[HN Gopher] North Korean market prices suggest serious food shor...
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North Korean market prices suggest serious food shortages
Author : EA-3167
Score : 172 points
Date : 2023-06-24 15:29 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.38north.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.38north.org)
| hedora wrote:
| From the graphs in the article, the current price of rice is 5
| and it was 4 pre-pandemic.
|
| The unit of the price is in foreign currency, and we know there
| has been significant inflation in the last few years, so that
| looks like it is showing no significant change from then to now.
|
| There were spikes during border closings during the pandemic, but
| this is in a border region where smuggling is prevalent, and the
| spikes are in foreign-currency based prices. They don't have a
| way to normalize for effects such as less supply of foreign goods
| leading to less demand for foreign currency (which could have
| caused the foreign currency's value to temporarily crash inside
| the black market.)
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| The prices in my supermarket have gone up more than the prices
| in north korea.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Hasn't most of the world had a similar rise in food price over
| this period? Wouldn't that naturally negatively impact the
| poorest, such as the North Koreans?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Hasn't most of the world had a similar rise in food price
| over this period? Wouldn't that naturally negatively impact the
| poorest, such as the North Koreans?
|
| How much food does North Korea import?
|
| My understanding is that North Korea is extremely isolated from
| the rest of the world; to the extent that that is true, it
| isolates them from global inflation in food prices.
| kneebonian wrote:
| NK imports almost all their calories. The problem is at the
| start of COVID they shut down all imports into the country
| and that has made survival nearly impossible for many people.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| They are isolated but they do import food, mainly rice and
| wheat products, from China and to a lesser extent Russia
| (according to Wikipedia).
| distortionfield wrote:
| The article says those Chinese imports have largely dried
| up though
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It said they did during COVID, and that you can see
| prices stabilized as trade resumes.
| [deleted]
| paulddraper wrote:
| Not just food, but energy and machinery as well.
|
| And North Korea does have imports, mostly from China.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Why only sell production locally when you can export for hard
| currency?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Probably impacts the poorest countries the most since the last
| mile portion of food is a lower proportion of their end user
| price.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Tangentially related but this is one of the most fascinating
| thing about China. The last famine they had ended around 1961.
| That means that people who are in their sixties probably knew
| someone that starved to death. Imagine being born to a country
| where people were starving to death to a prosperous country
| within your lifetime.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| That's a strange way to frame a lack of post war progress. In
| most countries the experience of anyone born before the war who
| was starting their own family in 1960 was at a speed that is
| hard to imagine. China is remarkable for its continuity.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| China went into WWII as a pre-industrial barely post-feudal
| society in the middle of a civil war.
| ipqk wrote:
| My grandfather died of smallpox and I'm in my 30s. A lot of
| things we think of as history were really not that long ago.
| IanCal wrote:
| On the other side of things too, predictions out to 2100 felt
| like weird sci-fi until I realised my kids could be alive and
| in their 80s.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > The last famine they had ended around 1961.
|
| That was a manufactured crisis too. Stupid rules and practices
| were imposed and they cause carnage.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| That's what modern Chinese politics expert call "the mandate
| from the heavens". As long as the average (Han) Chinese gets
| richer, they won't mind the oppressive regime and the
| collectivist nature of the CCP (welding doors shut for COVID,
| workers as replaceable cogs).
|
| But should the prosperity slow or stop, the CCP knows it'll
| lose the "mandate". That's why the Evergrande collapse was such
| a big deal [0], and the reason the Yuan will never replace the
| US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The Chinese regime
| has to "save face" and show progress at all costs. All while
| having a negative brain drain, gender imbalance and worsening
| demography.
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/24/investing/china-evergrande-
| gr...
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yup, the real estate market is absolutely insane. If you rent
| out a place you should be approximately covering the mortgage
| with it--but over there in many places that's off by an order
| of magnitude.
|
| Despite that the government is still encouraging real estate.
| hgsgm wrote:
| "mandate from heavens" is the oriental version of "consented
| of the governed" in the West.
| [deleted]
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Disagree--the deaths were not remotely evenly distributed. My
| wife lived through that--to her it was lean times, not
| starvation. That's because she's from Shanghai, not the
| countryside.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| What are you disagreeing about?
| hgsgm wrote:
| Disagreeing that everyone knew someone who starved.
| userabchn wrote:
| I think the change in circumstances in some Middle Eastern
| countries has been even more dramatic. Places like Abu Dhabi
| were small towns with houses made of mud/palm fronds in the
| 1960s.
| moelf wrote:
| but the great famine was very much man(Mao)-made... of course
| the economic boom was a great achievement, but it's different
| from what you're suggesting I think.
| balder1991 wrote:
| Also loosely related, the Homo Deus book has a chapter about
| how humans conquered technically what it classifies as the
| major challenges that we attributed to gods, including
| hunger, plagues, and war. It mentions that nowadays, if any
| of these things cause human destruction it is a political
| thing and someone somewhere _wants_ that to happen.
| satysin wrote:
| This was the first thing that popped into my head too as I
| read Homo Deus a few months ago.
|
| A very accessible book for all. I recommend it. It's not
| perfect but it's a good, easy read compared to other books
| touching on the same subjects.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Technologically, what do we have that stops famines from
| happening?
|
| Like, are we really immune from some mega drought occuring
| somewhere that mostly depends on rainfall? Or is that just
| extremely unlikely to happen, especially at a large scale?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| A lot of this probably depends on who "we" refers to. I
| would imagine that many regions are not immune to a mega
| drought.
