Opposition mounted today to Likud’s proposal to invite American economist Milton Friedman to serve as an economic advisor to the next Israeli government. Transport Minister Gad Yaacobi said at a press conference here that Friedman’s ideas on how to cure Israel’s ailing economy would be “difficult and undesirable” to implement.
Friedman, a Nobel Laureate, is a conservative who advocates partial unemployment to fight inflation, minimal government regulation of business and the transfer of government-owned enterprises to private interests. Yaacobi said that while he admired Friedman, his ideas were too extreme for Israel and were not even accepted in the U.S.
An invitation was extended to Friedman last week by Simha Ehrlich, leader of Likud’s Liberal Party wing, who is expected to be named Finance Minister in a Likud-led government. On a television interview last night, Ehrlich said that Israel would continue to depend on the U.S. for economic support but that “certain measures were possible to gradually reduce that dependence.”
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