Roger goes bonkers

Over on kiwiblog this week, Farrar retails a Salient interview with Roger Douglas that raises some serious questions. But they’re questions about Douglas’s mental faculties. And Farrar’s understanding of economics.

University funding: yawning chasm of credibility?

Remember the Knowledge Wave? The Government’s Growth and Innovation Strategy? We’re all agreed that, in the face of intensifying global competition, NZ needs to up its productivity and its innovation. This imperative underlies the “trans-Tasman income gap” and “OECD league table” debates.

The Labour-led governments of the last 8 1/2 years grasped this early on and made concerted efforts to improve our performance in these areas. That the results have been modest can be put down to a number of factors, including bureaucracy. Too many bureaucrats producing too many glossy reports, e.g. here. Last week’s Budget shows that the Government itself must take some share of the blame.

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