|
| For the West specifically, wealthier nations can kind of
| just export the shortage by paying more for supplies that
| would go elsewhere.
|
| The West also feeds most of its crops to animals, so that
| is an area for relatively easy reduction in an emergency.
| 67% of what is grown in the USA is animal food. But that
| proportion is dramatically lower in places like India.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-
| fuel...
| kickout wrote:
| No we are not immune. At all
| cubefox wrote:
| There are theories which say that nuclear war, due to
| firestorms in cities transporting soot into the upper
| atmosphere, would lead to nuclear winter, which would
| lead to a global famine:
|
| https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pMsnCieusmYqGW2
| 6W/...
|
| However, the papers which predict such scenarios have
| been criticized as being too pessimistic:
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jnDibtfvWNHLucf4D/actuall
| y-a...
| thriftwy wrote:
| We can now buy grain in bulk and ship it anywhere through
| the world.
| retrac wrote:
| We can move food around. Famines historically tended to
| be regional; bad climate, or natural or man-made
| disaster, devastating food production in an area. Before
| the 19th century moving enough food from another region,
| or even from another continent to address that local
| shortfall, was much more challenging.
|
| If the 1930s American dustbowl had happened to a densely
| populated non-industrial society, it would probably have
| been one of the worst famines in history. Agricultural
| yields fell by like 50% for several years in the affected
| region. But they just brought in food from California and
| Saskatchewan. It was still a disaster, of course.
|
| The Russian famine of 1921 was one of the first times
| industrial societies really mobilized in that way. At the
| peak grain grown in the USA and donated to the USSR was
| feeding about 1 in 10 Russians during the famine. One of
| the largest logistics operations in history up to that
| point. It's why Herbert Hoover was nominated for the
| Nobel peace prize five times.
| nradov wrote:
| Famines are primarily a _political_ problem, not a
| technological problem. Our technology has improved
| agricultural productivity and distribution efficiency,
| but that doesn 't matter when men with guns are stealing
| food from starving people.
| retrac wrote:
| It was greatly worsened by Mao's policies. But a famine would
| have happened anyway. There's no alternate history where
| different government policy in China could have completely
| averted the famine of 1960. It was a very poor year
| agriculturally.
|
| There had been famine in China previously in 1942 (1 million
| dead), 1936 (5 million dead), 1929 (5 million dead), 1906 (25
| million dead), 1877 (10 million dead), and millions dead from
| starvation during the Taiping rebellion of the 1860s.
|
| Arguably, quite a few of them were man-made, or at least man-
| aggravated from warfare. This is not intended as apologia for
| Mao. His policies likely resulted in several million more
| deaths than might have otherwise happened. I just want to
| show that famine was routine in preindustrial agricultural
| societies.
| bitcurious wrote:
| >There's no alternate history where different government
| policy in China could have completely averted the famine of
| 1960. It was a very poor year agriculturally.
|
| Except the one where China hasn't destroyed much of its
| industry, or alienated much of the world, and thus can
| trade for food.
|
| Your examples are illustrative as well, inspite of your
| intention - the next three famines you list (1942, 1936,
| 1929) all occurred during a civil war in which Mao was a
| major player on one side, and at a time when part of the
| country was at war with/under occupation of imperial Japan.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I'm not an agronomist, but even back then, couldn't grain
| be stored for a year or two to buffer a disaster?
| zdragnar wrote:
| China had, since the 1860's, been referred to as the
| "sick man of the far east", a play on words from a common
| monicker for I think one of the tzars.
|
| Mostly, this referred to the Qing government, in terms of
| the extensive corruption, pervasive opium addiction
| (thanks in part to Britain and the opium wars), etc.
|
| Poor people rarely had much to eat to begin with, and bad
| years would often mean normally thin meals would be
| stretched too far. Until the communist revolution,
| farmers were serfs. After, they operated in collectives,
| but still were under orders. In both cases, they had
| little incentive to work, as they didn't keep the food
| they grew. It belonged to someone else. 1 in 3 children
| nationwide had stunted growth from malnourishment, almost
| certainly worse in the countryside. Farmers simply didn't
| have a surplus of food to store through an entire bad
| season.
|
| After the 1970s, a combination of infrastructure projects
| which improved irrigation, some new cultivars of plants
| that had better yields, and changes to the operations of
| the farming communes to operate a bit more
| capitalistically, farmers were able to generate actual
| surpluses of food.
| vaccarium wrote:
| The original "sick man of the East" was Ottoman Turkey.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > His policies likely resulted in several million more
| deaths than might have otherwise happened.
|
| Perhaps more than several million when estimates are
| between 15 and 55 million dead.
| dmix wrote:
| Just imagine all the coffins / mass burials during COVID
| and times that by thousands. Must have devastated whole
| communities and scared them for life.
| loeg wrote:
| Mass burials during Covid? I think you might be
| misremembering.
| jaynetics wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52241221
| dmix wrote:
| Has there been any famous industrialized capitalist
| countries during famines? I'm curious how they fared.
| seri4l wrote:
| Post-WW2 Germany comes to mind.
| kibwen wrote:
| The Great Irish Famine springs to mind, caused by the
| policies of the United Kingdom, which arguably invented
| both industrialization (hello, steam engine) and
| capitalism (hello, Adam Smith).
| EA-3167 wrote:
| I think it would be hard to argue that Ireland at that
| time was a "great, industrialized society" of any sort.
| pydry wrote:
| It was run by such a society - the British. Capitalism
| was even cited as a justification at the time. If the
| "market" decided to export food while the Irish
| starved... well, thats ok. Market knows best.
