Friday 28 August 2009

Complexity and central planning

This from Philip Booth at the IEA blog:
The Pythagorean Theorem has 24 words. The ten commandments (English version) contain 138 words. US regulations about cabbages contain about 26,000.

Not to be outdone, the Department for Education in this country [UK] over a 12 month period sent to schools thousands of pages of “guidance” documents, containing almost 1.3 million words - one and a half times as many as in the King James Bible. Schools even received a 90-page document advising head teachers how to cut down on bureaucracy.
So it takes 90 pages to cut down on bureaucracy?!!! I hate to think what it would take if the wanted to increase it!

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