Even assuming they do, and I doubt it, how do you explain the grinding poverty? You say it's because they're protectionist, but during our history as a nation until recently, mostly since NAFTA and the end of the cold war, so were we. Theodore Roosevelt campaigned on it.
Maybe part of India's problem is overpopulation. They have upwards of 700 million people. If we keep listening to the voices of the WSJ, we're going to have that many here soon, possibly by the end of the century. If we had eyes, we would see the danger of that prospect by looking at countries like India and China. Not everyone is employable, and those that aren't have to be taken care of by the state.
BTW, I didn't mean to imply Indian people aren't smart or resourceful, only that bad policies do have consequences.
No. We insist on shooting ourselves in the foot--the minimum wage defines not only the minimum price of labor, it defines the minimum JOB that can be done--specifically, the anticipated return on hiring someone for the job must exceed the artificially inflated price of that person's labor.
Do company employees get health benefits?
Not automatically. It IS worth noting, however, that when a party other than the end consumer of health care (the patient) pays for all bills, the price of health care climbs at a rate far exceeding inflation. Hmm. Interesting. Ya think there MIGHT be some sort of cause and effect there? Or am I just one of those crazy Friedmanite economists?
Do they have the same kind of wage scale we have?
No. And that is why so many companies are looking at moving their coding work offshore--because the return on investment is higher.
Even assuming they do, and I doubt it, how do you explain the grinding poverty?
They started out with less per capita wealth, a lower level of educational achievement, and then compounded their problems by making some amazingly stupid decisions from 1947 to about 1975 or so, and those decisions are only NOW getting reversed. One of the policies they engaged in was to frequently seize foreign-owned assets. The government then sold these assets off at sweetheart prices to folks with better political connections than business sense, the assets would be driven straight into the dirt, and other foreigners would quickly repatriate their capital OUT of India.
You say it's because they're protectionist, but during our history as a nation until recently, mostly since NAFTA and the end of the cold war, so were we. Theodore Roosevelt campaigned on it.
Actually, we began moving to a free trade environment during and after World War II. It makes some sense to temporarily protect immature American industries, but as a long-term policy, it acts as a disincentive to necessary reinvestment and modernization, and we will wind up with, for example, the 1970 & 1980s-era American auto industry. Are you REALLY that desperate for the quality, reliability, and quality of the AMC Pacer or the Ford Pinto?
Maybe part of India's problem is overpopulation.
Go get a book by P.J. O'Rourke called All the Trouble in the World, and read the chapter on "Overpopulation: Too Much of You, Not Enough of Me." That should disabuse you of that notion. Heck, read the whole damn book.
They have upwards of 700 million people. If we keep listening to the voices of the WSJ, we're going to have that many here soon, possibly by the end of the century.
Actually, they have close to 900 million. We should be looking covetuously at Indian markets instead of China--it's almost as big, it is a stable parliamentary democracy, and that nation HAS learned from its bone-headed economic decisions and are embracing capitalism, unlike China.
If we had eyes, we would see the danger of that prospect by looking at countries like India and China. Not everyone is employable, and those that aren't have to be taken care of by the state.
"Work or starve" does a LOT to correct the problem of people not being employable. The unemployable STAY unemployable when the state subsidizes that condition. Gee, maybe there's a lesson in there, huh?
BTW, I didn't mean to imply Indian people aren't smart or resourceful, only that bad policies do have consequences.
And they are suffering those consequences, and learning from them. They are correcting their policies slowly, painfully, and messily. They exemplify Churchill's dictum that liberal democracy (and he meant liberal in the classical sense) is the worst form of governance in the world, with the exception of everything else.
America has worked overtime to get rid of Adam Smith's "invisible hand." Well, that hand is now giving us the invisible middle finger.