Every economist with one opinion will be balanced with a colleague having an opposite opinion except that in a dictatorship like we effectively have in Israel, the media rules. Few are those who dare voice a different view.
One of them is Shmuel Slavin, the former CEO of the ministries of Treasury, and also of Labor and Welfare, a man who understands a thing or two about the economy but, strangely enough, no one has ever approached him to sign against the judicial reforms. Perhaps this is for the fact that he participated in past primaries of the Likud.
Slavin is convinced that all the warnings which have lately been aired regarding heavy economic repercussions about the Levine reforms will turn out to have been incorrect.
This is what Slavin says: "I was the director-general of the Ministry of Treasury, likewise for the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, and I have also established businesses. I believe that the letters which were written are sorry political letters. I will try to speak as an economist, not a politician.
"They threatened us that if we proceed with a judicial reform, the credit agencies will knock down the credit grading. But let us talk about facts. For example: inflation. From among the OECD countries of 2022, we rate second to the lowest. A second fact: We have a surplus of foreign currency in the Bank of Israel amounting to almost 200 billion dollars, half of the GNP. No other country can match this.
"The main aspect which companies of credit ratings deal with is the percentage of debt of the GNP, which at the end of last year stood at 60.9%. When I examine what is going on in the world, I see that Japan, for instance, has a debt standing at 264%. Singapore, to which Yair Lapid sends his investors to do business, has a debt of 126%, and I am talking only about economy and not about democracy in Singapore."
And he adds, "Those who oppose the reform create background noise leading foreign banks to note that the opposition comes only from a small section of the public, mainly the upper class sector. The banks react to the background noise, but once they examine the real facts of the Israeli economy, they will understand that the facts speak well for themselves. The banks are important enough to be able to discern between politic background static and real, solid data of the Israeli economy."
Regarding the warnings about withdrawing deposits from Israeli banks, he says, "This relates to deposits, but the Bank director above him which controlled it would not have dared to utter such nonsense and claims that there was an outward flow of cash, since it has been proven that money from abroad continues to flow to Israel more than ever. Therefore, to misrepresent facts in order to serve political positions — if you do so as a politician, that's your business. But if you do it with a degree of an economist or a former director-general, it is purely idiotic."
