Jeffrey D. Sachs Quotes (29 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Works

The End of Poverty

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs: 29 quotes 1 like

Famous Jeffrey D. Sachs Quotes

“Deep down, if we really accept that their lives - African lives - are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. Its an uncomfortable truth.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs book The End of Poverty

The End of Poverty" The End of Poverty, 2005

“We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

“…History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

"Good Reads" w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6440.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

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“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

Tech tax' necessary to avoid dystopia, says leading economist, the Guardian, 23 Oct 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/23/exclusive-tech-tax-jeffrey-sachs-ai-wealth-facebook-google-amazon

“Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy represents a new and vulgar strain of American exceptionalism. It proudly proclaims its intention to maintain U. S. military dominance as the core pillar of U. S. foreign policy.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Excerpt from ‘A New Foreign Policy Beyond American Exceptionalism MSNBC, October 4, 2018 http://jeffsachs.org/2018/10/an-excerpt-from-a-new-foreign-policy/

Jeffrey D. Sachs Quotes about homeland

“I would tell you what you’re saying is a glib slogan…not a reality about what development aid is about. And please, Australia, please do your part. You’re a rich, wonderful, beautiful country that can afford to do more. And poor desperate children need it so that they can grow up to be healthy and be productive in our world. And, Australia, really, we count on you for that.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“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

National Health Service
Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“What a social welfare system does is enable people to live with dignity if they don’t have the means on their own. It enables households that are relatively low-income to have a place for their children to get a quality education. It allows everybody to have a dignity of work by having some vacation time or paid leave or maternity leave or father’s leave. And this is decency. This is what it means. We’re rich countries now. We should have the decency to provide dignity for everybody. I happen to live in a country that doesn’t believe it. We soaked up the libertarian ideas. I can tell you what it’s like. We have a large part of our population living in duress, in extreme poverty in the United States. It’s horrible. Because we have this philosophy, “You’re on your own.” Well, “you’re on your own” in this world means living in misery, dying many years earlier, children having no chance in the educational system. People working round the clock, no time off, no paid leave, no opportunities. It’s horrible.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany – are the countries with the largest so-called social welfare states. They are the most prosperous. They have the best social conditions. They report the highest quality of life”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm
Context: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany – are the countries with the largest so-called social welfare states. They are the most prosperous. They have the best social conditions. They report the highest quality of life... They have a degree of equality that is unmatched in other parts of the world. People work very hard, thank you, and labour force participation of women is the highest in those countries. Why? Because the social welfare state also means that there’s child care available, that there is maternity leave for the first nine months or 12 months to a mother raising a new child. And father’s leave. But after that there is enough support that a mother can go to work. And people do want to go to work. The idea that this has taken away the work incentive is actually the opposite.

“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

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

Jeffrey D. Sachs Quotes

“Indeed, one might surmise that it is health and longevity rather than income that give the biggest boost to reported life satisfaction”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity" The Price of Civilization, 2011
Context: Though the United States is one of the world’s richest economies by per capita income, it ranks only around seventeenth in reported life satisfaction. It is superseded not only by the likely candidates of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which all rank above the United States but also by less likely candidates such as Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Indeed, one might surmise that it is health and longevity rather than income that give the biggest boost to reported life satisfaction. Since good health and longevity can be achieved at per capita income levels well below those of the United States, so too can life satisfaction. One marketing expert put it this way, with only slight exaggeration: Basic Survival goods are cheap, whereas narcissistic self-stimulation and social-display products are expensive. Living doesn’t cost much, but showing off does.

Life , Health

“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

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm
Context: 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. And yet, a senator in Florida today said, “I don’t know where climate change comes from.” What is the matter with these people? How dare they either hold the office if they really don’t know, which is not the point, or they’re so corrupt in taking oil money that they pretend that they don’t know? And so, that’s the real story here. The governments are not representing you properly right now. Because the planet is facing profound dangers, we’re all at risk, and our governments need to act. And they promised that they would act, and they’re not acting right now.

