea itself for “window frames”. That the purchasing commission for these “window frames” was to go to three generals made us think that perhaps the windows were going to be on the rockets that you can also make from aluminium alloy. Fortunately my lust for lucre was never really tested as this sovereign nation was unable to come up with a Letter of Credit for $250,000 as required. Their “western” bank simply didn’t think they were good for the cash so refused to issue it. Which is one interesting little fact about the place.

But it was that long-ago meeting with those generals that makes me worried about what the Norks might do now. For they were entirely, completely and totally unaware, ignorant, of how the wider world worked. Even my demand for an LoC surprised them. But surely I would just do what the State desired of me? And who could doubt that the State would indeed pay me if it was in my or the State’s interest to do so? Umm, yeah, right.

We’ve all heard of groupthink, even of brainwashing. And the problem is that the people at the top of this State really do seem to believe their own propaganda: that the world really is out to get them; that their army, were they to unleash it, would sweep all before them; and even that lobbing a nuclear bomb at wherever would make all quail before their mighty power. They seem not to have considered the option obvious to the rest of us: that doing so would turn Pyongyang into a shiny glass parking lot for the assembled armies of the world.

Update: Just a bit of context from Wikimedia:

North Korean missile ranges

March 30, 2013

All those manufacturing jobs are never coming back

Filed under: Britain, Business, China, Economics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:37

Tim Worstall explains why this is at the Adam Smith Institute blog:

I’m always rather puzzled by those who shout that we’ve got to bring manufacturing back to the UK. Apparently this will solve all our problems over what to do with dim Northern lads or something. Once they’re all hammering out whippet flanges then we just won’t have a problem with unemployment ever again. The problem with this idea is that modern manufacturing simply doesn’t provide many jobs. And if it were to provide mass employment it would be very badly paid employment too:

    Americans working to produce traded goods and services earn, roughly, according to their productivity. If low-skill workers in America aren’t much more productive in manufacture of traded goods and services than low-skill workers in China, then they can’t earn much more than workers in China while being employed in manufacture of traded goods and services. They can earn a rich-world wage in production of non-traded goods and services, like sandwiches and haircuts, so long as there is sufficient local demand. In other words, the only way to get less-skilled Americans a good wage in a manufacturing industry is to significantly raise their skill and productivity level. If that can’t be accomplished, they can only hope to find good wages in non-traded industries. At least, that is, until wages of less-skilled workers across the developing world come much closer to converging with those in America.

Of course, that’s all about America but the same logic pertains here as well. Chinese manufacturing wages are around $6,000 a year at present. Meaning that if we had mass employment in manufacturing, as they do, then wages would need to be around that level. Or, alternatively, UK based manufacturing would have to be much more productive to support higher wages. And “more productive” is the same as saying “uses less labour”. Thus you can have few well paid jobs (in the Rolls Royces etc of this world) or you can have many badly paid jobs (Shenzen). It isn’t actually possible to mix and match between the two.

March 28, 2013

US responds to North Korean rhetoric with symbolic B-2 bombing exercise

Filed under: Asia, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:15

March 27, 2013

North Korea breaks off remaining communication channels

Filed under: Asia, Military, Pacific, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:23

The North Korean government continues to escalate the tension level:

Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with the South because war could break out at “any moment”, it said on Wednesday, days after warning the United States and South Korea of nuclear attack.

The move is the latest in a series of bellicose threats from North Korea in response to new U.N. sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and to “hostile” military drills under way joining the United States and South Korea.

The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the U.S. military that supervises the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.

“Under the situation where a war may break out at any moment, there is no need to keep north-south military communications which were laid between the militaries of both sides,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.

March 13, 2013

North Korea welcomes the new President of South Korea with the usual polite and restrained rhetoric

Filed under: Asia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

…that is, they insulted her from the get-go:

A lengthy statement attributed to a spokesman of the Armed Forces Ministry said South Korean officials were engaging in a round of “warmongering” orchestrated by the “poisonous swish” of the president’s skirt.

The statement did not actually use Park’s name or title, referring to her only as the current “owner” of the presidential Blue House in Seoul.

“Swish of the skirt” (or “chima baram“) is a common, derogatory Korean term used to criticise women seen as overly bossy or domineering.

