Posted on 09/23/2009 4:45:31 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
SEOUL -- A united South and North Korea could boast an economy larger than France, Germany and possibly Japan by the middle of the century, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. study that challenges conventional wisdom about unification.
Since the reunification of West and East Germany 20 years ago, South Korean leaders and economists have convinced many people here that reuniting with North Korea would be costly and disruptive. In the latest gloomy forecast, a government think tank last month said the tax-burden ratio, or proportion of tax revenue to gross domestic product, would need to rise by two percentage points and stay at that level for 60 years to pay for unification.
In the study released Monday, Goldman Sachs economist Kwon Goo-hoon says the risks of unification need to be reevaluated, particularly after the rapid development of countries such as Vietnam and Mongolia that had state-run economies like North Korea's.
His study contains North Korean data that he acknowledges may not be accurate and assumptions about future behavior that may not pan out. Even so, its tone is more optimistic than previous studies that contributed to South Koreans' ambivalence about unification.
Officially, the governments in both Koreas say they want to unite but both also want to lead the united country. Despite two summits and numerous lower-level interactions, the two governments have made no serious attempt to reconcile their conflicting desires. For now, most analysts believe the only likely trigger for change is the prospective economic collapse of North Korea, one of the world's poorest countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Then again, a hoard of North Koreans voting could tip the balance to a redistributionist party of the Left, destroying the industrious among the Korean populace. Imagine if Mexico became a state (or a score of states) to think about the possible implications. Even if the North is ever ready, the South had best go slow on this one.
if anyone can see a good way to do this with a minimum of pain, let me know, cause I sure can’t.
There is minimal infrastructure in place up north not to mention a populace that has been starved and abused beyond belief and in need of serious care.
This analyst is a moron
Chicks dig scars.
I agree there are many, many dangers. But when the North collapses there is little choice but help them. After that reunification gets trickier. Would the South be able to keep the borders sealed against their kin once they no longer pose a military threat?
As for your analogy, we already have by some estimates 50% of the mexican population. That’s a whole different issue.
But what does the world od when North Korea collapses? What does the South do?
What a steaming LOAD!
A united Korea would still be an economic basket case by mid century if the south took over. Posco and Hyundai would be making Kim Chi to feed the country.
Maybe just a tad better if the north took over, let the folks starve, and held the Chinese and Japanese to constant nuclear blackmail.
Well that would depend on which side was doing the unifying. I would suppose they are speculating if S Korea was in charge. However, S Korea has it right, unification would be a long hard road, it was difficult for Germany, and it will be many times harder for S Korea to reunite with N Korea.
I wonder if this guy was recently transferred from the AAA mortgage securities department.
We don’t have half the population of Mexico, and they are certainly not senators from Cancun. As for South Korea, one method may be to keep them in a state where no taxes are paid and no votes are had to the federal government, much like VI or PR. That would have the dual benefit of encouraging investment there. The establishment of a property registry, surveying, land titles...what a nightmare; much preferable to a war however.
I can't figure out if the population estimates for Mexico include the ones in our country. Do they have 100 million citizens with 70 million still in Mexico or 130 million citizens with 100 million still there? Our senators may not claim residence in Cancun but I'm sure lots of them own property there.
I digress. The question still remains, when North Korea collapses what then?
To me, it looks like Goldman Sachs, et.al. have decided a collectivist global fascist paradise with an oppressed and controlled people is the way to go.
With the election of Obama. Their support of all the commies in South America. their long term denial of the communist aspects of China, them now pushing for the unification of North and South Korea, their support of Russia over the democracies of Eastern Europe, the abandonment of Israel... It does not look so good to me.
It gets better!
This Goldman Sucks guy says don’t look at Germany (where the first worlds wealthiest nation absorbed the second worlds wealthiest) and is still paying the price after two decades.
No,he says we need to look at how france dealt with their colonies after WWII for a sucess story.
Would that be Algeria?
Vietnam perhaps?
No, he must mean Martinique and Tahiti for sure.
Never the less, I am sure the US taxpayer gave him a million dollar bonus this year for his efforts.
It would be much harder than the re-unification of Germany. The big problem would be cultural. Even though the DDR was a police state with the Stasi, there was a significant amount of “cultural leakage” from the West. This led to the implosion of the governemnt in the DDR, when the government of Egon Krenz (Honnecker’s successor) was essentially powerless. In comparison, the people in North Korea have been extremely well isolated, in addition to who knows how effective the network of informers is - qualitatively speaking it’s pretty darn good, where the people are afraid of ANY independent thought lest it might be interpreted as a challenge to the Chia Pet. It may take one or two generations in the North for people to learn to basically be able to think again. The people in the North are living in what amounts to a cult for generations. Major deprogramming.
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