To the general public, real estate and housing tend to get tied up into one category.

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New housing plans routinely get tied up by antidevelopment activists, and people wonder why housing is becoming unaffordable.

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But every time Cofetel would set a lower price, Telcel would appeal in Mexico's Byzantine court system, where cases can often get tied up for years.

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One of the Tea Party movement's huge strengths was its insistence that to have maximum appeal, economic conservatism shouldn't get tied up in obsessions about sexual behaviour.

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In the U.S., the choicest smart phones usually get tied up for months in exclusive carrier deals as operators seek to lure new subscribers to their services.

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Yet the pipes get tied up years in advance.

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Mr. LEVERETT: I think that if you really go down the list of what are the major challenges for American foreign policy, a very significant percentage of them get tied up with this axis of oil.

NPR: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Axis of Oil

So for example, efforts to rebuild schools and hospitals, to repair damaged roads and bridges, to get people back to their homes -- they were tied up for years in a tangle of disagreements and byzantine rules.

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That for most people the bulk of their wealth is tied up in their home and if they're basing this purchase on information that they basically get, you know, with a few keystrokes on the web, some real estate agents are concerned that people won't be armed with the kind of information and expertise that they really need when they enter the market.

NPR: Web Site Offers One Stop for Real Estate Data