Word: bans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...captured 70,000 cows last year - worth about $62 million in Bangladesh. "I'm sure that as many got across," says Ashish Mitra, a former director general of the BSF. "It's a losing battle. Cattle-smuggling is the biggest problem that we have." The absurdities of the ban on cattle exports are a constant source of frustration within the BSF. The cows that are seized are auctioned off at customs depots, and usually bought by the same smugglers, sometimes three or four times. Moving a cow from one end of India to the other is perfectly legal...
...Privately, BSF officers admit that the ban makes little sense; dozens of Indian citizens are killed every year while trying to earn the fee of about $22 for getting a cow across. (The animals can eventually be sold for as much as $900 each.) Legalizing the trade would reduce the border violence and open a new stream of tax revenue. But few on the border expect that to happen in a majority-Hindu country. "Which government is going to allow the export of cows for slaughter?" Mitra asks. "That would just be political suicide...
...year ban on new-drug marketing could hurt the bottom line of drug companies. But it wouldn't be devastating. "I don't think it will have a particularly big impact," says Eric Schmidt, equity analyst at Cowen and Co., an investment bank. "The companies have already started scaling back their marketing budgets, and they've tended to direct advertising into more established brands." According to Jon Swallen, a research analyst at TNS Media Intelligence, pharmaceutical companies spent about $4.7 billion in magazine and television advertising in 2008, a 10.7% drop from 2007. And only about...
Swallen notes that such losses would only last during the first two years of the ban. During that time, new drugs would still receive FDA approval, and consumer advertising could begin once the moratorium is over. "The line would be frozen behind the gate for two years," Swallen says. "But the number of brands waiting in line will grow, and there will be the same flow into the market once the gate reopens. It's a onetime deferral...
...companies should enjoy this calm, because it likely won't last. The Democrats will get around to the drug companies at some point. And if Congress pushes through a two-year ban, could that set a precedent for further DTC restrictions down the road? Are drug and media companies headed down a slippery slope with Congress? "Give them an inch, they'll take a mile - there's concern about that," Bolling says. "There's no question the Congressmen will take it as far as they can. This is a platform for them. This is, 'I am here to save...