With a $1 billion economy, North Korea can easily afford nukes
When first reported last night, news was that there'd been an
earthquake near the Korean peninsula. Then the political
scientists took over from the seismologists and the tremor
became North Korea's third nuclear test. But given the
impoverished state of the country and the fact that building
weapons is pretty expensive, how can North Korea afford it?
"The economy is certainly a decrepit economy but it is in the
range of $1 billion in terms of annual production," says
Georgetown Asian studies professor Victor Cha. "In addition,
they devote about 30 percent of the entire nation's resources to
the military and to the development of weapons systems."  "So,"
he adds, "their people are starving, but they are able to do
this."  North Korea gets its money by selling minerals to the
Chinese but, says Cha, a lot of its financing comes from "front
businesses" run by the military that are both legal and illegal,
including the sales of black market pharmac