One of the things we all loved about Communism in theory was that it was going to provide, like, a radical alternative to everything about how our economy works, man. But in practice communist countries generally work a lot like capitalist countries, but with less toilet paper, and with money with pictures of ghastly brutalist architecture instead of money with pictures of long-dead slave owners. Now, however, economic visionary Kim Jong Il has developed an entirely new economic paradigm, one based on love, or at least sex, or at least roots that supposedly help with boners, which all really are about the same thing when it comes down to it.
Who will be the first recipients of Kim Jong Il’s Love Money? The Czech Republic, because the Dear Leader heard that it was cool to go backpacking in Prague, back in the ’90s.
The Czech Republic has considered allowing North Korea to repay debts with tonnes of aphrodisiac ginseng roots, it has been revealed. North Korea owes $10m (£6.4m) for trams and heavy machinery it received during eastern Europe’s Soviet era. The offer of ginseng, said to combat lethargy, arthritis and impotence, was said to have been for 5% of the debt.
Twenty tonnes of the root was reportedly on offer as a down payment. That would have been far in excess of the Czech Republic’s annual consumption of ginseng, said to be just under 1.5 tonnes.
This plan only applies to North Korea’s foreign creditors, apparently. Actual North Koreans will still enjoy the starvation-and-beating-based economy the nation’s leaders have perfected over the past five decades. The Czechs, who are already plenty horny, would prefer to be paid in delicious zinc. [BBC]
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Now if they could pay the other 95 percent in fawning admirers threatened by machine gun fire, North Korea would be laughing.
Czech porn actresses are pretty hawt.
I wish I could pay bills with my root.
From my knowledge of Prague, and the fact that the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption in the world, I don’t think they really need much help to start fucking.
Kim Jong Il is a huge fan of the Beastie Boys.
This is pretty much the same way that Mexico paid off its international debt in the late 1980′s with 827 metric tons of novelty jumping beans and 442,000 non-peak-season month time-share condos in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.
And South Africa is reportedly investigating a similar deal involving the transfer of 10,000,000 vuvuzuelas to the U.S. (that the U.S. Border Patrol intends to used to turn back undocumented immigrants attempting to cross the Southern U.S. border with mexico).
Josh, how many times have we told you not to reveal the plot to the next Bond movie?
Hmmmmmm. Sounds too good to be true.
What’s the catch Kim?
How many hard-ons per ton of ginseng can I expect? When do the new European Market standards come in to effect?
Cultivated een sam numba 10. Everybody know USA wild een sam numba 1. USA! USA! Wild een sam give you number 1 char gee, also.
[re=636915]Serolf Divad[/re]: This is good news for Spain’s oversaturated Fly market.
that could be as much as two million dollars’ worth of g-root on the open market, though flooding the market with supply may depress the price. not something they teach you in carl marks prep school for dictators. still, it’s a start, though it leaves the czechs with the resale problem. i see an opportunity here for old-fashioned american entrepreneuroall (a word i can barely pronounce and obviously cannot spell) opportunity.
I was like, “Zinc??” Then I realized, “Of course, zinc!”
Plus, North Korean “ginseng” is nothing more than pressed sawdust and lead paint, like all the “food” and “houses” and “medicine” in the country.
Come on Kim. Give us the pandas. We know you got pandas tied up and stashed away somewhere. You pony up some pandas and we’ll bargain with you on the debt. We don’t want any of your stinkin’ roots. I betcha North Korean roots will give ya bad case of the trots.
[re=636927]plowman[/re]: “How many hard-ons per ton of ginseng can I expect?”
That depends on the payload capacity of your Taepodong.
Is architecture really brutalist if it’s only built that way because using slabs of crumbly concrete and rebar is their sole method of construction? When kids dam up streams using rocks, is it retropaleolithic, or is it just because they’re kids and nobody will let them play with a backhoe? Also, what government can’t pay $10 million? The US could pay that in about three minutes, although there might be some pocket lint mixed in with it.
Wow, they’ve got more ginseng than Fort Knox.
Team America World Police will hijack shipment.
[re=636943]edgydrifter[/re]: Making it the main ingredient in toxic Chinese drywall.
[re=636951]Extemporanus[/re]: Kim Jong Il says, “let there be two bathtubs in every garage!”
Without their domestic supply of ginseng root, North Korean men will not be able to perform their marital duties. Consequently North Korean women will be frustrated and in need of physical love. As a humanitarian gesture, we should send them Levi Johnston, Jesse James, Tiger Woods and David Vitter. If Newt’s wife has caught cancer, he’ll probably want to go too.
Pour it into Kool-Aid, call it a “sports drink”, and have Jimmy Johnson endorse it.
A friend of mine worked in South Korea and said the hotel he stayed at had dildo vending machines. That gingseng must be in the drinking water.
[re=636969]SwanSwanH[/re]: … and infant formula.
When Vaclav Klaus wants to get his dick hard, Vaclav Klaus will make sure he gets his dick hard.
Ginseng cigarettes, guys. They don’t make you cough!
[re=637019]chascates[/re]: Probably it suggests something about Korean men.
[re=637039]Accordion-o-rama[/re]: Note that most Chinese mothers suckle their babies, often in public. They have no fear of being arrested for “indecent exposure.”
Let’s be clear: boners do not equal sex.
Every man who was ever a fifteen year old boy can testify that getting an erection is absolutely not all that is required.
“The problem with love is that it is a crime one cannot commit without an accomplice” — some French author whose name I’ve forgotten but could look up
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