How does a country like Nort Korea seem to have endless money for its army and develop nuclear weapons despite being one of the most sanctionned country in the world?

Question

How does a country like Nort Korea seem to have endless money for its army and develop nuclear weapons despite being one of the most sanctionned country in the world?

In: 1447

Answer 1

There’s an important element of defense logistics called Purchasing Power Parity. lets demonstrate with a broad strokes example. Lets say the US buys 1000 rifles. The US pays the factory worker that does it 30 dollars an hour, it takes him 1 hour per rifle, the US defense budget for that order is 30,000$. Lets say North Korea buys 1000 rifles. It still takes 1 hour per rifle, but they pay the worker making it 1 dollar an hour. Their Military Budget is 1000$, but they still got 1000 rifles.

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There’s a lot more moving parts going on, but thats the general idea, its essentially the element of Cost of Living. A 100k salary in San Francisco and a 100k a year salary in Wyoming fund vastly different lifestyles.