The Guardian (September 25)
“It doesn’t take an Einstein to observe the folly of Johnson doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Delaying inevitable tougher rules will likely do what it did before. Prolonging the pandemic worsens the economy as well as the roll-call of death and serious long-term Covid illness. But nothing in Johnson’s reckless life suggests any precautionary DNA in his selfish genes.”
Tags: Covid, Death, Delaying, Economy, Einstein, Folly, Illness, Inevitable, Johnson, Pandemic, Prolonging, Reckless, Selfish, UK
The Independent (January 31)
“There’s still time for a Suez style retreat from Brexit… There is no cosmic law mandating the continuation of a folly simply because it is begun; no rule of primogeniture giving an older expression of the democratic will precedence over any that might follow…. an epochal global humiliation is a far smaller price to pay than 8 per cent, 5 per cent or even 2 per cent of GDP.”
Tags: Brexit, Democratic will, Folly, GDP, Global humiliation, Retreat, Suez
The Economist (January 2)
“India is taking the idea of a universal basic income seriously.” Few expect the current proposal, which “would cut absolute poverty from 22% to less than 0.5%” with a proposed annual income of slightly over $110 income, to be adopted soon, but “the idea will not go away. It may seem folly in a country home to over a quarter of the world’s truly poor to give people money for nothing. But it would be a swift, efficient way to make it home to far fewer of them.”
USA Today (August 4)
“The main non-athletic story line of the Rio Games has to be the utter folly of hosting these costly exercises in short-term gratification. Brazil is expected to spend as much as $20 billion on the Games, this after dropping $15 billion on the 2014 World Cup.” These excesses are “back-breaking” for host countries and the IOC should be ashamed of the “scarce money to be misspent” on the Games, money which is diverted from more pressing priorities.
Tags: Back-breaking, Brazil, Folly, Host, Host countries, IOC, Misspent, Olympics, Priorities, Rio, World Cup