Change , Future

“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

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm
Context: A wonderful chemist, Svante Arrhenius, in 1896, explained, actually, how things would unfold as CO2 rose in the atmosphere. The quantum mechanics have been understood, the basic dynamics have been understood, for many, many decades. One of my colleagues testified in US Congress, almost got it to precision, what would happen over the next 30 years. The fact of the matter is, now we’re in it. 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. And I would add your Mr Rupert Murdoch, who has made a mess of the media all over the world, by propounding nonsense in the tabloids and our Fox News, in the Wall Street Journal, telling lies at the service of the oil industry

Money

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

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Context: I just undertook over the last nine months a project with the International Monetary Fund to look at the capacity of the poorest countries to keep their children in school, make sure there are vaccines, make sure that there is basic healthcare and so forth. And the result... that a poor country cannot do that on their own resources, but what it would take from the rich countries is tiny as a fraction of our resources... If we do not help... Probably more than five million kids will die [this year] because they don’t have access to basic healthcare that could be handled by... $40 per person in the rich world, for example. Even a few billionaires could take it on their own philanthropy, basically, and do this, but we’re not doing it...

“The US plutocracy has declared war on sustainable development”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

"The US Plutocracy’s War on Sustainable Development," w:Project-Syndicate, Nov 2, 2017 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-progress-sustainable-development-goals-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2017-11
Context: The US plutocracy has declared war on sustainable development. Billionaires such as Charles and David Koch (oil and gas), Robert Mercer (finance), and Sheldon Adelson (casinos) play their politics for personal financial gain. They fund Republican politicians who promise to cut their taxes, deregulate their industries, and ignore the warnings of environmental science, especially climate science.

War

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

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm
Context: ... It’s a tremendous blow to decency, to stability, it is a reason why then you have mass movements of refugees.... If we don’t hold together a multilateral system, we won’t hold together in the world. And when Trump goes to the UN – I was there when he gave the speech last month – and said, “I’m a patriot. Nobody’s going to tell the United States what to do,” it’s just horrifying, this kind of thinking, this bullying talk, this idea that one of the richest counties in the world, and in aggregate richer than any high-income country has ever been in history, has such distain for helping people in desperation. I barely recognise my country from what has happened over the last 30 years.

“Basic Survival goods are cheap, whereas narcissistic self-stimulation and social-display products are expensive. Living doesn’t cost much, but showing off does.”

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

Killer Politicians, Project Syndicate - The World's Opinion Page, Oct 24, 2018 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/killer-politicians-include-american-presidents-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2018-10

People , Age , World , Behavior

“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

"The age of impunity," The Boston Globe, May 13, 2016 http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/12/the-age-impunity/LHBxamqFENCs3W6lvWnCIJ/story.html

“The vast differences in power contributed to faulty social theories of these differences that are still with us today. When a society is economically dominant, it is easy for its members to assume that such dominance reflects a deeper superiority--whether religious, racial, genetic, cultural, or institutional--rather than an accident of timing or geography.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs book The End of Poverty

The End of Poverty" The End of Poverty, 2005

Time

“We need… a much more competent and honest government. Economic reform and political reform must go hand in hand. Without the one there cannot be the other.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

"The Price Of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue And Prosperity," w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/17083930-the-price-of-civilization-reawakening-american-virtue-and-prosperity

“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

"Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable," w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/53895656-building-the-new-american-economy-smart-fair-and-sustainable

Effort , Universe , Science

“It is interesting that when you actually subpoena the emails and the correspondence of the oil industry, as the Attorney-General of New York State has done, it unveiled a record of deception for decades. It’s all there and it’s all clear, and it’s all terrifying, basically.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“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

"Billionaires reach for the stars while world suffers, CNN, August 15th, 2018 http://jeffsachs.org/2018/08/billionaires-reach-for-the-stars-while-world-suffers/

Death , Children , People , World

“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

"The age of impunity," The Boston Globe, May 13, 2016 http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/12/the-age-impunity/LHBxamqFENCs3W6lvWnCIJ/story.html

Business , Dependency

“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

"Welfare States, Beyond Ideology", Scientific American 295, 42 (2006)

Democracy , Strong

“…four very powerful corporate lobbies have repeatedly come out on top and turned our democracy into what might more accurately be called a corporatocracy.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable," w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/53895656-building-the-new-american-economy-smart-fair-and-sustainable

Democracy

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

Jeffrey D. Sachs

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.
Killer Politicians, Project Syndicate - The World's Opinion Page, Oct 24, 2018 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/killer-politicians-include-american-presidents-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2018-10