Egad
I don’t know what to make of this, but it certainly caught my attention:
In a passing statement, North Korean officials said they wanted their regime to be a “normal country” and brought up the possibility of a “McDonalds-style” US investment.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Somebody told Kim what would happen if he went to Air Burst.
It was a good run while it lasted Kim, but you know that if you do anything the DS doesn’t like, you’ll go bye bye faster than Qaddafi did.
They need to be careful that they don’t get Venezuelaed. Many companies were in or went in after Chavez rose to power. Then the government nationalizes or confiscates the business assets. I recall hearing about Kimberley Clark when they got nationalized. Years later, the news was that many people in Venezuela were without toilet paper. Presumably because the gov. ran the factories into the ground.
Though to be fair, I haven’t heard of any such calamities in Russia, and many U.S. companies have considerable assets there.
IF… in the highly doubtful case that they’re actually sincere, it appears they wish to create a ‘K-Pop‘ society. (gag).
If insincere, they’re pulling a ploy from the Chinese playbook. Buildup your country through capitalism controlled by the State until the wealth generated allows for military dominance. As, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”…
North Korea opening up itself to the world, could be a great thing for the world. Who knows maybe North Korea like the fictional wakanda, is secretly a technological superpower with science light years ahead of America pretending to be a third world country. Kim Jong un’s alter ego is a superhero named fat panther.
Kim Jong Un (whose name translated means “fat-boy-bad-haircut) wants him some Big Macs…and he doesn’t like lines or travel times.
But more likely…his trip to China was really a trip to the woodshed & he’s going to behave now that he can sit down again.
McDonald’s in North Korea would be the end of communism. The people will know that there is more and better stuff in a free society than just McDonald’s; think Krispy Kreme donuts or ice cream.
Kim Jong un has vicious intents with inviting McDonald’s to open restaurants in nk, he wants to share his diabetes with his people because he doesn’t want to be the only diabetes patient in nk.
North Korea has starvation problems, rather than the US diabetes/obesity.
It’s probably because there’s almost no wireless towers in NK as it is purely electrically dark at night.
People may have heard that radiation causes cancer. The radiation coming off of these high power wireless transmitters and retransmitters are in that range already. They never did do a health test on that before they installed them. Too much money to be made on all you smartphone users.
John Guilfoyle Says:
April 30th, 2018 at 7:05 pm
Kim Jong Un (whose name translated means “fat-boy-bad-haircut) wants him some Big Macs…and he doesn’t like lines or travel times.
Americans don’t like perceived insults to their Dear Leader. The same applies to North Koreans. If you remove one letter from Dear Leader’s name, it is a national insult and must be punished, right.
I worked in Berlin in the early 1980s and we were very excited when McDonalds opened a restaurant there. Alas, the German version of the McDonald’s hamburger just wasn’t very good. The PX snack bar hamburger was better. When I was visiting Trier, Germany, they had a Burger King and the hamburger wasn’t very good there either. Some things just don’t translate very well.
Ray,
I found the same to be true in the Netherlands. I spent two semesters there in a study abroad program.
Aside from family and friends, the thing I missed the most was a good old fashioned cheeseburger. I went to both McDonalds and BK while over there and was very disappointed in both.
When my parents picked me up at the airport, all I wanted was a burger.
And the ketchup is even worse than the burgers. Ketchup so bad that even Neo wouldn’t want to put it on her buttered spaghetti.
We took a family trip to Germany & Austria in 2000 – my mother was ecstatic that the Salzberg McD’s actually put ice in the iced tea.
I was back in Germany last year, and the local McD’s was the best place to find a good restroom while roaming around the town (there were ones to be found in some of the hotels, but there are very few fast-food places where you can “pay” for your pit stop* with just a couple of Euros.
(*Because, Starbucks)
Funny that, considering Hamburg.originated in well Hamburg.
There is the persistent rumor that what’s called beef in Europe is in fact horse meat, Europe never really had a beef industry as one sees in the USA. Perhaps it’s horse meat with some dairy cow tossed in.
Rest of the world considers America very extravagant because we consume the muscle meat and not the offal too, Italy thinks an animals spleen should be eaten…but then again these people had histories of famines so. “Waste not want not:” applies .
Ymar…if you or the Norks are looking to go at it…I’m good with that…but bring lunch you might be here awhile.
Y’all should have the Aussie versions of those Maccas & Hungry Jacks burgers…BEETS! Lord have mercy! The greasiest Fish & Chips takeaway does better… 😉
Seeing the leaders of North and South Korea holding hands broke some kind of hope floodgate inside me, and I felt choked up with tears of hope and pride.
If it leads to Macdonalds, at least that has calories and no intestinal worms in the recipe.
“…no intestinal worms…”
But…sago-worm burgers sounds like just the thing for MacD. to cement this “beginning of a beautiful relationship”, etc….
