60 Minutes (transcript and video clips available here) did a story about North Korea and its Glorious Leader. Some parts that I found especially interesting.
Kim Jong Il enjoys things he denies his own people
Despite his policies toward America, we learned he’s said to love western food and American culture, especially movies and the Internet — things he denies his own people.
It's easy to be generous when you own everything.
When we visited the Maternity Hospital, for example, what we kept hearing was that Kim Jong Il, not the government, built the facility. Red seals placed on incubators meant they were personal gifts from the Great Leader himself.
I'd rather be responsible for my own well-being and not rely on the government to take care of me.
"There is no leader in the world like our Great Leader, who tries his best to take care of his people," an offical spokeman said. Our guides never used the word God to describe him, but at the Revolutionary Museum, they told us that Kim Jong Il is very close to being the source of life itself.
Maybe the people in North Korea really do love their glorious leader, but maybe not. Mao Zedong (the famous, or infamous Chinese communist leader) once said that "political power grows from the barrel of a gun", with the gun a metaphor for the military. Kim Jong Il has control of the military and that might well be the basis of his political power. Of course I could be wrong and he really could be a benevolent and wise leader - but I wouldn't bet on it.
You can check out the lastest Economic Freedom index here. And you can check out income per capita for over 150 countries at the World Bank database (free query).
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