Jeffrey D. Sachs quotes - page 2

Jeffrey D. Sachs is an American economist, professor, and public policy analyst known for his work on global poverty, sustainable development, and economic reform. His research and advisory roles have influenced major international initiatives, including the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. He has authored numerous books and continues to play a leading role in addressing global challenges. Here are 70 of his quotes:

Extreme poverty is the best breeding ground on earth for disease, political instability, and terrorism.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

This is our greatest challenge: learning to live in a crowded and interconnected world that is creating unprecedented pressures on human society and on the physical environment.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear, but also Freedom from Want.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The truth of good economic doctoring is to know the general principles, and to really know the specifics. To understand the context, and also, to understand that an economy may need some tender loving care, not just the so-called hard truths, if it's going to get by.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

There is no economic imperative that will condemn us to deplete our vital resource base, but neither is there an invisible hand that will prevent us from doing so.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The basic idea was that if a country would put its economy as an integrated piece of the world system, that it would benefit from that with economic growth. I concur with that basic view.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Everybody needs to understand that policies are going to change to make it unprofitable if you wreck the planet, those companies that continue exploring and developing fossil fuel resources for which there is no safe use are going to pay a very heavy cost for that.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Things like the proposed tech tax are actually a very good idea. The specific form of it is debatable, but the idea is that five companies are worth $3.5tn, basically because of network externalities and information monopolies, and therefore are absolutely right for efficient taxation... The marginal cost of production of AI is effectively zero. The ability to make these technologies available to the poorest countries at no cost is an evident option. So we should be taking special care to make sure that this revolution can reach everybody.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Here is my recommendation for President Trump and the new Congress. Turn immediately to our glorious national institutions, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, for a report to the nation on the key areas for science and technology investments in the coming generation. Ask them to recommend an organizational strategy for a science-based scaling up of national and global R&D efforts. Call on America's research universities to add their own brainstorming to the work of the national academies. Later in 2017, the president and Congress should then meet in a joint session of Congress to set forth a new technology vision for the nation and an R&D strategy to achieve it.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

It's a terrible blow for the world when countries as rich and talented and stable and well-off as this country doesn't fulfil the global responsibility of at least 0.7% of 1% of GDP in development aid. It's a terrible blow. If we all did it, we would save millions of lives, we would have all the kids in school. They would be growing up to be productive members of their society, we wouldn't have the mass refugee movements. We would have a completely different dynamic in the world. My country's spending 30 times more on the military than it is on development assistance right now.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The world economy is pumping trillions of dollars into the accounts of a few thousand people. These riches should be directed first and foremost to end the millions of needless deaths caused by extreme poverty, and to educate the hundreds of millions of children who lack schooling. The billionaires would still have enough left over to indulge their longing for mega-yachts, personal space ships, private tropical islands, and other conspicuous consumption.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The Panama Papers opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shell companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Von Hayek was wrong. In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The intensity of these storms is terrifying. They are...the intensity is rising because of climate change. This isn't about the future – it's about right now.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

We're in the midst of horrendous danger, and it's unfolding before our eyes, and still we are not acting. And the reason we're not acting is big money and big companies, and it's complete dishonesty.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Probably more than five million kids will die [this year] because they don't have access to basic healthcare.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

It's a tremendous blow to decency, to stability, it is a reason why then you have mass movements of refugees.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change – Nobel-winning scientific body that informs us about what is the scientific knowledge – issued a report last week, which you can find online. Just google "IPCC 1.5 degrees C” because they were asking the question, what does it take for us to achieve the goal we set in Paris in December 2015 to keep the planet safe? And they said we're running out of time, that there still is... By a miracle, if the politicians acted and we really focused on it and so on, we could still do it. But, basically, we're running out of time, because in Canberra and in Washington and in other places they are not representing the common interest at all. They're representing a few big companies, but not the people.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

But you [Australians] have an overwhelmingly publicly-financed [health care] system...I come from a country that has the private monopoly system. I can tell you it is three times more expensive than the UK, and I just wanted to share with you that UK life expectancy is 81.6 years, in the US it's 78.7 years. And we pay three times more than you do for the NHS.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” asked Henry II as he instigated the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1170. Down through the ages, presidents and princes around the world have been murderers and accessories to murder, as the great Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin and Walter Lunden documented in statistical detail in their masterwork Power and Morality. One of their main findings was that the behavior of ruling groups tends to be more criminal and amoral than that of the people over whom they rule.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. ... The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors - because everybody does it. And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from "predatory governments” trying to collect taxes. No kidding.

Jeffrey D. Sachs