There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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The Champagne Song

We drink champagne, 
We sno** co*****, 
We've got ladies over here, 
You've got sh** jobs, 
You sha* your dogs, 
And your wife is on the ga** 
 >The Champagne Song of AFC Wimbledon 

No chants like that from the Iraqi supporters last night but they’ve still got every reason to cheer their famous Asian Cup semi final victory over South Korea last night. And with the Saudis putting the Japanese to the sword in the other semi final, it might just be the case that God is a football fan after all. 

Not that the Indonesian authorities are too impressed of course: the Korean and Japanese defeats have literally cost them a fortune. Cos now they can’t charge Rp450,000 a ticket to the Japanese and Korean expats that would have turned up in huge numbers to see the final had these two countries got through. 

 No instead, the huge Senayan stadium is expected to be near empty on Sunday (29/07). And even if they slash ticket prices, they probably won’t have much success in enticing Indonesians to go along instead. 

In fact, to get people to go to the match the Indonesian authorities may have to emulate what the Vietnamese hosts did in earlier rounds – and that is to give away tickets to schoolkids for free.

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