|
| It essentially mirrored the Holodomor - an occupying
| power exports all the food from an agrarian colony during
| a bad harvest. Famine happens. Occupying power shrugs.
| People wonder if it was a covert attempt at ethnic
| cleansing. Probably it was.
|
| The difference is that the Irish famine was oh, just a
| big whoopsie while the Holodomor was an evil plot.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Other than the reality of British occupation, I think
| most of what you said was provably wrong.
|
| For example...
|
| > The difference is that the Irish famine was just a big
| whoopsie while the Holodomor was an evil plot.
|
| Have you heard of Charles Trevelyan? He was in charge of
| relief efforts during the famine, but he had a different
| take on the issue which informed British policy. In his
| words:
|
| "The real evil with which we have to contend is not the
| physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of the
| selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people."
|
| The Famine was a natural disaster which would have led to
| some amount of starvation and death, but that natural
| disaster was GREATLY enhanced by British elites who saw
| it as a convenient and "natural" solution to Irish
| overpopulation.
|
| In many ways it shares the hallmarks of the Holodomor,
| with "we care about trade" used as a cover for genocide.
| pydry wrote:
| You seem to be agreeing with everything I wrote apart
| from the sarcasm.
| kibwen wrote:
| In 1760 the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain,
| in 1801 Ireland joined with Great Britain to form the
| United Kingdom, and in 1845 the great famine began in the
| United Kingdom, specifically in Ireland. I'm afraid this
| feels like moving the goalposts; famine is always going
| to hit agricultural areas the hardest in any trade-
| capable country, because even though everyone else still
| needs food, everyone else still has things to trade for
| food (and if the agricultural laborers still had anything
| to trade, there wouldn't be a famine to begin with). It's
| a bit like saying that the Dust Bowl didn't happen in the
| industrialized nation of the United States because it
| happened in Oklahoma.
| [deleted]
| thriftwy wrote:
| Europe had a world war ending in 1945. It was quite prosperous
| in a few decades; in part, it never ceased to be.
|
| If you ask me, world war is on the same level of personal
| danger.
| paganel wrote:
| We also had a mass-hunger event in Eastern Romania in 1947,
| partly as a result of the war and partly because of a
| dreadful drought season.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I think Germany is probably the most impressive one. Lost
| both World wars, had to deal with the East West unification
| and is now the biggest economy in Europe which is crazy to
| think about.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Eh almost none of WW1 was fought in German soil so they
| came out of WW1 with most of their economic capacity intact
| minus several million young men.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| And World War 2 saw a complete leveling of most of the
| country...
| ericd wrote:
| But then massive investment by the US.
| MikeTheRocker wrote:
| I think this is a significant reason why authoritarian figures
| like Xi and Putin have strong support from the populace.
| mynonameaccount wrote:
| "strong support from the populous" How do you know when the
| populous can't even say what is on their mind without their
| families getting slaughter?
| yibg wrote:
| The typical person in china don't fear that, at least in
| private conversation. The problems only really appear when
| you have a broad audience.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'm sure news coming from an organization controlled by a
| foundation whose CEO is a retired US military general is entirely
| reliable and unbiased, and should be taken at face value without
| any qualms.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I get the point you're trying to make, but it is possible
| kstrauser wrote:
| They link to all their sources. Do you disagree with the facts
| they quote, or the conclusions they reached from those facts?
| simion314 wrote:
| Any idea why China and Russia keep North Korea in such a bad
| shape, it is not in their interest to not have this regime
| collapse and get "infected" with freedom and human rights?
| toxicFork wrote:
| Do you mean why they don't let it die?
| simion314 wrote:
| Are they helping? From the BBC article I read a week ago the
| people are starving, so they are letting them die, is bad PR
| at least for Russia that points at N Korea as an ally and
| friend and a model of a country that is not "degenerate"
| mcpackieh wrote:
| If there are 10 starving people and I feed 9 of them, am I
| helping?
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| They don't run the place, and they simply keep it propped up as
| a proxy defense against the "Western" South Korea.
| simion314 wrote:
| This is my point, the people starve so they are doing a bad
| job at propping it up - a rebellion can start and their "Ally
| and friend" is gone.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Or alternatively, people aren't in fact starving and
| wouldn't consider rebellion.
|
| It wouldn't be the first time western media consistently
| lied about something.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Propping up an entire failed county is hard. China does a
| lot better in NK than the US did in Iraq or Afghanistan.
| simion314 wrote:
| Why would be hard, they can put them to work in factory
| to do cheap shit and give them food.
| beebmam wrote:
| [flagged]
| chasd00 wrote:
| I find it fascinating how this story isn't flagged but two
| perfectly civil discussions on what's happening in Russia were.
| lawn wrote:
| There's lots people pushing pro-Russian agenda so it's not
| surprising.
| layer8 wrote:
| For one, because this is not sensationalist speculation about
| a freshly developing situation lacking much substantiated
| information, but an analysis of a year-spanning development
| based on numerical data from established sources.
| azernik wrote:
| Literally "so much for Marxism": they removed any mention of
| Marxism, Leninism, or communism from their (mostly-rhetorical)
| constitution way back in 1992.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| There's a good argument that it's a hereditary quasi-theocratic
| monarchy -- a right wing one even -- at this point. Their
| official ideology doesn't even really pay lip service to
| Stalinist ideology anymore, it's Juche, which functions more
| like a religion, or a fascist creed.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Juche is the gap in the horseshoe?
