North Korea has promised that it will be a "strong and prosperous" nation by April 15, 2012. It's doubtful whether anyone inside or outside North Korea actually believes the country could possibly reach its goal this weekend; afterwards the regime will probably just move the goalposts.
Even if North Korean leaders had delivered what they promised, its citizens would have received a thin soup of interminable "glorify the leader" musicals, basic higher education, and hot sugar water on a cold day. Here's what represents unattainable prosperity to a country whose people have lived on the brink of starvation for most of the last two decades.
Theaters:
Although North Koreans might not be able to afford consumer products, in a prosperous society they would never lack for the leisure of entertainment. The government is lavishing resources in 2012 on North Korea's performing arts sector: building new theaters, sending ensembles abroad, and holding mega-concerts of new works intended to glorify Kim Jong Il's memory. North Korean propaganda at various times has already called musicians, sculptors, artists, and writers in Pyongyang the most loyal servants of Kim Jong Un (possibly because arts were one of the few subjects where the youngest Kim is said to have scored high grades in his school). Unless one's idea of entertainment is a laundry list of Kim family exploits, the shows can be a bit tedious.
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