How North Korea Survives

This article is extremely thin. The only source in the whole thing is an anonymous “former U.S. diplomat in East Asia”. Why couldn’t he go on the record in his claim that North Korea doesn’t counterfeit, or in his claim that North Korea makes money on the stock market? Anonymous sources are the worst. The have little motivation to tell the truth, and even if they do there’s no way to make sure the author represents them accurately.

The article also discusses North Korea’s gold reserves and access to the stock market. While these might be means by which North Korea has access to markets and currency, it’s hard to believe they’re a major source of income. Does North Korea have financial geniuses they’ve somehow groomed, through Communist schooling, to compete on Wall Street and win?

The only serious income sources that this article mentions are mining and manufacturing, but there are no numbers on either. Mining seems like it would be easy to track (it’s unlikely that North Korea is trading steel on some kind of black market), but there’s no indication the author contacted any experts on the subject.