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| So all bad things are right wing, and solely right wing? It's
| impossible for a left wing idea to be bad?
| jvmfjvfjvf wrote:
| I guess they're now saying North Korea is a right wing
| dictatorship. The revisionism is something else.
| forinti wrote:
| North Korea is a capitalist country in which one family owns
| everything.
| grugagag wrote:
| That's a bit of a stretch..
| everfree wrote:
| Last time I checked, North Korea is an authoritarian
| dictatorship.
|
| Edit: Not a Marxist society.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Those things can both be true to an extent. You can have a
| market economy without democracy.
| [deleted]
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| are all those things mutually exclusive?
| cowpig wrote:
| I think it depends whether you're talking about the
| philosophy or Karl Marx, or the philosophy of dictatorships
| that kind of started from some "Marxist" roots and kept the
| name
| Kamq wrote:
| > about the philosophy or Karl Marx
|
| I don't think laymen really ever are referring to this.
| And if they do, they will usually clarify (or it will be
| obvious because it's in the context on something like the
| book Kapital).
|
| Same with the term communist. Unless you're in a
| philosophy discussion, people mean the real-world
| factions that called themselves this and controlled (or
| still control) countries. Those are the only communists
| to have enough power to be relevant to most laymen.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Ah, yes, it's not Real Socialism.
| everfree wrote:
| America isn't "real socialism" either, it's capitalism.
| marktl wrote:
| Why doesn't SK find a way to feed the north in hopes for good
| propaganda and perhaps save a few lives? Or do they? Entirely
| uneducated on the subject, just seems an obvious win/win.
| dmix wrote:
| The fact that countries like Venezuela struggle to feed their own
| people in the modern era, during the time of greatest abundance
| and production, while the bulk of the world figured out food
| production/trade a century ago really blows my mind. Not sure how
| people tolerate that sort of thing and still pretend the economic
| system is a good idea. Or hand wave it away that it's all some
| foreign conspiracy.
|
| Iran is sanctioned, CIA works against them, etc too but they
| still managed to feed their people over the last decade plus
| (ignoring the recent global food crisis).
|
| Edit: the Iran analogy might have been a poor choice, they
| recently enacted Venezuelan style price controls. Idk why
| governments think they can make things cheaper simply by just
| saying "this is now the new price and you can't change it".
|
| > The Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran began direct
| payments in the form of cash subsidies to Iran's public instead,
| with the government deploying an electronic coupon system as a
| form of price control to prevent price gouging in place of the
| import subsidies.
|
| > Despite Raisi promising that "prices on wheat, medicine, and
| petrol will not increase in any circumstances", the price of some
| food products rose by over 300%.
|
| Price controls always amplify existing supply issues and are used
| as short-term Bandaids to mask more fundamental issues.
|
| https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2019/01/iran-inflation-...
| jimkoen wrote:
| Regarding North Korea, it's likely because the populance is
| under tight control of a ruthless military dictatorship. During
| the famines in the early 2000's Germany sent a larger part of
| it's BSE beef reserves (meat from ~400k head of cattle) [0] to
| North Korea, under the condition to ensure the issuance of the
| meat to the civil populance. Otherwise it was feared that this
| meat would just be confiscated by the military.
|
| As a result certain German media outlets got unprecedented
| access to North Koreans going about their daily lives, because
| German humanitarian workers were allowed to freely travel
| across the country. I cannot find it right now, but
| ARTE/Discovery Channel produced a documentary where these
| workers were followed. There were some remarkable scenes in
| that documentary, it was like someone travelled back in time
| into the soviet union at it's lowest point. They also
| interviewed farmers and they put it in no certain terms that
| they knew they were living in a planned economy, but couldn't
| to much about it, since there was a constant threat of violence
| if they retaliated.
|
| [0]
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/feb/20/northkorea.fam...
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| Authoritarian states almost never prosper, even if they have
| all the tools to do so. Everything built on lies and games of
| power will crumble under its own villainy.
| mnd999 wrote:
| China seems to be doing okay. So much so that every western
| government seems to be becoming more authoritarian.
| nradov wrote:
| China "seems" to be doing okay, and they have succeeded in
| lifting hundreds of millions out of desperate poverty. But
| their GDP numbers are all lies because every level of the
| CCP hierarchy has been exaggerating on official reports for
| decades. There is no independent verification allowed.
| External estimates based on resource flows and satellite
| imagery present a much bleaker picture.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| China improved since the 1949 revolution by becoming
| gradually less authoritarian in matters of economic
| security. Even so, their GDP per capita is still a fraction
| of their neighbors (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan)
| LexiMax wrote:
| Singapore also uses authoritarian capitalism and out-GDP-
| per-capita's all of the above, including the US.
| adhvaryu wrote:
| Maybe the size of a country is a bigger factor than all.
| fumar wrote:
| Is that cause and effect defensible? I haven't heard any
| Americans civilians or politicians claim overtly or subtly
| that the US should be more like China.
| mnd999 wrote:
| > Is that cause and effect defensible?
|
| Probably not, it could be for other reasons but it's
| certainly happening.
|
| > I haven't heard any Americans civilians or politicians
| claim overtly or subtly that the US should be more like
| China.
|
| It depends what you mean by like China. Nobody's
| advocating little red books but there's plenty advocating
| for mass surveillance, control of speech, banning books
| or telling women what the can and can't do with their
| bodies.
| hgsgm wrote:
| OK for who? Not the 10s of millions murdered.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Everything built on lies and games of power will crumble
| under its own villainy.
