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Posts Tagged ‘David Cameron’

A Freakonomics Proposal to Help the British National Health Service

In the first chapter of our new book, Think Like a Freak, we recount an ill-fated interaction that Dubner and I had with David Cameron shortly before he was elected Prime Minister of the U.K. (In a nutshell, we joked with Cameron about applying the same principles he espoused for health care to automobiles; it turns out you don’t joke with Prime Ministers!)

That story has riled up some people, including an economics blogger named Noah Smith, who rails on us and defends the NHS.

I should start by saying I have nothing in particular against the NHS, and I also would be the last one to ever defend the U.S. system.   Anyone who has ever heard me talk about Obamacare knows I am no fan of it, and I never have been.



No Online Sex Please, We're British

According to a BBC News report:

Most households in the U.K. will have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron has announced. …

Mr Cameron warned in a speech that access to online pornography was “corroding childhood.”

The new measures will apply to both existing and new customers.

Mr Cameron also called for some “horrific” internet search terms to be “blacklisted,” meaning they would automatically bring up no results on websites such as Google or Bing.

You could spend a week reading the comments, which are quite heterogeneous.