North Korea’s propaganda machine had slammed Park repeatedly during the presidential campaign, warning that she would adopt the dictatorial methods of her father, the late military strongman Park Chung-Hee.

March 8, 2013

Kim Jong-un tells North Korean troops to be ready “to annihilate the enemy”

Filed under: Asia, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:25

North Korea continues to rattle the sabre:

North Korea has dissolved the agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953, as it simultaneously ramps up its military presence along the border with South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared before military troops positioned near the border and told them to that they should be ready “to annihilate the enemy,” reports The Telegraph.

This latest rallying cry comes after Kim threatened missile attacks on Washington the previous day, saying the American capital city would become a “sea of fire.”

The move towards brinkmanship is in response to a decision by the United Nations Security Council to impose further sanctions on North Korea after it conducted a third nuclear test in February. The UN resolution was unanimously approved by all 15 member countries siting on the council. The sanctions are financial and will also increase efforts to prevent North Korea from shipping banned goods into the country.

March 7, 2013

North Korea rhetorically re-starts the not-officially-ended Korean War

Filed under: China, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:46

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that North Korea wants to scrap the armistice that brought the Korean War to a halt in 1953:

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has vowed to nullify an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War from March 11, and warned of more and stronger countermeasures if the United States and South Korea continued joint military drills.

The announcement, made by DPRK’s top Army Supreme Command on a rare appearance on the state TV, came when the UN Security Council is ironing out penalties against Pyongyang over its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. Diplomats said that a Council resolution condemning the test and toughening sanctions on DPRK will be put to a vote as early as this week.

March 11 marks the start of the annual joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises, which will involve 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 U.S. troops. The drill, dubbed Key Resolve, was denounced by DPRK’s official KCNA news agency as a prelude to an invasion.

Experts said the DPRK’s latest move aims to defy the possible new UN sanctions and seeks to replace the armistice agreement with a peace treaty that guarantees Pyongyang’s security, as requested by DPRK at the six-party talks.

March 5, 2013

China claims the shipbuilding title

Filed under: Business, China — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:02

Strategy Page talks about the success of Chinese shipyards:

Last year South Korea lost its decade long battle with China to retain its lead in ship building. Because of a five year depression in the world market for shipping, South Korean ship exports fell 30 percent last year, to $37.8 billion. China, helped by government subsidies, saw ship exports fall only 10.3 percent, leaving China with $39.2 billion in export sales. The Chinese government has also been giving its ship builders lots of new orders for warships, which made its yards more profitable and better able to beat South Korea on price. The Chinese government also provides its ship builders with more loans, allowing the builders to offer better credit terms to customers. South Korea is still ahead of China in total orders for ships. As of last year South Korea had 35 percent of these orders versus 33.3 percent for China.

China has been helping its shipyards for over a decade and that has enabled Chinese ship builders to gradually catch up to South Korea and Japan. It was only four years ago, sooner than anyone expected, that China surpassed South Korea as the world’s largest shipbuilder in terms of tonnage. In late 2009, Chinese yards had orders for 54.96 million CGT of ships, compared to 53.63 million CGT for South Korea. Thus China had 34.7 percent of the world market. In 2000, South Korea took the lead from Japan by having the largest share of the world shipbuilding market.

CGT stands for Compensated Gross Tons. This is a new standard for measuring shipyard effort. Gross tons has long been used as a measure of the volume within a ship. CGT expands on this by adding adjustments for the complexity of the ship design. Thus a chemical tanker would end up with a value four times that of a container ship. China is producing far more ships, in terms of tonnage of steel and internal volume, than South Korea, mainly because a much larger portion of Chinese ships are simple designs. South Korea has, over the years, pioneered the design, and construction, of more complex ships (chemical, and Liquid Natural gas carriers.)

March 1, 2013

North Korea’s real inflation rate may have reached 116%

Filed under: Asia, Economics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

In the Cato@Liberty blog, Steve Hanke looks at North Korea’s offical statistics and makes an educated guess at what they conceal, rather than reveal about the country’s state:

During the past few weeks, North Korea has been the subject of outsized news coverage. The recent peacocking by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un — from domestic martial law policies to tests of the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities — has successfully distracted the media from North Korea’s continued economic woes. For starters, the country’s plans for agricultural reforms have been deep-sixed, and, to top it off, I estimate that North Korea’s annual inflation rate hit triple digits for 2012: 116%, to be exact.