|
| US seems to be doing fine.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| US is doing fine despite its political and cultural issues,
| not because of them. We'll see how that turns out in 30
| years.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Or more pragmatically: whatever your motivation to become
| leader, you can only keep doing that if you stay leader. That
| means keeping the support of those with the power to dispose
| you. In authoritarian regimes that often means vast amounts
| of resources flow to military leadership, police, oligarchs,
| and anybody else who can effect regime change, their
| corruption it's tolerated, and everybody else gets what's
| left. If anything.
|
| The genius of democracy is that regular citizens have the
| power to cause regime change, so leaders are well advised to
| care about their opinion too, in addition to all the other
| groups
| raincom wrote:
| In democracy, just create fights between groups on issues
| of no-substance, and have two political parties. You get a
| system, which appears to be democratic, but controlled by
| the elite (uber wealthy, CEO-class, elite schools, think
| tanks, elite class of politicians, elite intellectuals
| specialized in propaganda). Politicians/leaders/parties
| change every x years, based on the election schedule, but
| this is a better system for the elite.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Especially easy in election systems that turn into two-
| party systems on their own, like first-past-the-post.
| derefr wrote:
| Venezuela was gang-ridden. Their "economy" consisted of "you go
| outside to try to trade money for goods and services, some punk
| comes along and demands all your money and all their goods, you
| both go home empty-handed." Nobody was bothering to run
| businesses, because their productive output would all go toward
| -- as economics would put it -- "illegitimate rent-seekers."
|
| No change in economic system would have made this better. They
| needed to get rid of the gangs. And they did. Things are
| getting better there now, though there's a delay, as people
| still need to start and ramp up the productive businesses that
| were infeasible under the gangs.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| What did they do to control the gangs? Send out the Fist of
| the North Star?
| dmix wrote:
| The Venezulan gov simply co-opted the gangs and now uses
| them as hit squads, anti-protest 'police',
| surveillance/intelligence agents in local communities, etc.
|
| Also whenever there are elections each member is required
| to go around the slums and force a bunch of people to vote
| for Maduro so he stays in power and keeps paying them $$.
|
| > Every member of a colectivo is required to bring ten
| individuals to vote at polls during elections
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_(Venezuela)
| tarruda wrote:
| > Things are getting better there now
|
| Do you have a source for this? Last I read about the
| situation (maybe a couple of months ago) Venezuela had the
| biggest inflation in the world.
| [deleted]
| abrichr wrote:
| > They needed to get rid of the gangs. And they did.
|
| Can you please provide a source? I tried to find one but was
| unsuccessful. From https://insightcrime.org/news/venezuelas-
| reliance-brutal-fut... :
|
| > While there is substantial evidence of how these mega-
| operations have caused widespread abuses of the civilian
| population, it is unclear if they have been an effective
| security strategy.
| jvmfjvfjvf wrote:
| "Price controls and the seizure of farms and factories by the
| government led to food shortages."
|
| -NPR
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Their economy consisted of bad oil, exported, and fracking
| made that a no-go.
|
| They'd 'privatized' their farms so that meant, no domestic
| food production as the 'new' farmers had not the training,
| equipment nor funds to run a farm operation.
|
| So food imports became unaffordable as oil exports dried up.
| Food riots and instability. Is that when the gangs came in? I
| imagine.
| justrealist wrote:
| You understand that before Hugo Chavez was in power,
| Venezuela was (1) middle-income and (2) relatively safe?
|
| Maybe the gangs were a problem in 2022 but that was a
| consequence of economic collapse and the government relying
| on armed thugs for security, not the cause.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Venezuela might've been middle income in the late 70s and
| early 80s but it struggled in the 90s. Chavez rose to power
| in the wake of an economic crisis that kept getting worse
| throughout the 90s for Venezuela. He didn't come out of
| nowhere. Chavez screwed Venezuela over long-term, but per-
| capita GDP rose sharply in the aughts[1] (at least
| according to the World Bank).
|
| The lesson here is you should generally optimize your
| economic policy for broad economic prosperity -
| concentrating economic benefits to specific population
| cliques (be they socialist or capitalist) is a breeding
| ground for instability, authoritarianism and economic
| turmoil.
|
| [1]
| https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/VEN/venezuela/gdp-
| per-...
| akiselev wrote:
| Price controls work perfectly well as long as the government
| implements the necessary policies to backstop the market,
| whether that means nationalizing the suppliers and eating the
| difference in cost or subsidizing private companies. Venezuela
| and North Korea just don't have the foreign currency reserves
| required to do that.
|
| Tons of countries like China and the United Kingdom have energy
| price controls. Rental price controls are _everywhere_ around
| the world, both good and bad implementations abound.
|
| Lots of countries have put price control on agricultural
| staples like rice and wheat. It's a relatively cheap way of
| guaranteeing social stability since the difference between the
| market price and the set price is relatively small and
| predictable per person, except in emergency situations like the
| world experienced with Russian gas and Ukrainian wheat. The
| best governments squirrel money away for rainy days like that,
| so that the price controls don't fall apart.
| nradov wrote:
| Price controls inevitably result in shortages since producers
| either sell their goods on the black market, or just refuse
| to produce in the first place.
| akiselev wrote:
| Price controls only necessitate limiting what consumers are
| charged, not what producers earn - the government budgets
| for it and makes up the difference. Besides the most
| prominent examples of price controls in the US and Europe
| are almost always in response to shortages: Food
| Administration, Fuel Administration, Office of Price
| Administration, oil crisis, etc.
| eduction wrote:
| > Idk why governments think they can make things cheaper simply
| by just saying "this is now the new price and you can't change
| it".
