{"id":540,"date":"2004-10-13T18:38:06","date_gmt":"2004-10-13T23:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=540"},"modified":"2005-01-14T00:48:24","modified_gmt":"2005-01-14T05:48:24","slug":"the_license_raj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/13\/the_license_raj\/","title":{"rendered":"The License Raj Returneth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sad but true article over @ <a href=http:\/\/www.techcentralstation.com>TCS<\/a> (TCS ROCKS!) about the latest instance of economic idiocy coming out of India &#8211; <a title=\"TCS: Tech Central Station - Wheels of Fortune?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.techcentralstation.com\/101204A.html\">TCS: Tech Central Station &#8211; Wheels of Fortune?<\/a><\/p>\n\n<blockquote>It is rare to find a single story that illustrates, in exquisite detail, all of the varied pro- and counter- arguments for free trade as opposed to managed or protected trade. I am therefore grateful to Peter Foster who filed this piece in the Daily Telegraph from New Delhi. In a nutshell, the Indian Railways Minister, a Mr Prasad, has refused permission to import railroad wheels into India, preferring to establish a factory in his home state of Bihar to make India self-sufficient in their production.<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Outsourcing &amp; IT might make the headlines but when it comes to the nitty-gritty improvement of per-capita GNP, lifestyles, health, and so on, it&#8217;s the boring stuff like logistics that make all the difference.<\/p>\n\n<p>The cost of not allowing imported train wheels?  Well, one of the many costs is quantified &#8211;<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>Analysts predict that it will be many years before India can produce enough wheels to meet demand. The shortage has left 20,000 carriages awaiting wheels, and a similar number of old ones requiring replacements.&#8221;<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>This makes my blood boil on so many levels.  Idiots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sad but true article over @ TCS (TCS ROCKS!) about the latest instance of economic idiocy coming out of India &#8211; TCS: Tech Central Station &#8211; Wheels of Fortune? It is rare to find a single story that illustrates, in &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/13\/the_license_raj\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}