It is innovation that enables restructuring and productivity growth…innovation in the developing world is constrained not on the supply side but on the demand side. That is, it is not the lack of trained scientists and engineers, absence of R&D labs, or inadequate protection of intellectual property that restricts the innovations that are needed to restructure low-income economies. Innovation is undercut instead by lack of demand from its potential users in the real economy—the entrepreneurs. And the demand for innovation is low in turn because entrepreneurs perceive new activities to be of low profitability. – page 5 INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, Dani Rodrik, September 2004, Harvard University

Concerning the returns on schooling, Rodrik adds:

For quite a while, policy makers thought that the solution to poor human capital lay in improving the infrastructure of schooling— more schools, more teachers, more textbooks, and more access to all three. These interventions did increase the supply of schooling, but when the results were in, it became evident that the increase in schooling did not produce the productivity gains that were anticipated (Pritchett 2004). The reason is simple. The real constraint was the low demand for schooling—that is, the low propensity to acquire learning—in environments where the absence of economic opportunities depress the return to education. – INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, Dani Rodrik, September 2004, Harvard University

From the above, i take it that Rodrik will not be totally sympathetic to David Llorito’s proposition that If we want this country to move a lot faster, we need a critical mass of engineers, mathematicians, software developers, physicists, and other fields in the sciences like biotechnology. Demand for innovation from the [local] business sector and a corresponding return on education (i.e. Jester’s pay us what we deserve) are what drives investment in schooling.

if you and your people were so smart, how come you were taken so easily for a fool by an austrian demagogue, huh?

How about the Canadians? Did you ever stop to think that Canadians are Pilipino, Chinese (Chinks is a disparaging term)Indian and Jewish, and sprinkling of Germans and collectively they have the mental capacity to compete with anyone, especially those that have prepared their brains properly during their formation years. Give the Pilipinos that luxury and maybe they will beat all of the others mentioned….

Hope you don’t get mad at my assessment. Just an outsider’s point of view. By the way, I’m German.

On Ingles o Tagalog: Just listen to gov’t officials responding to interviews – isip tagalog, ingles ang spokening. I’m not questioning their intelligence. I’m sure they are intelligent, just can’t express themselves clearly. Ano ba medium of instruction ng nag-aaral ang mga yan?

On COMELEC: Ang kapal talaga ng mukha ni Abalos! What’s wrong with this guy? Oops, sa fantasy island ni gloria nga pala siya namamahay. That explains a lot.

Manufacturing accounts for more than four fifths of the industrial sector. Almost half of that is food processing. Once again linked to agricutlural productivity. Farmers grow palay and the manufacturing sector turn that into rice.

Palay is not harvested at the end of every quarter of every year. It is grown based on mainly rain fed water. Some areas of the Philippines have only one harvest of play a year.

Simple question for simple minds. Do we harvest crops on the clock at the end of every quarter? Rice corn etc. That means that the growth rate from agriculture is really a stretch on the imagination. Nature does not operate on the government number crunchers time frame.