|
| Probably because it often works, which is why both Biden and
| Trump have imposed prescription drug price controls, why Bush
| imposed energy price controls, and why Nixon and FDR imposed
| across the board price controls.
|
| The last time we were seriously threatened in a war we did it;
| the last time we faced an inflation crisis we did it; and we're
| doing it now with arguably the most expensive good for the
| fastest growing part of our population (seniors). If it doesn't
| work, why do we keep doing it whenever we are in crisis?
| aprdm wrote:
| Canada foodbanks have been struggling recently. USA has
| poverty. It isn't just Venezuela or North Korea.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Correct, but in America impoverished people are more likely
| to be obese than the general population. People experiencing
| food insecurity tend to consume calorie dense cheap food.
| This is not nearly the same as Venezuela or North Korea,
| which can't supply enough calories to feed their people.
| downrightmike wrote:
| American Farm subsidies to over produce > Lots of cheap
| food pretty much everywhere it even created the school
| lunch programs we have today > fed/overfed people. We even
| have billions of blocks of cheese in a cave system because
| of the dairy subsidies. I'm all for subsidies, except that
| the people that have farms couldn't survive without it and
| think they are doing it all on their own and voting
| regressive even though they likely wouldn't exist without
| the generations of subsidies their families took.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| When it comes to food supply, abundance is more important
| than efficiency. Maximally efficient systems are fragile
| and fragility is precisely what you don't want when the
| failure mode is mass starvation.
| coliveira wrote:
| > countries like Venezuela struggle to feed their own people in
| the modern era
|
| The US would also struggle to feed their own people if they
| were not subsidizing (something that is considered a crime in
| capitalism) their own farmers to the tune of several billion
| dollars a year. This is the reality of modern economies,
| farming pays close to nothing, and the only way to feed your
| population is to put large amounts of money into subsidies,
| something which South America, Africa, and other regions of the
| world don't have.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| > trade
|
| Let's not pretend that trade is freely open and available to
| Venezuela.
| primax wrote:
| Are you confusing Cuba and Venezuela?
| nradov wrote:
| What's to pretend? Venezuela is free to trade with the
| majority of countries in the world. No one is blockading
| their ports.
| hulitu wrote:
| > The fact that countries like Venezuela struggle to feed their
| own people in the modern era, during the time of greatest
| abundance and production, while the bulk of the world figured
| out food production/trade a century ago really blows my mind
|
| Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages"
| ?
|
| You shouldn't believe everything you read.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| India was not a US enemy but had food shortages during it
| socialist period.
| tinuviel wrote:
| It definitely was. USA sided with Pakistan against India as
| Pak committed genocide against Bangladeshis.
|
| https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/revealed-pak-us-
| blackma...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Shortages happened before that too and even now
| signatoremo wrote:
| India was and still is a "non aligned" country, staying
| neutral during the Cold War but leaning Soviet Union when
| the Congress party was dominant. India was never under US
| sanction, although my memory is hazy if any was imposed
| during the nuclear crisis between India and Pakistan.
| kelipso wrote:
| The US placed sanctions against India in the late 90s
| after India performed the nuclear bomb tests.
| nradov wrote:
| The US sanctions were very limited and temporary, and
| didn't restrict trade in food.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| But explain shortages before that though
| jvmfjvfjvf wrote:
| Turns out socialism isn't a great way to organize a food
| economy
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| What about the other common thread that US enemies are all
| authoritarian? Ever notice that almost every authoritarian
| country is poorer than almost every liberal democracy?
|
| Ever notice that China has a per-capita GDP lower than Costa
| Rica while Japan is 3.5x richer? Or that South Korea is
| 50-100x richer than North Korea?
| shaftoe wrote:
| Can you name a US ally with food shortages?
| mithras wrote:
| That's his point.
| [deleted]
| thiagoharry wrote:
| US allies do not need to be afraid to be victims of
| criminal sanctions enacted by the country that controls the
| international currency.
| nradov wrote:
| Which sanctions are criminal? What law is being violated?
| kelipso wrote:
| All sanctions are acts of war and all sanctions without
| UN approval are criminal. This would include basically
| all sanctions that the US has imposed over the last
| decade or more.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Sanctions seem to be the opposite of acts of war by
| basically any definition.
| kelipso wrote:
| Sanctions kill. There are plenty of examples including
| this one. By any definition, sanctions are acts of war.
| See [1] for a good argument.
|
| 1. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/06/29/economic-
| sanctions-as-...
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _by basically any definition._
|
| Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of state
| policy by other means; in this view neither is the
| 'opposite' of the other because in both cases it's a
| government pursuing some political object. I suppose the
| real 'opposite of war' would be the absence of state
| policy. Apathetic indifference to whatever the other
| party is doing.
|
| > _24. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER
| MEANS._
|
| > _We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political
| act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation
| of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by
| other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar
| to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means
| which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy
| shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of
| War in general and the Commander in each particular case
| may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one.
| But however powerfully this may react on political views
| in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as
| only a modification of them; for the political view is
| the object, War is the means, and the means must always
| include the object in our conception._
|
| Obviously Clausewitz's assertions are controversial but I
| think it's a viewpoint worth mentioning since you invited
| a broad consideration of the matter.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Explain why China is not helping these countries.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| China's own reliance on food imports has soared because
| China is poorly run and lead. Continued destruction of
| their own arable land due to criminal mismanagement mean
| there is no end in sight to this trend; international
| trade is China's lifeline.
| [deleted]
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| Haiti
| gre wrote:
| Don't worry, they're sending Haiti 53M in aid [to hire
| more cops].
|
| https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-
| releases/jun-08...
