While people continue to starve the North Korean regime has been busy providing nearly $9 billion in funding to their military:
North Korea’s actual military spending is believed to be about 15 times the announced amount in 2009 as the communist regime continues to build up its military capacity despite the country’s moribund economy, a South Korean defense research institute said Tuesday.
The North said it spent US$570 million on its military in 2009, but the real expenditure, calculated on an exchange rate based on purchasing power parity terms, was $8.77 billion, the state-run Korea Institute of Defense Analyses (KIDA) said in a report. [Yonhap]
To put that into perspective according to the CIA’s World Factbook the North Koreans had a GDP in 2009 of $40 billion. That would mean that nearly a quarter of their country’s GDP goes towards the military. To further put this into perspective, the US military only makes up 4.6% of America’s GDP.
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9:27 pm on January 18th, 2011 1
"To further put this into perspective, the US military only makes up 4.6% of America’s GDP."
I'm not worried about an arms race with North Korea. To put things in perspective:
http://costofwar.com/en/
9:38 pm on January 18th, 2011 2
$8.7 billion spent on defense will be what America will be spending on defense after they crash and burn.
10:47 pm on January 18th, 2011 3
"$8.7 billion spent on defense will be what America will be spending on defense after they crash and burn."
That's all America will need to spend… as the massive stockpile of munitions only need to be delivered to those countries which did not choose wisely when Bush said, "You are with us or against us."
America may crash and burn, Tom… but you can be assured the military will be one of the last things to feel the effect…
…and those poor scapegoats which get blamed for America's crashing and burning will not notice any defense cutbacks.
11:26 pm on January 18th, 2011 4
Assuming we do "crash and burn", does Nork Tom think The DPRK will emerge victorious?
With no US "threat", will the PRC continue feeding and arming them? With no US pressure to stay inside the lines, will the ROK finally react to 60 years of northern aggression?
12:58 am on January 19th, 2011 5
All the US has to do is quit wasting money on Korea and Koreans like Tom and it will take less time for it to "crash and burn' like Tom says it will.
If it does go that way, who will Korea send it's low quality products to anyway?
5:54 pm on January 19th, 2011 6
Thank you to KIDA we now know the real GDP of North Korea.
According to KIDA 570 million USD, on official exchange rate, are realy equal to 8,77 billion USD on purchasing power parity.
In this case 25 billion USD GDP of North Korea, on exchange rate, are equal to 25 x 8,77/0,57 = 384,65 billion USD on parity rate, or more than 16 000 USD per person in North Korea.
The military spending of 8,77 billion USD is only 2,3 % of the 384,65 USD GDP.
10:35 pm on January 19th, 2011 7
President Obama bows to his new boss and master, Hu Jin Tao.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011…
China will force US out of South Korea, and Asia altogether. No more hate spewing anti-Korean bashing American English teachers in S.Korea, as they all pack up and leave for good, because there will be no more need to learn English that gives these ungrateful pack of people, jobs.
11:11 pm on January 19th, 2011 8
Tom…
I like Korea far too much to hope for your wish to come true.
Most English "teachers" are simply young, inexperienced, unskilled, unemployable and here due to lack of better options… but they have no agenda and intend no harm.
To wish for their replacement by Chinese shows you to be foolish or secretly an anti-Korean traitor.
Maybe Kushibo is right… maybe your true loyalty IS to China.
And, out of curiosity, Tom, when is the last time English teachers ran violently in the street like the Chinese you wish to replace them with?
11:35 pm on January 19th, 2011 9
Na. I'm with Tom on this one. I want the Chinese to have their way with the Koreans.
Tom, like most Koreans (and children), don't know when they have it good.
A tour in korea is not a good thing for most "GIs". Let the Chinese babysit them.
11:54 pm on January 19th, 2011 10
Yeah, Koreans have this idea, which in itself is some amazing, that GI's actually wanna come and stay in Korea. I have never heard this uttered. I'm sure a few have, but none that I've known.
When the Chinese and Korean race, peoples and countries become one again, I'm sure Tom will in heaven. With any luck, Koreans will leave the world alone once again and go back to their Korean hermit roots.
No more dealings of any kind with Korea by the outside world would be doing the rest world a favor and Korea can continue to be a 3rd world country.
Really, what has South Korea done for the rest of the world, not much.
2:36 am on January 20th, 2011 11
Tom ranting…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-2ura5Nbs
3:09 am on January 20th, 2011 12
I like Korea. But I was never there as a GI… And my first 5 trips to Korea were mostly spent at the Shilla Hotel and various offices in Youido…
I can understand the GIs not being happy there–especially if the only Koreans they met were those in the 'ville (even Itaewon)…
I think I understand Tom. He's a kyopo who couldn't get a job teaching English…
8:30 am on January 20th, 2011 13
If you are to believe North Korea's numbers, last year it was 200 000 to 300 000 short of the previous year's grain production. Bad weather? No. Its food production is directly linked to public support for the regime. People no longer want to do back breaking work for the Kims, hence North Korea funnels 1/4 of its budget into its military, in all intents and purposes, to keep its people in line. Despite all of its rhetoric, the North Korean regime recognizes its biggest threat is not an outside one but one which comes from within its borders–ironically, the "oppressed masses", the regular folk they've used as cattle while they, the elite, lived it up. The country is little more than a prison camp run by mobsters. North Korean are awakening to this harsh reality. Brace yourselves, reunification is coming and it won't be pretty.
1:28 pm on January 20th, 2011 14
Tom #2, If America crashes & burns then The Republic of Korea is f****d. Due to the poor performance of some ROK troops during the Korean war (just like some of the ARVN units during the Vietnam war) the North Koreans aren't as scared of them as they are of the Americans. I really don't understand your anti-Americanism. We saved your country, as Walter Brennan said in one of his movies "No brag, just fact." When the Japanese conquered your country they literally raped it. The Americans may not have been perfect but if a GI does something wrong they are punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). If we had not come to Korea's aid in 1950 the WHOLE Korean nation would be suffering under the Kim hereditary dictatorship, not just the north. Please get a grip.