"Japan's debt will be equivalent to 154 per cent of its GDP by 2015, when US debt will be 86 per cent of GDP. A year earlier, Britain's debt will have reached 84 per cent of GDP. Yet even in these countries no economist seriously suggests that there is a risk of imminent economic collapse because of debt levels. On the contrary, debate is focused on whether stimulus measures should be wound back now that the financial crisis has passed, or whether they should be maintained to avoid a so-called ''double-dip'' recession that could trigger a full-scale depression. And that risk is grave, according to Nobel Prize-winning economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.
From that global perspective, the debates of Australia's election campaign seem utterly bizarre."