| chmod600 wrote:
| You are implying that being an enemy of the US causes food
| shortages, rather than their own failed governmental
| policies.
|
| That implication is pretty dubious. I'm sure sanctions (and
| whatever else the US does to its enemies) don't help. But
| the root of the problem is poor governance, which causes
| major problems, and often results in poor relations with
| the US due to humanitarian concerns.
|
| The flaw in socialism/communism is that it requires huge
| amounts of government power, and that is always abused.
| There may be economic problems with socialism/communism
| too, but we never get to see it because the concentrated
| power causes a political meltdown too fast.
| wudangmonk wrote:
| Humanitarian concerns is the reason for poor relations
| with the U.S? I find it hard to believe that people
| actually believe this, there is such a thing as history
| and the following is a very common pattern: new
| government decides that deals with U.S companies is
| unfair and wants to change things, then a coup is
| attempted if successful the new government bows to work
| closely with its allies. If it fails then suddenly all
| the newspapers/news networks decide to tell us about the
| suffering of these people under the brutal dictatorship.
| Then sanctions from everyone, then the people really
| start to suffer and it ends with a new coup and new bows
| to allies.
|
| This has happened sooo many times already using the same
| played out playbook. I just assume every single coup now
| is the same. Why do you think Turkey suddenly switched
| sides after a failed coup?.
|
| We know its happening, we benefit from it happening. Who
| knows maybe it is better this way for everyone in the
| long run. You can't split the world into good and bad and
| always try to align yourself with the good because it can
| only be done if you are willing to fool yourself.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Cuba trade with most countries in the world. North Korea is
| popped up by China. Iran should have no problems importing
| food with their huge oil revenue.
|
| Russia is under the harshest sanction at the moment yet do
| you see any food shortage there? How about Belarus?
|
| Perhaps their regime's failure is the reason why some of
| those countries have food availability issue?
| mcpackieh wrote:
| China too has an abysmal food self-sufficiency ratio, and
| it has been trending worse. Between 2000 and 2020, their
| food SSR dropped from 93% to 65%. This is a damning
| indictment of their government and economic system.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I wonder how that works. Naive intuition tells me it
| should be the opposite - the market generally isn't
| capable of processing longtermist ideas like food self-
| sufficiency, so if that SSR drops, you'd imagine it's
| because as the food market became increasingly free and
| profit-based, it aligned itself with local preferences
| and global economy - meaning imports for price arbitrage,
| and imports for variety.
| dirtyid wrote:
| > SSR dropped from 93% to 65%. This is a damning
| indictment of their government and economic system.
|
| The opposite. PRC SSR dropped because economy exploded
| and people can afford significantly more calories,
| including imported food products. Meanwhile absolute food
| security increased since 2000s baseline, grain production
| per capita went from ~350kg to ~400kg while adding ~200m
| people. Meanwhile SSR in SKR is 44%, JP is 38%, TW is
| 31%. Obviously, this is a damning indictment of their
| government and economic system.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| When food demand skyrockets but production doesn't,
| that's a damning indictment of the system. Production
| _should_ be scaling with that economic prosperity, but in
| the case of China it isn 't. Other countries with
| economic prosperity and huge amounts of land have food
| SSR above 1. China's economic prosperity is masking the
| problem.
| dirtyid wrote:
| No it's just recognition that the problem is PRC has less
| ariable land and water resources per capita. Relative to
| other developed economies with comparable restraints,
| PRC's doing the the same thing of importing calories (and
| by extention, water) from ag exporters with excess agri
| resources, except PRC also smart enough to pursue
| absolute per capita food self sufficiency, hence demand
| skyrocketed AND domestic production of calories ALSO
| increased even relative to population increase. Not to
| mention within PRC capita GDP bracket (i.e. just below
| high income), PRC system actually delivers more calories
| and protein comparable to much wealthier countries -
| average PRC citizen gets to enjoy better diet due to the
| system.
| jvmfjvfjvf wrote:
| Ever noticed how former US enemies (China, Vietnam, East
| Germany, Czech Republic) that moved from socialism to
| capitalism don't have food shortages anymore?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Idk why governments think they can make things cheaper
| simply by just saying "this is now the new price and you can't
| change it"._
|
| Because authoritarian regimes and price controls are two sides
| of the same coin.
|
| Economic power == political power
|
| By ceding economic power to the public to kickstart their
| economy, authoritarian regimes would be ceding political power.
|
| In contrast, by implementing price controls and
| vouchers/subsidies, they place the government in charge -- only
| government-permitted economic activity exists, which prevents
| people from gaining power themselves.
|
| To those regimes, scarcity is preferable over price increases.
| Scarcity makes everyone grumble, but allows winners and losers
| (via the government choosing). Price increases just make
| everyone grumble and realize how poor they are (internationally
| speaking).
|
| Or in summary, you're optimizing for efficient economic
| activity.
|
| They're optimizing for regime stability and survival.
| tomp wrote:
| _> By ceding economic power to the public to kickstart their
| economy, authoritarian regimes would be ceding political
| power._
|
| China has figured it out so it's clearly possible.
|
| Something like:
|
| - strict one-party rule
|
| - tight competition and selection process for leading party
| members (i.e. to become "president" you first have to
| successfully lead a city/province etc.)
|
| - totalitarian speech control
|
| - public "disappearances" of non-desirables to scare the rest
| of wannabe dissidents
|
| - encourage economic growth, independence, entrepreneurship
|
| - make "economic growth" one of the main political promises
| of your one-party totalitarian rule
|
| - control economy only at the top (e.g. by disappearing
| entrepreneurs that become _too_ powerful), laissez-faire
| otherwise
| dmix wrote:
| That's a good point.
