This story is nuts. Forgive me if I'm not perfectly accurate, but you'll get the gist. Because of major food shortages in North Korea (famines in the 1990s killed a million), people work hard to save a little money to buy food during the long, hungry winter. State-run food stores often run out of food altogether, so black marketing is rampant. However, these black markets aren't exactly in line with the communist agenda and a new merchant class of people has been forming, so the North Korean leadership is trying to stamp them out. The idea was that if North Korea devalued its currency (chopped off a few zeros and printed new money) then they could even out the population's wealth and nullify the merchant class. In early December 2009, North Korea printed new money and allowed each person to exchange the equivalent of about $40 U.S. dollars and the remainder of all old currency was now worthless. So any person with any savings above $40 had their private wealth vanish! Can you imagine? There was a big rush to change money into foreign currencies or even hold normally unheard-of demonstrations against the currency change, but the government stuck to it. I think later the government allowed more money to be exchanged over the $40 cap but it wasn't much.
This strategy didn't work so well though. One unintended consequence was that when the workers at state-run jobs were paid in the new currency it suddenly had much greater buying power than the previous money and every person rushed to the state-run food stores to buy up supplies which then cleared the shelves, causing people to turn back in greater force to the illegal black markets for food and basic necessities. There's also huge inflation and an angry populace that are making some people expect an uprising of North Korean workers against their government if there aren't changes soon. Wild.
Last night I was watching a documentary online that's a series of 14 four-minute episodes about a guy visiting North Korea as a tourist, although it was essentially a propaganda tour where he was guarded at all times. He visited the DMZ from the North side, rode the subway, saw a mass-gymnastics performance..... eerie and bizarre. And to get into North Korea in the first place he had to bribe somebody in Shenyang, China (where my sister lives). It's called the "Vice Guide to North Korea" and I linked to it from CNN's website so it feels credible. If you have a sick day or some time to kill, I'd definitely recommend it. Go to: http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/
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