It's easy to save emissions when you have no electricity.

Although North Korean officials have kept it quiet internationally (like a lot of “internal matters”) the basic idea with this sort of re-value is to reduce the numbers involved in transactions from ridiculous to semi-ridiculous, which by itself isn’t a bad idea. It saves carting wheelbarrows of money just to get a bus ticket or cup of flour. But two things about this re-valuation are pretty god-awful harsh on the population, the first is the timeframe:

North Koreans are thought to have until Sunday to change their old notes into the new currency.

I’m not sure how long the deal has been going, but I’d guess not very long at all.
The goal is:

Many experts believe the reform is intended to curb rising inflation in North Korea.

But the real “let’s take a run up while we screw the population” concept is the following:

.. there appears to be a limit on how much can be exchanged – one report says each adult can cash in only 100,000 won.

That means each adult can exchange about US$740-worth (£445) of won.

That’s 810 bucks Aussie. Or 2 and a half weeks rent at my current place. That’s not all according to the Reuters article:

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo daily said the ruling, the first time in 50 years Pyongyang has revalued its currency, allows people to keep the equivalent of about $40 in cash — enough to keep a family of four going for two months — and deposit the rest in the bank. They may not withdraw the money on demand.

Tough luck anyone who managed to set a little aside or maybe form part of a not completely dirt poormiddle class. Nope: you guys are back to the state required level of poverty.
I think this also immediately generates the government a list of “near wealthy” (well, near US$750 bucks) people to keep an eye on.

Thank you for your deposit, enjoy our free surveillance as a result.

A list of trader traitors if you will. By controlling ability to withdraw money it essentially rations any money people have and gives the government all but 40 bucks per family worth of its currency to play with. If people ever revolt, the bank can just shut off withdrawals and sweat it out for two months before people have no money left.

An expert on North Korea, Rudiger Frank said of the changes:

officials want to destroy the newly-emerging middle class, many of whom have made money trading in the free markets.

Propaganda poster. The text says "Death to US imperialists, our sworn enemy!"

and another commentator speculates:

The North certainly wanted to get its hands on the cash held by private North Korean traders working the border with China.

So the people aren’t stupid, they didn’t want to have their savings disappear. They might be Downtrodden, scared, bullied, overworked and malnourished, but they’re certainly not stupid: what would you do if your money was about to be made useless? You’d buy anything you can in the hopes of gaining a bartering advantage. Only trouble with that is that everyone else is after the same limited goods.

.. ordinary people were trying to buy as many things as possible with the old money before it becomes worthless – leading to massive price rises.

So shit out of luck there with the goal of reducing inflation huh?

Another North Korean now living in the South said the new won notes were already being used because few people will accept the old ones.

Easy to see why no one would want the old notes: anyone with the maximum swap over amount would be insane to take on any more cash that they have an increasing chance of being stuck with.

I think the only possible way around would be to know a lot of poor people who would fall under the limit and give them a cut of transferring the cash over (and hope they don’t just run off with your money). But given the controls on the withdrawal of money (if the reuters article is correct) that’d be even more difficult to get away with.

Update: Looks like my last suggestion (dividing up money amongst people) can get you killed.

In new reporting on Tuesday, Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based shortwave radio station that broadcasts news to the North, said that police killed the two men in Pyongsong, a market center outside of Pyongyang, on Friday after they divided their savings among a large group of people and urged them to exchange the money for them, attempting to get around the government’s limit.

The answer seems to be: “nothing good”. They are an unnecessary level of proxy between person (e.g. you, me, the average guy in the street) and medical care provider (e.g. doctor, anaesthetist, pharmacist, ambulance service, nurse).
Now in the field of Software Engineering we often add in a proxy between two things for a number of reasons:

• caching (e.g. the proxy accumulates things so it can supply them quicker)
• auditing/logging (e.g. “a paper trail”)
• for coordinating and performing a number of calls to other things (e.g. to talk to A you need to first ask B something)
• for handling errors and exceptions in a nice way

The downside is:

• increased overhead (memory/performance hit)

As far as I can see the only one of those “benefits” are there.. Increased paper-trail. Which in the case of medical care isn’t really a good thing given how much of one there is to start with.
I mean I live in a country with public health (“socialised socialized medicine”.. only the USA calls it that to incite fear of communism, so the z is appropriate) and I’ve only recently been effectively forced to get additional private health cover because the government is pretty much screwing you if you don’t (via tax penalties and lifetime penalties based on age that will kick in for me now) and I can see just how little private health cover offers if you end up outside certain average needs (e.g. waiting lists for various things, lifetime limits, yearly limits, certain hospitals/providers, gap payments.. ). BUT the difference is a year of the near highest cover level of private costs me about what it costs per month in the USA.