|
| You see this in western countries w/ the housing crisis:
| fighting NIMBY groups is politically dangerous and creates
| powerful enemies. Plus liberalizing development policy like
| zoning = municipal gov loses power to control which
| developers get juicy contracts.
|
| So instead they enact rent-control. Which famously in 1970s
| NYC/Toronto caused a significant _increase_ in housing
| shortage because no one wanted to invest in new properties
| for fear they 'll also be rent controlled in the future. No
| one did renovations either so existing stock went into
| disrepair.
|
| Some of them simply burned down their own buildings because
| they were too expensive to maintain, which was a major cause
| behind the famous pictures of Harlem looking like a warzone
| in the 80s. https://images.squarespace-
| cdn.com/content/v1/59af5625a803bb...
|
| I was just reading the website for the new (projected) mayor
| of Toronto and, surprise, no mention of reform. But she is
| planning to launch a campaign for city wide rent control.
| Some things never change.
| kodisha wrote:
| Living in one such country, with one such authoritarian
| dictator - this is one of most accurate explanation of why is
| this happening.
| bparsons wrote:
| I wonder how well the US would function if it were under
| economic blockade by the entire hemisphere.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| We have so much surplus food that we burn it in our gas
| tanks. We'll be OK.
|
| And good luck with that blockade. Countries that don't waste
| decades enforcing known-defective economic systems are hard
| to defeat with tactics like that. They tend to have the
| necessary productive capacity to support a strong military.
| Someone wrote:
| I think it's more the size of the USA and the abundance of
| its natural resources than its political system that makes
| it futile to blockade it.
|
| Because a country needs lots of different resources and
| enough people to be self-sufficient at the current level of
| technology, I would think almost all smaller countries can
| be blockaded into the mid-twentieth, if not the nineteenth
| century, no matter what their political system, if the
| blockade is held up long enough.
|
| I can't see countries the size and population of Belgium or
| Peru making modern cars _and_ modern phones _and_ modern
| clothing _and_ modern farming tech _and_ plastic _and_
| (etc) after an effective decades-long blockade, for
| example.
| xwdv wrote:
| Pretty well because we produce a lot of food, some of which
| we don't even bother eating.
| nradov wrote:
| Economic growth would slow down, but overall the US would
| function just fine as we are self sufficient in most economic
| inputs that really matter. We also have the military force to
| break any conceivable blockade and take what we need, so no
| one would be stupid enough to even try blockading us in the
| first place.
| iscream26 wrote:
| It's always been creepy to me that whenever the topic of US
| foreign policy brought about from the angle of "other
| nations should impose to the US the same geopolitical
| policies that it imposes over other nations" some US
| citizens are quick to talk like bullies threatening to
| retaliate with their military forces if any of those
| suggestions were to come to fruition.
|
| However, when that same topic is kicked off with "the
| people of an enemy state are struggling" they act as if
| they were nothing but concerned, compassionate
| humanitarians. The wording of the message changes, but the
| intent does not. The desired result is still intervention
| without consequences.
| kneebonian wrote:
| It's simple the world is run by realpolitik not by good
| feelings and high minded ideals. The best you can hppe
| for is to ensure the safety of your country and people.
| pyrale wrote:
| US citizens have no shortage of good feelings and high
| minded ideals when it comes to criticizing other
| countries, though. I guess what GP was pointing out is
| that this double standard is especially creepy when it
| comes to military matters.
| kelipso wrote:
| I guess if you're a highly biased nationalist it's still
| in your interest to talk like you're an impartial
| rational person when discussing these topics. Of course
| you can't keep that mask on all the time.
| virtue3 wrote:
| I think you need to actually take a step back and realize how
| complicated the world actually is.
|
| Brazil is one of the major exporters of food in the world. And
| they get most of their fertilizer from Russia. Russia is
| cranking up their prices because of the trade war being enacted
| on them because of their actions in Ukraine.
|
| Brazil had also imported a ton of wheat from Ukraine before the
| war. And is full of people that couldn't really afford a 15%
| increase in price versus the over 100% increase in retail price
| of wheat.
|
| Just ask google who the top producers of -fertilizer- are. You
| can't farm without it.
| hedora wrote:
| Food was weaponized a long time ago. Modern famines generally
| are not due to lack of resources or economic problems.
| lawn wrote:
| And North Korea did create a famine before too, where they
| asked the population to give everything they had to the
| government and said that they would take care of everything.
|
| And then they sectioned off parts of the country and let them
| starve.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Kim didn't "ask" anything.
| lawn wrote:
| It's of course an order.
| est31 wrote:
| I would have agreed with you until last year. Now, thanks to
| the Ukraine war, we see massive price increases for food in
| egypt and the middle east. For a lot of people there, food
| became economically way more unavailable. The interesting
| part about this is that usually it's the war zones where the
| famine happens because it's virtually impossible to bring
| food there. But in this instance, the war was in the producer
| country.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| 10% of US households experienced food insecurity in 2021:
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...
| hulitu wrote:
| > When comparing current price levels with historical ones, the
| overall picture suggests that market prices, since the onset of
| the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting border closure by the
| North Korean government, have moved to a consistently higher
| level, which indicates that the country's overall food supply is
| lower.
|
| The same thing happened in EU countries. Shall we conclude that
| there is a food shortage in EU ?
| tommoor wrote:
| The BBC did a good piece on this a few weeks ago that includes
| multiple interviews with people in NK
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiviOdWDl9o
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