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Comment by DrJokepu | Hacker News Reader

The automatic response of the North Korean government would be introducing a prohibition. Or maybe that already happened, who knows.

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They don't even need to go that far. They can just ration supply, forbid stockpiling and fix the price to artificially low levels.

This was occurring as recently as last year all over the world when commodity/food prices spiked. Anywhere you see black markets, you can find rationing and price fixing nearby.

Yes. Why would you need a blackmarket, if that were not the case?

The reverse is often true as well. Anywhere you see rationing and price fixing, you can find black markets nearby, assuming the distortion is high enough.

Yes, seems like trying to stop free markets from developing is just like trying to hide information or keep a theatre free of ringing phones. It can be tried, and sometimes even successful, but gosh it's a lot of work.

According to the article, it's not illegal for North Koreans to hold foreign currency.

I was in North Korea back in August, and bought one of each denomination as a souvenir. Guess they're going to be more valuable now.

Foreigners are not allowed to spend the North Korean won within the country. Instead, you pay in RMB, EUR, USD at locations approved to take foreign currency -- so we couldn't just go buy stuff at the same stores as the locals. Now I'm wondering how much of that foreign currency makes it back to the central government, given this news.

All of it. That was the exact purpose of similar measures and stores for tourists holding valuable and scarce foreign currency ("valyuta") in the Soviet Union (where I come from).

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