Loyalty, especially among party elites, is questionable. The defection of Hwang Jong-yap in early 1997 is indicative of the decreasing lack of loyalty to the Kim regime. Defectors have not only increased three-fold during the previous three years, but the types of defectors have also changed. It is likely the number of defectors will continue to increase in the near future. All these trends certainly suggest North Korea will collapse in the near future.
Conditions are ripe for a coup d'etat, especially from an ambitious military commander.
However, the use of trend extrapolation is inappropriate for the Korea situation. It ignores Korean history and culture. The Korean people have survived conditions much harsher than the ones they face now. Japanese occupation and eventual colonization from 1876 to 1945 witnessed horrendous conditions and treatment of the Koreans by their imperialist rulers. While conditions in North Korea are unarguably difficult, times in Korea have been worse and the country still survived.