Is this the same President that I know?
• Free trade: “Together we can resist the protectionism that stifles growth and innovation. The United States remains—and will continue to remain—one of the most open economies in the world. By opening markets and reducing barriers to foreign investment, India can realize its full economic potential as well.”
• The sources of India’s success: “Instead of resisting the global economy, you became one of its engines—reforming the licensing raj and unleashing an economic marvel.” The “licensing raj” refers to the regulatory state that used to dictate all “private” economic decision-making in the country and still dominates the country’s educational establishment.
That’s something to ponder. Also worth pondering is how a president who used to routinely inveigh against Bangalore for stealing jobs from Buffalo, who defended the “buy American” clause in the stimulus bill, and whose health-care legislation comes with its own de facto licensing raj, can suddenly talk so much sense. Maybe its pure double-speak, or maybe the president has emerged from his midterm shellacking with a new religion. India tends to have that effect on strangers: The sensible among them have been known to lose their minds, but the senseless often find their grip.
Well, George Bush talked a good game sometimes too.
