Robert Smith
speaker
2,515 appearances
7 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 26 Aug
Robert Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.
Appearances
The next case study is also about growth, but from the bottom up.
North Korea shares some of the same entrepreneurial spirit as South Korea.
But it has a repressive government and almost no market economy.
Almost none, but not zero.
In order to pay for the North Korean military and their nuclear program and those intercontinental ballistic missiles, the country needs to bring in some money.
It needs to have some economic activity.
And it has let a few sprouts of capitalism emerge.
Stacey Vanick Smith reported on this in 2017.
That was Stacey Venick Smith from a Planet Money episode in 2017.
Our main character, Jesse, ended up in South Korea, where when we last talked to her, she was a student.
Recently, we've gotten some interesting economic news out of North Korea.
A Bloomberg investigation showed that leader Kim Jong-un had brought in $22 billion in foreign revenue over the last few years.
He did it by selling weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine and from an army of internet hackers who steal cryptocurrency.
Kim Jong-un is the ultimate Donju, the lord of money.
When we return, we will bring back our professor, Oliver Kim, and ask why some repressive economies become free and some do not.
Tanya.
Okay, students, we are leaving North Korea, so you can get back on the internet again.
Check your socials.
And let's bring back in Oliver Kim, development expert, to talk about the lessons from the North.
You know, the story from North Korea does remind me a little bit of China in the early days of China, where at first a few entrepreneurs broke the rules, not really sanctioned by the Chinese government, but of course China changed pretty quickly, allowing private ownership, markets, competition, and eventually a high-tech economy.
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