Unfortunately, the official shroud of secrecy covering North Korea’s official information and statistics remains more or less intact. But, some within North Korea have begun to shed light on this “land of illusions”. For example, a team of “citizen cartographers” helped Google construct its recent Google Maps’ exposition of North Korea’s streets, landmarks, and government facilities. In addition, our friends at DailyNK have successfully been reporting data on black-market exchange rates and the price of rice in North Korea — data which allowed me to conclude that the country experienced an episode of hyperinflation from December 2009 to mid-January 2011.

February 28, 2013

North Korea struggling with loss of faith in the state

Filed under: Asia, China, Government — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:50

Strategy Page on the challenges facing the government as the younger generation grows up:

A major source of information about North Korea is obtained by South Korean intelligence experts interviewing the steady flow of refugees arriving in South Korea (via China and the South Korean embassies in neighboring countries like Thailand). For the last decade, over a thousand of these refugees have arrived each year. In the last few years China and North Korea have increased their efforts to reduce that number, which peaked at 2,900 in 2009 and was 1,500 last year. These determined and desperate people keep coming. Separate interviews are compared and checked against each other to obtain an updated and accurate first-hand view of life in the north. This also helps detect the spies North Korea tries (often with success) getting into the south via the refugee route. While the refugees detail the growing decline in living standards up north, it’s also become clear that there is a very real generational shift in loyalties in the north. The generation who grew up during the 1990s famine (that killed about ten percent of the population and starved most of the rest for years) no longer believe in the North Korean dictatorship. Many who came of age before 1990 still do, but for most everyone under 30 the state is the enemy and self-reliance, and not a benevolent dictatorship, is the only way to survive. The North Korean government has been fighting these attitudes more and more, as this generation of unbelievers grows larger each year. The more astute members of the northern leadership see this as a no-win situation. Eventually most North Koreans will be very hostile to the state and more adept at making money in spite of the government, or simply getting out of the country. Most of the leadership is still afraid of enacting Chinese style economic reforms because they believe a more affluent population would seek revenge for the decades of misrule and tyranny. The Chinese say that didn’t happen in China. The North Koreans point out that, as bad as the Chinese communists were in the 1950s and 60s (killing over 50 million people via starvation, labor camps and execution) that was not as bad (proportionately) as what the North Koreans have suffered. Moreover, the North Korean leaders point out that, historically, Koreans have been a bit more excitable and brutal when aroused by misrule. The Chinese say times have changed but the North Korean leaders are not yet willing to bet their lives on that being the case.

The refugees report that most North Koreans understand that the police state up there is strong enough to suppress any uprising now or in the foreseeable future and that the only real threat to the dictatorship is intervention (openly or via a coup) by China. Refugees also report that it’s common knowledge that hundreds of North Koreans have died of radiation poisoning or been born with birth defects because of the uranium mining and working with nuclear materials. The government has responded by offering large cash bonuses to those who will work in the uranium mines. The refugees report in detail many other ways the Kim government abuses their subjects.

February 26, 2013

UN mistake costs 8,000 Haitian lives, UN refuses to compensate or even apologize

Filed under: Americas, Asia — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

A mind-numbing case of bureaucratic error, death, and ass-covering in Haiti:

International affairs can be complicated, but sometimes a case comes along that’s so simple it’s almost absurd. In 2010, the United Nations made a horrendous mistake that, so far, has claimed more than 8,000 lives. Its officials tried to cover it up. When the evidence came out anyway, lawyers for victims’ families petitioned the U.N. to end the crisis, pay damages, and apologize. For a year and a half, the world’s leading humanitarian organization said nothing. Then, last week, it threw out the case, saying, “The claims are not receivable.”

The background should be well-known by now. But despite the fact that American taxpayers have footed the lion’s share of the bill for the U.N. peacekeepers responsible for this disaster — to the tune of roughly $1.5 billion since 2004 — the story remains largely unknown in the United States.

