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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Edvard Munch's "The Scream"

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream!

Edvard Munch The scream
Edvard Munch’s scream is as relevant today as it was back in 1893 when he painted it. And there would be no shortage of models for Edvard either – he’d only have to make a visit to any US senior high school and he’d come across any number of angst ridden young individuals, some of whom are falling pregnant, while others, even more worryingly, are choosing to end their lives early.

Indeed, in research published Tuesday by JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Society, it seems that teenage suicides in the US jumped sharply in 2004 and 2005.

In 2004, the rate in 2004 was a high 4.74 per 100,000 people. And in 2005, there were 292 more teen suicides than expected.

Some blame it on the Iraq war but I blame it on the internet and tv. Young kids simply don’t get out enough anymore. Let’s all scream to that!

scream homer Edvard Munch

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