A newly released International Space Station video shows North Korea from space as a black spot in a world lit by the light of free markets. It serves as a warning and a reminder that it is a false promise of big government that it will ever exist to help the poor.
Flying over East Asia, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) took this video of the Korean Peninsula on Jan. 30. The Earth is teeming with city lights at night, underscoring the importance of economic freedom by showing the source of the brightest lights originating from economically friendly cities in Singapore and South Korea.
In case you can’t make out the rolling imagery, here is a still photo depicting North Korea from space taken from the video footage:
Communist-led North Korea, on the other hand, isn’t at all visible and leaves a dark black spot on the Korean Peninsula. The big government, despotic country is almost nearly invisible next to neighboring South Korea and China.
North Korea’s capital city, Pyongyang, barely appears as a faint light, comparable to a small island in the middle of the Asian Pacific, despite boasting a population of 3.26 million (as of 2008). The light emission from Pyongyang is equivalent to a small, rural town in capitalist-friendly South Korea.
The difference in per capita power consumption in the two countries is absolutely astonishing, with South Korea at 10,162 kilowatt hours and North Korea at 739 kilowatt hours.
