As for the giant drop in GDP in the 90's, probably this...

Quote:With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, North Korea lost a major trading partner and strategic ally. Combined with a series of natural disasters, this led to the North Korean famine, which lasted from 1994 to 1998 and killed an estimated 800,000 to 3,500,000 people.

Also Kim Il-sung died in 1994 and Kim Jong-il took over.  I assume Kim Jong-il is not as capable as his father, which is usually the case with these kinds of things.  Being the founder, "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung must have had real skill (otherwise he wouldn't have been able to make it that far in the first place), but his son is just... his son, and it's even worse the more generations you go downwards, they're just spoiled brats.  I mean the 3rd generation is totally fucking terrible...
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Quote:Kim Jong-nam (Korean: 김정남, Hanja: 金正男) (born May 10, 1971), is the eldest son of the late Kim Jong-il, former leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. From roughly 1998 to 2001, he was widely considered to be the heir-apparent to his father and the next leader of North Korea. Following a much-publicized botched attempt to secretly enter Japan using a fake passport and visit Disneyland in May 2001, he was thought to have fallen out of favor with his father.

What the fuck, you would give up being the Great Leader just to go to Disneyland?  Can I take your place and be the Great Leader instead?  The Eternal President will cry eternal tears if he knew how trash his 3rd generation turned out to be.

Quote:In a book released in 2012 titled My Father, Kim Jong Il, and Me by Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi who had interviewed Kim Jong-nam on numerous occasions, it is claimed that Kim Jong-nam expects the leadership of Kim Jong-un to fail, citing that he is too inexperienced and young. He also stated that "Without reforms, North Korea will collapse, and when such changes take place, the regime will collapse."

And Disneyland thinks the current Great Leader will collapse the whole country.  Yep 3rd generation sure is going well.

(This post was last modified: 05/08/2012 01:28 AM by Assassinator.)