You don't say

In a speech in Washington, DC, on November 18th Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, an internet giant, claimed that government-funded research done in university laboratories was “the core aspect of America’s competitiveness”. Without a dramatic increase in investment in such research, and in maths and science education, Americans risked becoming mere “captive consumers” at the mercy of rising Asian powers, he argued. Well, duhhh...

Nonsense, insists Amar Bhidé of Columbia Business School. For America to retain this sort of edge, then, what the country needs is better MBAs, not more PhDs. Oh, yeah? What a bunch of crock.