Science the key to economic growth - expert

12/10/2012 2:55:46 a.m.

I G wrote:

If you don't innovate, you rely on old methods that keep you in the same place forever. Imagine the depravity if people didn't discover agriculture - we'd still be hunter-gatherers, and no cities would ever be built. That said, science is the frontier of innovation. Everything we take for granted today was discovered within 500 years ago BY SCIENTISTS. If you don't value science, then throw away all your technology and healthcare, and go live up a tree. Asia will not trade with us if we have nothing but sticks and stones to offer them.

24/08/2012 6:43:27 a.m.

Wiseacre wrote:

@YOU WHAT? - It is the workers that generate the wealth. Perhaps if more of that wealth was left in the hands of the workers to be spent, rather than hoarded by those at the top, the economy would actually start ticking over. Money is not meant to be accumulated but circulated and invested and spent for the common good. The wealthy elite are getting increasingly wealthier while the poor majority are being ground underfoot. National haven't got a clue how to fix the economy, it is beyond the neo-liberal imagination. Can the wealthy elite not see that their policies are destroying the very markets upon which their wealth relies? Raise the minimum wage to $16/hour immediately and over the next three years bring it up to and legislatively lock it in at 2/3's of the average wage. Any business that cannot afford to pay its staff an honest living wage should exit the market. We are not a slave labour nation. Yet. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln: State of the Union Address 1861

23/08/2012 9:43:18 p.m.

You what? wrote:

@Greg - do you think you can just put wages up with no effect? It doesn't get magic'd into existence just because you've paid it to someone! It has to be generated somehow, otherwise it just causes money to be printed, which leads to inflation which - guess what?? - means the nett effect is zero. Honestly, this is the sort of ridiculous, short-sighted economic ignorance that has blighted every left wing government ever. For economic growth you need trade or manufacturing or primary industry or value added services - wealth has to be created.

23/08/2012 5:37:37 p.m.

Erm... wrote:

"Science the key to economic growth" - expert with vested interest.

23/08/2012 4:53:03 p.m.

D Quinn wrote:

How can this guy not be aware of the coming energy crisis that, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson, Dr Jeremy Legget, the US military, the German military, the IEA and the IMF are all talking about. Economic growth is about to take an absolute hammering!

23/08/2012 2:18:49 p.m.

Greg wrote:

Raise workers wages to improve the economy, spending helps businesses not passive savings. Results from innovation take two decades to be of and economic value, thats if pepole have money to buy things. Its not rocket science here. While NNZ is a low waged economy dont expect to have a booming economy. I'm tired of these cliched spin speak reports, they achieve nothing.

23/08/2012 2:13:58 p.m.

Wiseacre wrote:

Considering that our Prime Minister John Key believes that scientists are like lawyers and that he can just buy one with a different viewpoint, I don't see any fundamental changes in direction happening any time soon. This is, after all, the Government that is opening up our education system to the teaching of creationism.