2 Quotes by L. Randall Wray

Whenever I hear an economist use the word “efficiency” (or “productivity”), I can guess with near 100% accuracy that he (it usually is a he, as I’ll explain below) hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about. With rare exceptions, he is inappropriately applying an engineering term to an economic process he does not understand.

Professors reduce their office hours—or skip them entirely—and send students to the much cheaper teaching assistants as the efficiency fairies work to preserve more time for faculty to spend doing all the paperwork required by a burgeoning administrator staff that has nothing better to do than to create new paperwork requirements.