As I was saying to Joe Stiglitz the other day … this column is still basking in the glory of an evening in the company with the great economist, whose RSA Angus Millar Lecture it was Agenda's honour to introduce.
So what was he like?
Apart from being a great Scotophile (see previous page), the jovial great man, adviser to presidents and sworn opponent of American financial industry villainy has an unself-conscious humility and curiosity rare in the few really big cheeses we have previously encountered.
He is also delightfully ready to spill the beans on the great financial sages of the age: Alan Greenspan (vindictive and political) and Larry Summers (good academic turned Wall Street sycophant). Also enjoyable were his close-up insights into Barack Obama, who he says is a great campaigner but hopeless governor, bored of a job in which he is an effective lame duck, and "spends all his time playing golf".
Having attended several convivial Scottish trade events at UK embassies in the Middle East and Far East, Agenda is perplexed by the claim by Business For Scotland's Sandy Adam that the mandarins of the Foreign Office are anti-Scottish.
This criticism was later refined to refer to a charge levied on quango Scottish Development International (SDI) for whisky-promoting events. Leaving aside the fact that a disproportionate number of the Foreign Office's mandarins are Scottish, there is also the fact that only about 17% of Scotch whisky companies are of that nationality.
The truth? Yes, SDI has to cough up for the champagne and which prospective foreign clients are plied, but so does its partner body, UK Trade & Investment, which pays fees to itself under the Overseas Markets Introduction Scheme.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article