Current system costs an arm and a leg

Over half of bankruptcies in the USA are caused by medical costs a recent study said. Some scary bits:

“Unless you’re Bill Gates, you’re just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of medicine. “Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick.”

and shockingly:

Most of those seeking court protection from creditors had health insurance, with more than three-quarters reporting they had coverage at the start of the illness that triggered bankruptcy.

So it wasn’t even those who didn’t have insurance, it was the ones who did have it but got screwed anyhow!

This sort of thing is pretty much unheard of in the nice public health safety net we have in Australia. It isn’t necessary for me to get private health cover other than to avoid the tax implications and shorten the waiting period if I need elective surgery.

Whether I have private cover or not, if I need treatment (ranging from the “hit by a bus” type situation to developing leukaemia to having a head cold etc) then I’ll get treatment. The same isn’t the case in the USA with private cover needing to cover everything that could happen to you.

I remember during orientation with a US based company: I have never seen so many adults listening so intently to the list of “benefits”. It was like watching kids hearing a fairytale, although this one was about the fantasy of “full coverage”.

Private health-cover in Australia

I’m pretty against the notion of private health-cover in Australia and that the government has to really twist people’s arms to get them to take it up (and they leave in droves when that tax benefit is changed). Having a system that is propped up by people trying to avoid tax is just stupid and means you end up with a bunch of people with pretty much useless cover (e.g. sure, it qualifies you for avoiding the tax break, but can you actually use it? Generally these “minimum cover to get tax relief” schemes provide such poor coverage and high gap payments that you’d have to use the public system)

What it means is that you’re artificially inflating an industry which doesn’t really offer that much benefit and which takes up hospitals which should be available to all for no cost. It also drives a hell of a lot of money to alternative medicine treatments as people try desperately to get some value out of their tax-penalty-enforced private cover. This has three negative consequences in my opinion:

• driving up private health cover further
• promoting health treatments that have no proven benefit whatsoever
• upping the cost of everything because the insurer is paying most of it

Lobbying out of control

This debate in the USA seems to be divided amongst two concerns:

• improving the healthcare provided to all
• maintaining health insurance company profits

Is it just me that thinks one of those is on very shaky ground. What amazes me further is the vast sums of money spent on bribing congressmen from the piles of cash syphoned off the current medical costs (born by US citizens).

Just how many people were denied coverage for something to be able to donate the 9 million dollars to John Kerry’s campaign?

Attitudes need adjusting

One thing out of this whole stupid debate is just how the group attitude of “I ain’t paying for someone else” selfishness covers not only the usual culprits (conservative/republicans) but also many of the democratic/liberal types. I don’t want to further the whole idea that you can only have one of two types of opinion on things (e.g. you’re a liberal or a conservative and that’s all), but I’ve had conversations with people that are furious about a number of usual liberal type issues (same sex marriage, war in iraq, women’s right to abortion, religion separated from state etc) but who on this topic dig their heels in and say they don’t want to be forced to pay for other people’s healthcare.

Perhaps this is one of the weaknesses of the USA’s strength. The cut throat succeed mentality is probably why the USA is the world’s powerhouse economy, although it hasn’t been without casualties. Perhaps now is the time to re-evaluate the situation before the society implodes under the weight of medical costs (and the costs associated with putting off timely medical checkups).

Lots of “socialized stuff” already

Perhaps the people against public health can think about what they currently already pay for in the realm of the dirty socialist concept:

• public roads
• public transport
• public police forces
• public fire fighters
• public libraries
• public utilities
• etc

I really can’t see the same people objecting to healthcare for all taking up arms to protest against “socialised police force” (e.g. police won’t track down your mugger unless you pay for it) or fire brigades run by companies and on an “individual pays” policy (“Oh, your house is burning down.. I’m sorry, your fire brigade insurance only covers week day call outs.. we’ll put it out on monday”).

Some things are never meant to be money making ventures. Ethically healthcare needs to be universal in a civilised society.

Bit of a longer, but most comprehensive coverage of the videos/slides here. In ten minutes you’ll know what happened.

A power point slide show with stick figures gives another explanation here:
http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1

Nice clean, quick description of what’s going on.

The bounce of money (short intro by a news reader.. stick with it), so more of an “end result” type coverage rather than examining how we got here:

Oh and this one is worth mentioning:

How the unemployment statistics are worked out.

Might as well put something silly at the end:

Savings accounts

Anyone who has ever tried to move country will tell you that bank accounts are a pain. Something akin to removing a metre long bandaid from a hairy groin and leg over the period of your stay in the country. Try it now if you like to get prepared: length of elastoplast from ankle to pubic bone.

Conversations with bank account opening people go something like this:

Me: I’d like to open a bank account and get a credit card so I can pay rent, pay bills and receive my pay cheque.

Bank: Great, we’ll need proof of address.

Me: Ok, what’s that then.

