Dublin Opinion

Kids says the craziest things

‘Homer loves burgers’

That’s the first thing my three and three quarter year old daughter said to me upon waking this morning. Like a lot of uptight, middle class parents I sometimes worry about the amount of TV my daughter watches. For example, after watching an hour of Cbeebies she has to turn it off and hit the jigsaw. However, every Sunday at 6 I have to remind her to turn on the telly.

Take note Mary

Paul Krugman’s assessment in the latest NYRB of Milton Freedman’s economic legacy:

“Friedman’s laissez-faire absolutism contributed to an intellectual climate in which faith in markets and disdain for government often trumps the evidence. Developing countries rushed to open up their capital markets, despite warnings that this might expose them to financial crises; then, when the crises duly arrived, many observers blamed the countries’ governments, not the instability of international capital flows. Electricity deregulation proceeded despite clear warnings that monopoly power might be a problem; in fact, even as the California electricity crisis was happening, most commentators dismissed concerns about price-rigging as wild conspiracy theories. Conservatives continue to insist that the free market is the answer to the health care crisis, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”