Pretty soon we’ll all be eating (if only to encourage the process), perhaps with a side of grasshopper fries….
We lived in Moscow for three years, and the McDonald’s there were outstanding–better than the ones at home.
I have to agree with the comments about Burger King in Germany. We didn’t go often, because the native fast food is much better, but the two times we visited one, the food was awful.
The official was hungry. He ate at McDonalds. He liked it. Now, he will either be executed for liking it, or The Un will get his own. I wonder if Switzerland has McD? The Un might have some dining experience there.
face it – they are hungry and “fast food” sounds very appealing
Spent six years in Germany (Munich – 88-91 & Stuttgart – 02-05). The hamburgers and pizza from traditionally American fast food places were fine. Now…when I got home all I wanted was Taco Bell and Mexican food. Same with my brother. It was funny. We came home in different years and wanted the same thing without talking to each other.
Taco Bell…can you imagine?
This just popped into my head so the idea hasn’t had time to achieve even half-baked status but here goes: if – IF! – the Nobel Peace Prize goes to folks involved with a meaningful disarmament in Korea, it should go to Putin and Xi.
Why? Because they have demonstrated the road map to market based reforms that improve standards of living while maintaining a de facto dictatorship and allowing the kleptocrats at the top to share the spoils.
North Korea is hardly worth looting at this point. If Little Rocket Man can see a way to preserving his own power while enriching himself and his (potentially restive) cronies he might take it.
Get some Chilian experts over there to work with South Koreans to help explain to the North how to get from third world to first world and how to ignore all economic advice from Western academics.
“…it should go to Putin and Xi…”
Actually, I was thinking it should go to Obama, Kerry and (drum roll) Wendy Sherman.
Simply because without their fecklessness (or was it encouragement?), Kimmy might not have felt sufficiently emboldened to test bigger and bigger kilotonnage.
…and hence probably would not have blown up that mountain test site of his.
We may, of course, never know for certain…. (but we still ought to give that Gang of Three the benefit of the doubt for having at least one foreign policy “achievement”….)
For GB, and in the spirit of May 1st, here’s a quote from a recent article by David Stockman:
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has stressed the importance to study the Communist Manifesto.
The purpose of reviewing the Communist Manifesto is to understand and grasp the power of the truth of Marxism and write a new chapter of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, Xi said Monday when presiding over a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
The ability of the whole Party to solve the practical problems of contemporary China with the basic principles of Marxism should be enhanced.
It’s necessary to “apply the scientific principles and the spirit of The Communist Manifesto to the overall planning of activities related to the great struggle, great project, great cause, and great dream,” he said, calling The Communist Manifesto a monumental work that has a scientific perspective on the development of human society and was written to benefit the people and seek liberation for humanity.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/your-aint-seen-nothin-yet-more-on-the-donalds-maga-delusions-and-others/
Ah, those inscrutable Chinese. 虚伪
New trade policy: Import McRib
With so many of the Norks starving and some eating tree roots, how would you be able to sell quarter pounders? Electricity is a luxury, running water is not common, this place is clearly not even close to civilization. Good luck with Mickey D’s.
US Contractors gave plenty of McDonalds and other food chains to the US troops in Iraq. That is why the contractors were paid as much as they were. If they didn’t get the food to Iraq forward operating bases, the troops would have to eat MREs forever or even Vietnam era ration cans.
Morale would be hard to keep up as a result. Hagen Daas, in the desert of a war zone that was still fighting a war. Afghanistan’s FOB McDonalds would be a better comparison with the potential ones in NK however.
Btw, McDonalds in Japanese would be equivalent to a 3 or 4 star family restaurant in the US.
Rest of the world considers America very extravagant because we consume the muscle meat and not the offal too
Believe me, we eat the offal too. Where do you think hot dogs and bologna get their “beef”, as in ‘all beef hot dogs’?
And yes, knowing this I still love an occasional hot dog or bologna samich…
If this peace and opening happens, North Korea will modernize at an astonishing rate. Remember, in 1990 China was still mostly rural and agrarian. The Norks can feed themselves, if Kim lets them: go look around east of Victorville in California. The Koreans that settled there have extensive, productive gardens in the high desert.
Kim doesn’t hunger for a quarter pounder. He wants expertise. McDonalds doesn’t just sell food; it trains young people in how to work productively, and use technology to leverage profits.
Kim’s dream of unlimited Big Macs is looming large on the horizon.
I think it is still true that there has never been a war between two countries that have a McDonalds, so this would be a good thing. Maybe it’s a bit like the old days when two warring groups would exchange hostages to ensure that nobody tries anything funny.
Just to annoy folks, Trump should hold out for Chick-Fil-A franchises instead of McDonalds.
It won’t work until the concentration camps disappear, too.
