Time travel

The Dreadful Legacy of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il in One Satellite Picture and One Chart

by Mark Perry

This one picture above of the Korean peninsula does a pretty good job of capturing the legacy of Kim Jong Il by comparing electricity usage at night between North and South Korea.

Here's another comparison: The CIA estimates that North Korea's GDP per capita in 2009 was $1,800.  That's equivalent to the inflation-adjusted U.S. per capita GDP back in the year 1847, more than 150 years ago (see chart below).  And South Korea's per capita GDP of $30,000 is about 17 times higher than its neighbor to the north.