Liberté, égalité ... gratuité

Last week's Réforme has a great article about how what is free is is just a mirage.
Gilles Boucomont, pastor in the Marais district of Paris and an economist has written an excellent brief rant about how there is no such thing as a free lunch. He actually makes the point that grace and gratuité (things that are for free) are not at all the same thing. In economics there is no such thing as something given away for free - even freeing nations from debt can be a way of tying them in to buying products from a rich nation.
There's also a great dossier in last week's Réforme to prepare the CEC assembly which has just taken a week out of my life. This week's has some good follow up and some great reporting from the brilliant Grand Kiff, where 1200 young people have gathered from France and further afield, there have been ecological fair trade counters and Calvin rap led by my brilliant colleague from WARC Jet den Hollander. Sounds fun but I admit I was too tired to get out there by the end of the CEC assembly. You may have gathered I am almost too tired to blog, this is truly tragic for my personal wellbeing ;-)