Stating The Obvious

There should be a word for an idea so obvious that you're shocked that you've never thought of it before. I had one of those moments when I was directed to an Economist article entitled "A guide to womenomics" via Altercation. The article essentially says that letting women go to work is a much better thing than you'd probably think, but the interesting bit for me was this bit:

In particular, there is strong evidence that educating girls boosts prosperity. It is probably the single best investment that can be made in the developing world. Not only are better educated women more productive, but they raise healthier, better educated children. There is huge potential to raise income per head in developing countries, where fewer girls go to school than boys. More than two-thirds of the world's illiterate adults are women.

See? I don't know if this has anying baring on the IQ chart here. But would I be really so out of line if I looked at both articles and concluded that Romania, Turkey and Serbia perhaps don't take women's education quite as seriously as Germany, The Netherlands and Poland?

It also throws up this little nugget:

To make men feel even worse, researchers have also concluded that women make better investors than they do. A survey by Digital Look, a British financial website, found that women consistently earn higher returns than men. A survey of American investors by Merrill Lynch examined why women were better at investing. Women were less likely to “churn” their investments; and men tended to commit too much money to single, risky ideas. Overconfidence and overtrading are a recipe for poor investment returns.

I think what it's trying to say is that women tend, by their nature, to be more nurturing. Although the author probably doesn't want to come out and say that quite so directly.