Guns and Rubbers

Some interesting economic data out of South Korea.

The sex trade in Korea was estimated to amount to 14 trillion won last year, roughly 1.6 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

The Korean Women's Development Institute, commissioned by the Ministry of Gender Equality, yesterday released a report on the sex trade last year.

"The official figures of the sex trade dropped compared to 2002 thanks to continued crackdown on prostitution," said Byun Hwa-soon, a researcher at the think tank.

"But we cannot deny that new forms of prostitution and overseas sex tourism, which domestic authorities cannot police, have increased."

More than 46,000 brothels and disguised sex-service businesses disguised were identified last year, down 23 percent from 2002, according to the report.

The number of prostitutes dropped by 18 percent to 269,000 during the same period. The sex trade involved some 94 million transactions in Korea last year, down from 170 million in 2002.

The amount of money traded for prostitution was over 14 trillion won, much less than 24 trillion won in 2002.

That proves it. We're definitely having a economic downturn.

Can you believe a nation would blow waste so much money? It is incredible. Robert Koehler at Marmot's Hole makes note of some further South Korean economic data.

Money spent on whoring in 2007: 14.952 trillion won
ROK defense budget for 2008: 26.7 trillion won

I see it now. Kim Jong-il plans to conquer the south with the aid of prostitutes. If all that data above is true, he may well be on the way to it.

GI at ROK Drop is also commenting.