2010 Election Campaign Day 22 - A Nobel Laureate trumps a Rhodes Scholar

 

Nobel Laureate and respected economist Joseph Stiglitz reckons the Rudd Labor Government got it right with its fast-acting economic stimulus policy during the Global Financial Crisis according to Aunty ABC:

 

"One of the world's top economists says the fiscal stimulus package delivered in Australia during the global financial crisis was among the best designed in the world.

A report today found there are some valid concerns about the poor value for money on the school spending part of the package.

However, Nobel Prize laureate and Professor at New York's Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz says there will always be some waste with such programs.

He says that is preferable to the waste of human and capital resources that would have resulted if there was no stimulus.

"You were lucky to have, probably, the best designed stimulus package of any of the countries, advanced industrial countries, both in size and in design, timing and how it was spent - and I think it served Australia well," he said."

A hand which definitely beats a Rhodes Scholar who probably hasn't opened a book on economics in half a lifetime.