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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

It reminds me of the Porsche 911 shortage I'm facing around here. I've been to dealer after dealer and I just can't find one who'll sell me one. I've got the $33k that I'm told an average new car costs and am ready to buy today... but nothing.

You can't say shortage without factoring price. For enough money (probably not even that much compared to what I've seen business waste on frivolities) there'd be a line of retirees looking to get back into the biz.

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You should be able to get one at this price if you go abroad.

If only there were a special government program to help me to import one at this price so I didn't have to pay so much for a local one...

Actually, there ain't one except that you'll have to pay fees/taxes on the importation, and probably some special checks/certifications to be able to put it on the road.

In the end, it's a lot of troubles and it may be more expensive than getting one locally.

[Note: I'm still talking about getting that car, the comparison with labour, if any, is purely accidental.]

There is a 20% import tax when you bring in a car... so be sure to declare it at a much lower price then you paid for it.

You can import 6 Ladas cheap and weld then together. The combine should horsepower would match the 911.

We could call it the 911-B program. I suppose we should write the law such that you have to prove you checked out the local dealerships first. You could even pay someone to look and then not bother checking to see if they actually did:

http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/18/so-thats-how-h-1b-visa-fr...

Outstanding. Do you suppose I could just lease it for a few years at a fraction of the ordinary monthly payments? That way I can drive it extra hard and skip changing the oil and all that annoying stuff and then at the end of the lease, I just send it back. That'd be fantastic.

Of course, of course. Otherwise, what would be the point? The best part is eventually the local dealerships will have to offer the same prices and same, eh, liberal maintenance policies if they want to have any hope of selling their wares.

There ain't a place in the world where a new 911 costs $33k USD.

Woosh!

My father used to tell me stories about the days when India was heavily aligned with the Soviet Union. Apparently, there would be approximately 5 people to stamp your visa.

The excesses of socialism are never lost on me, because of this story.

I'm sorry, I meant socialism is a great system where everyone is equal! In fact it's so equal, that I want you to have sex with my wife.

You've posted many uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN, and we've had to warn you about this more than once before. I actually just banned your account for this, but on reflection, decided to unban you since many of your comments are also the civil, substantive kind. The latter are the kind we want here. Would you please restrict yourself to those?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Sorry dang. I now realize that not everyone can appreciate my unique take on satire.

> Apparently, there would be approximately 5 people to stamp your visa.

I'd say that this is still the case. Last time I visited India, when I was exiting the parking garage at the airport, there was an automated machine to let you out. Give them the ticket, put money in, the barrier opens, and you drive out.

But there were also five people by this machine. One to take the ticket, another to take the money, and then another three to watch this process.

And it wasn't just that instance - there were quite a few instances during my travel when I noticed significantly more people assigned to a job than required.

What did you expect? India has a huge population. They all need jobs to support their families. So the local gov't has it covered. Would you prefer three of those five people being engaged in a riot and the other two, on gov't payroll, beating the shit out of them? I guess this pretty much ilustrates the difference between East and West. Mr. Rushdie has a book with short stories on that.

> India has a huge population. They all need jobs to support their families. So the local gov't has it covered.

Yup, completely agree.

> Would you prefer three of those five people being engaged in a riot and the other two, on gov't payroll, beating the shit out of them?

To clarify, in this scenario, are you saying that there are three unemployed people rioting and two other people on a government payroll (presumably po-po?) who are beating the shit out of the rioters?

Honestly, _ideally_, I'd want to see universal basic income so that people who don't have jobs don't feel the need to riot. I'd want to see everyone's basic needs supported.

Having said that, that's my idealism showing and I don't know how this would realistically work. My background in economics is weak to put it simply and I don't know if this could scale to a population the size of India's.

> Mr. Rushdie has a book with short stories on that.

Taking a look at his bibliography[0], he's written quite a few novels, any specific one(s) that you'd recommend?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie#Bibliography

I doubt basic income would work. People with too much time on their hands will riot anyway, eventually. Work keeps people busy, even if it's low paid work, provided work conditions are okay.

East, West is a nice collection of short stories that would give you a taste of his writing style. Also The Groung Beneath her Feet is quite popular.

> Would you prefer three of those five people being engaged in a riot and the other two, on gov't payroll, beating the shit out of them?

I'd prefer them doing something productive instead of standing around wasting tax money.

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