Nah, they have metals.
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Add to that decent climate for agriculture and close access to rich fishing. And of course a lot of heavy industry (granted, in need of modernization.) and industry in general.
Until the 1980ies, North Korea was the richer of the two Koreas, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t be a fairly prosperous country without the sanctions.
Though… Thanks to Biden’s genius foreign policy, those sanctions are effectively dead, and the Norks are about to get wealthier through trade with Russia and China.
AAAANYWAYS…
As much as I enjoy talking about Best Korea, there is an article about India in A&N that I think is very relevant for the thread.
It’s written by an Indian expat who lives in the west, and does a lot to try and explain why India is such a shithole. It’s the culture and DNA of the jeets that’s the problem.
He describes how all words in Hindu for “honor”, “charity” or “integrity” are either Persian or English in origin, and how your average jeet have little understanding and even less regard for those concepts.
Indians are from birth to death preoccupied with fucking over other Indians. A plumber will leave a mess when he comes to fix your bathroom just to fuck your over, and the person hiring the plumber will try to fuck him over on for example payment, irregardless of how well the job was done, just because he can.
Officials take bribes just for the principle and because they can, and are seen as morons and weak if they don’t try to exploit their position.
TLDR: India is a shithole of low IQ jeets who act like they’re Jews 24/7 and constantly try to fuck over anyone they can.