The place was Haiti. The mistake: a killer combination of cholera and gross negligence. The peacekeeping mission, known by its French initials, MINUSTAH, had been in country since 2004, when it was authorized to protect an interim government installed after a coup. Six years later — thanks to a healthy dose of mission creep — the peacekeepers were still there. While rotating troops into what was now post-quake Haiti, the U.N. neglected to adequately screen a contingent of soldiers coming from an active cholera outbreak in Nepal. Upon arrival, the soldiers were sent to a rural U.N. base, outside the quake zone and long known for leaking sewage into a major river system that millions of Haitians used to drink, bathe, wash, and farm. Within days of their arrival, people downstream began to die. The epidemic then exploded, sickening more than 647,000 people, and killing in its first year more than twice the number of people who died on 9/11.

February 18, 2013

Opening the food testing can of worms: “We don’t test for hedgehog either”

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Food, Health, India, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:20

Tim Worstall on some of the issues with demands that all British beef for human consumption be tested for horsemeat:

Now let’s turn to that meat problem. We’re going to test something to make sure that it is indeed what it says. Most of the time, usually, we’d go looking for beef DNA and on finding it say, yup, that’s beef.

But now we’re talking about trace amounts of other species. Some of this horse contamination is someone deliberately substituting, yes. But a lot of it, those trace amounts, is someone not cleaning the pipes between species being processed. Or the knives even. Which leads us to something of a problem.

How many species do we test for? Some minced beef… or pink slime perhaps. Do we test for beef and horse? For beef, horse, mutton, pork, chicken, duck, goose? What about rat and mouse? For I’ll guarantee you that however much people try there will often be the odd molecule of either one of those in there. Sparrow? That’s more of a problem with grain processing but still.

For example, one lovely story about vegetarianism. Those (umm, OK, some) who have moved from the sub-continent to the UK. They carry on eating the (possibly Hindu caste based) vegetarian diet they are used to. And they start falling prey to all sorts of dietary deficiencies. Anaemia, there have even been reports of kwashikor (a protein deficiency). The grains and the pulses of the sub-continent have rather more insect and other residue in them than our more modern processing and storage systems provide.

People don’t test for hedgehog DNA in meat supplies, no. But how many species should they test for?

February 17, 2013

It turns out it actually was the Burmese equivalent of Al Capone’s vault

Filed under: Asia, Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:51

Back in early January, the archaeological dig for buried WW2 Spitfires was announced:

Then, the doubts began to grow:

And now, even the sponsoring organization says there are no buried Spitfires after all:

A global video gaming company that funded a high-profile hunt for dozens of World War II-era British fighters in Myanmar has some bad news for aviation enthusiasts: It says none of the legendary planes are buried in the Southeast Asian country.

Excavation teams carrying out surveys on the ground, however, said Saturday that they would not give up the search.

The hunt for the lost planes was launched amid hope that as many as 140 rare Spitfires were hidden in crates in pristine condition in three locations in Myanmar.

But the Belarusian video gaming company Wargaming.net, which had backed the venture, said in a statement late Friday that the planes were never even delivered to the country by Allied forces as the war drew to a close nearly 70 years ago.

“The Wargaming team now believes, based on clear documentary evidence, as well as the evidence from the fieldwork, that no Spitfires were delivered in crates and buried” in Myanmar between 1945 and 1946, the statement said.

I’d been rather doubtful of the story from the start — even though it would have been awesomely cool to find a stash of Spitfires.

February 7, 2013

Japan scrambles fighters after two Russian aircraft intrude

Filed under: Asia, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:39

Japan’s military forces are getting quite a workout these days, with the standoff with China over the Senkaku Islands and now the Russians are getting aggressive about probing Japanese airspace:

Two Russian fighter jets have violated Japanese airspace, prompting Tokyo to scramble its own aircraft, reports say.

Japan lodged a protest after the planes were detected off the northern island of Hokkaido for just over a minute.

The incident happened after Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said he was seeking a solution to a territorial dispute with Russia over a Pacific island chain.

Russia’s military denied the incursion, saying the jets were making routine flights near the disputed islands.

Mr Abe was speaking on the anniversary of an 1855 treaty which Japan says supports its claims to the islands.

The four islands — which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories — are the subject of a 60-year-old dispute.

Because of the dispute, the two nations have not yet signed a peace treaty to end World War II.

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