What they have are clean streets in the capital, and a relatively small elite of slender, nice looking women, dressed in conservative western garb.
Beyond that, if you watch enough YouTube on NK what they have are starving dirty peasants with crabbed or gaunt faces, crumbling infrastructure, and “banquets” for select foreign tourists that look like nightmares of inedible plant and animal substances in orange sauce.
I was wondering some time ago, and just as a thought problem, whether the minuscule amount of social good in the way of population demeanor and urban order could be preserved once the country was opened up and tyranny overthrown.
Probably not, though Singapore may provide evidence to the contrary for that.
As for westerners, the famous historical example was that it was the Spartans who were most notoriously corruptible when exposed to sudden license.
I have not been in – or more precisely eaten anything from, since I went in but turned around and walked out – a Burger King in many years; whereas when I was a late teen early 20’s I preferred it to any other.
But for decades now, they have been dirtier, messier, with less healthy and competent looking help, than almost any other restaurants of the kind, other than what used to be called Kentucky Fried Chicken, but is now “KFC”.
It’s almost as if the management of these two brands, whoever they are, care nothing about historical standards of cleanliness, wholesomeness, and efficiency, which used to be the main selling points of these kinds of outlets.
“And, I hear that NK will be open soon,
As vacation land for,
Lawyers in Love.”
What if high-tech genomic engineers cloned milling herds of insensate cataphrastics (qv), marketed prime cuts to wee Kim’s Peoples Liberation Army, sat back to watch massed minions’ gobbling heads fall off?
All hail Kim’s a-cephalic ungulati, ACUs! Their slogan writes itself: “As steers we cheer, vote free-and-clear, for Bobbletwot as for small beer.”
Any fool can talk sense. What’s your take-on-talk, MzBill (or “Wunderschlumpf”, as you prefer)?
Egad? It’s Major Hoople time!
http://wcfcourier.com/sports/college/major-hoople-offers-first-set-of-college-picks/article_65abf22a-f2fb-11e1-80c9-0019bb2963f4.html
Two word response:
Otto Warmbier!
It’s very simple.
If China “took him to the woodshed,” and that was all they did, nothing would have changed.
But that’s not all they did. They also dangled a carrot, and wrapped it up in a model-of-the-world with ample empirical support behind it.
That’s what did the trick.
What they said was (roughly) as follows:
1. “Only sufficient wealth can maintain a military. Only sufficient military power can maintain a single regime in dominance safely for a period of several decades.”
2. “You, at your age, are likely to have a natural lifespan of several more decades. Other than chance illness, the most likely way you’ll die early is by assassination or war. To prevent this, you need to maintain your military power. Therefore, you need great wealth.”
3. “But, your current strategy is depriving you of wealth and military power. Our strategy, on the other hand, has put us on the verge of surpassing the U.S. as wealthiest nation, and will eventually bring us to military equality or dominance as well.”
4. “Therefore, you should imitate our strategy. We have already demonstrated that one can remain in total control of power while allowing specific kinds of economic liberalism, by gradually liberalizing sections of life that don’t threaten your power while ruthlessly suppressing any movement that does.”
5. “In particular, your dominance is not threatened by consumerism; therefore, you should promote consumer liberality while maintaining political authoritarianism. If you do that, you will become wealthy through foreign investment while remaining dictator-for-life.”
6. “And, if anything goes wrong, you can always nationalize whatever assets the outside world brings within your borders. In the meantime, you will have brought food back to your people and kept your army well-paid. The former is good for your Messiah status; the latter is a requirement for not being overthrown.”
And Lil’ Kim was convinced by this line-of-reasoning. Which makes sense, because it’s true.
OldTexan Says:
May 1st, 2018 at 10:53 am
Just to annoy folks, Trump should hold out for Chick-Fil-A franchises instead of McDonalds.
* *
Rimshot.
random reactions:
a) It is interesting that despotic regimes still feel the need to appear normal according to western democratic standards. It reveals they know where the moral high ground is. Too bad the intellectual establishment in western governments and universities do not.
b) I read somewhere that the counterfeit pharmaceuticals made in North Korea were actually very good quality, better than some of the 2nd or 3rd tier legitimate producers. Some of that Asian attention to detail that enabled South Korea to go from peasant country to 1st world in a couple generations is latent in North Korea. All the more tragic it has been simultaneously squelched and exploited by Marxists for 70 years.
c) There is virtually zero chance that the Kim regime has turned a new leaf. I hope they are stuck behind the eight ball and the change in behavior will be real, but I fear the results of this will amount to kicking the can down the road version 2.0 …Lucy will still be holding the football and Charlie Brown will be flat on his back. And the John Kerrys and Condoleezza Rices of the the world will still be pontificating at international conferences.
Kim has a high demand for US Hollywood entertainment for some time now. The two primary points of contamination comes from culture or religion.