Song He deliberately watched Richards's speech, and his brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
Richards was a short, skinny old man with thinning hair. Wearing black-rimmed glasses, he stood before the packed hall and began speaking in a solemn tone.
"Good day, everyone. I am Richards, currently serving as the chief economist of Berk Bank's Think Tank. I have previously received the Nobel Prize in Economics."
"For the past twenty years, the key issue I have focused on has been the inequality in international economic development."
"At every World Development Forum, I have selected one crucial point of inequality to discuss, calling on the international community to improve it. Last year, I spoke about inequality in financial currency. The year before that, I discussed inequality in accumulated patents. The year before that, it was inequality caused by monopolies over mineral resources."
"This year, I will discuss a very sensitive topic: average IQ!"
"Scientists have conducted tests of average IQ in various parts of the world, but the results are no longer recognized by the academic community because they are too sensitive and not scientific enough. For example, basic education can change people's test results, sample size can alter regional results, and even different testing methods can change the scores."
"But one principle is widely recognized by the academic community: the level of basic education significantly affects regional economic development. Let me show you several charts. They depict the curves of educational investment and economic takeoff in countries around the world. You can see that there is a lag of several years, but the correlation is extremely high."
"I cannot say that average IQ affects the economy to the same degree as basic education does, but I believe the relationship between them is immense!"
"Let us first assume that the current average