How the other 0.0000001% live

As most of you should know by now, North Korea is incredibly impoverished and lacks the thriving middle class found in most other developing world nations, but, similar to Soviet Russia, North Korea's elite power holders have attained certain socioeconomic privileges over that of the general population.  These advantages, as pointed out in this article from The Economist, give the elites access to a plethora of foreign technologies and goods that would otherwise be banned by the North Korean orthodoxy.

While the offered goods are nothing spectacular by our standards (they range from T-shirts to Chinese refrigerators to knock-off iPods), the access is extremely limited, and the privilege completely contradicts the minimalist lifestyle preached in North Korean political dogma.  Clearly there are perks to being close to power in North Korea, and while millions of North Koreans struggle daily to survive, these political elite take advantage of the relaxed rules of a corrupt government.

To read the original article from the Economist, Click Here.