The Tyler Cowen

Trying to juggle a thousand things at the moment. Firefly reviews, hierarchies of need, and all the rest should pour forth next week. Until then, read what's good for you. Or no dessert.

1. Digging into North Korea's ICBM capabilities. Is it just me or does everyone just fall into line with the 'even so...they're pretty crappy' analysis? I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm no HTML programmer and I managed to make a high-class FBML page. Seems to me that a discovery, once having been discovered, should be relatively easy to replicate. This is, after all, the foundation on which human progress rests. 
2. Two articles from NKEconomy Watch, both about (unsurprisingly) North Korea's economic situation. The first discussed the increased output of, and quality in, light goods. At least, as far as has been reported by the various North Korean media outlets. The second discusses the economic impact of the cold spell currently gripping the Korean peninsula.
   
   Re: the first article; how important is a demand-side analysis of the North Korean economic situation? Most of what I read is either about the production capabilities of North Korea or the poverty of its citizens. Should we simply take it at face value that demand is always outstripping supply? I'm sure, fifty years hence when the peninsula is in a better state of affairs, memoirs will come out highlighting the various ways in which supply inefficiencies gave them 100 useless vases while they starved for butter or something. But such an analysis needn't be done in hindsight need it?