The North Korean Solution

Exactly what happens to major American bureaucrats and politicians when they recommend policies that fail in a colossal way, present incomplete or woefully inadequate bases for major policy shifts, even the very basis for a declaration of war, or act in a manner that sinks an entire economy? You might ask that of the commissioners at the SEC who, on April 28, 2004, voted to exempt the biggest of the big financial institutions – those too big to fail – from the ceilings on borrowings imposed on everybody else… which resulted in the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. (and the rest of the American economy). You could ask Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, respective Chairs of the Federal Reserve, how they could allow banks to lend into a system of over-inflated appraisals, under-qualified borrowers with no down-payments without any intervention by the Fed. You might ask the Bush administration how they could commit the United States to a seemingly endless war in Iraq – a bottomless pit of budgetary deficits – based on a theory that the “enemy” had a stash of “weapons of mass destruction” that didn’t really exist or the Obama administration how the Taliban seem only to grow in strength as the America surge in Afghanistan presses on.

In this country, bureaucrats seldom lose their jobs for bad decisions, regardless of the scope and consequences, and politicians might simply not be reelected for their colossal blunders. These penalties are particularly light if one were to apply North Korean standards to bad governmental decisions. Take for example the North Korean decision last fall to reconfigure and revalue the currency in order to stem inflation and assert the government’s control over the nascent grassroots market economy. The results weren’t pretty: “The measure reportedly worsened the country's food situation by forcing the closure of markets and sparked anger among many North Koreans left with piles of worthless bills.” March 19^th Washington Post. Not to mention skyrocketing food costs.

This little negativity came at a time when the ailing Kim Jong-il was planning for an orderly transition of power to his son, Kim Jong-Un, which made the elder statesman fall in the eyes of both the populace, but, more importantly, in the eyes of the senior Korean military officers who would have to accept Jong-Un as his father’s successor. Dear Leader needed a scapegoat and fast. That would be Pak Nam Gi, the ruling Workers' Party finance and planning department chief who was in charge of this the currency reform. Mr. Pak was apparently executed (firing squad, we are told) in the state capital, sometime during the week of March 8^th. Hmmm.

In a note of profound understatement, the above Post article noted that: “It is not unprecedented for the [North Korean] communist government to execute officials for policy failures… In the 1990s, North Korea publicly executed a top agricultural official following widespread starvation…” Aren’t we lucky that we do not live in such a brutal and oppressive nation? I bet our “deciders” are even happier about this fact. Did I mention that in North Korea, the “leader” of everything never gets punished? There’s always a better receptacle for a well-aimed bullet.

I’m Peter Dekom, and even when we are stupid, we are a whole lot nicer than some folks!