Bank: Two of either a utility bill a bank statement or a council rate notice.

Me: But I’m in temporary accommodation and I need a bank account to get a utility bill and anyhow: the first bill will take a month.

Bank: We could use some payslips and a letter from your employee

Me: But I just got into the country and I need a bank account to get paid

Bank: I’m sorry we can’t open one then.

Or you could go down the “we need proof of your identity first” which involves:

• Certified copies of passport/birth certificate signed by your doctor/bank manager/accountant/lawyer who has known you for a certain amount of time
• Proving your address for X number of years
• Stating that you’ve lived in the country for a certain number of years

All of which is really none of their business given they’re not giving you any real interest, charge you to take it out and occasionally completely fuck up the economy via rampant stock market gambling to make vast moneys off this massive slush fund. They should operate on a “no risk, no hassle” policy in my books.

The price you pay for not opening a local bank account: a stream of bad exchange rates and very high ATM fees (5-10 dollars).

Credit Cards

If opening a savings account  is only moderate amounts of pain, then credit cards are worse. This is somewhat fair enough since you could end up costing them whatever the paltry limit that they give you as a dirty expat until you’ve beaten them over the head with your pay slips.

In the UK everything revolves around credit ratings. These credit ratings are surrupticiously collected (you get no choice to opt out!) and then held hostage (you can view it if you have a credit card of course) by the ultimate big brother credit check company: Experian. You can reward them by collecting and making your data available to anyone who pays a few pounds by.. wait for it.. paying them a few pounds.

In HK they want you to be full time employed. Doesn’t matter that you’re on a small fortune by local standards thanks to the ex-pat rate: the guy pushing the little cart of garbage bags up the hill will get a credit card before you. Here’s a conversation I had while trying to get a credit card:

me: Hello, I’d like a credit card please

bank: Sure, we’ll need to see your  ID card, work contract and a business card.

me: Well, I’m on a contract so they don’t give us business cards.

(off in the distance an alarm bell is ringing and armed guards are surrounding the bank: someone in HK that doesn’t have a business card)

bank: You don’t have a business card? (look of horror) Oh, and you’re on a contract: we don’t give cards to people on contracts!

me: But I’m on a decent pay rate I think. You still won’t give me one? What if I earned a million dollars a month, would you still not give me a card? I just need one to get internet at my flat and buy tickets etc.

bank: No. There is another option though.

me: What’s that then?

bank: You can put (equivalent of $8,000 USD) in a term deposit and we can give you a card with a ($4,000 USD) limit

me: Huh? What’s the interest rate.

bank: About 0.5%

me: You’re joking right? You want me to put away MORE than the limit and earn nothing and then you’ll charge me 20% on the balance if I don’t pay on time.

bank: Yes.  (making a puzzled look that I might not like this option)

I think the best story was my friend Sarah who went through massive hassle getting a bank account (proof of where she lived for the last 5 years, certified copies, etc etc) just to get a savings account with limited functionality only to find that her name had a typo thanks to the bank. She told the bank, they promptly closed that account. She queried what was going on and was told “oh, you’ll have to re-apply”. Sho she did, and they rejected her.

Lather, rinse and repeat eh?

Solution to the bank stuff

Try to organise a bank account BEFORE you get to the country. Strange though it seems it’s actually easier to organise outside the country than in. Once you’re in you’re dealing with twits who can’t comprehend that you lived somewhere else in the world. You’ll be bogged in a sea of conditions like “must be a citizen or permanent resident”. There are a few that offer out of country sign up. HSBC have a service for this, although don’t listen to them when they say they’re the “world’s bank”. I call bullshit, they offer a service that’s between ok and mediocre. I think UK HSBC’s best moment was: oh I’m sorry our internet banking doesn’t allow you to view your past statements online because there’s no law to say we have to. They’ll also give you a horribly low credit card limit initially and try to sign you up for an extortionate monthly fee (just swap to a normal account) but that’s better than no bank account.

Backup solution to the bank stuff

If that fails, sad though it makes me to recommend this but: Lie about the irrelevant stuff if you have to (don’t blame me when you end up behind bars).

Stuff like “tick the box to confirm you have lived at this address for the last 12 months” is the equivalent of “I understand the terms of use” or “yes I’m over 18 now show me the hamster porn”. No one really reads them after a while and when you’ve tried to do the right thing and come up against a brick wall of “we can’t” then what are you to do eh?

So you don’t give credit cards to contracts: “Oh, I’ve decided to swap over to full time..” and tick the box. If you’re working for the next year then that IS full time as far as they need to know. Neglect to include the part of the work contract that mentions “contract” and get your boss to write a letter that omits that in a non obvious kind of way.

Or you could just not get paid or buy anything. That solves the problem.

Stay tuned for more areas that the world just plain sucks if you step outside your home country..

Nathan