We were proposing, in a sense, that the rest of the world be made safe for American ideas, as they adopted intellectual property rights that gave patent protection to our very innovative economy.
Jeffrey SachsOur challenge, our generation's unique challenge, is learning to live peacefully and sustainably in an extraordinarily crowded world. Our planet is crowded to an unprecendented degree. It is bursting at the seams. It's bursting at the seams in human terms, in economic terms, and in ecological terms
Jeffrey SachsMy colleagues and I took a stand in our work several years ago that we would not look for the magic bullet, because there is none. These are just basic problems requiring basic work. Nothing magic about it.
Jeffrey SachsAll of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor, actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised, then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of that heartless response.
Jeffrey SachsThere's a lot of strength in the U.S., but there's a lot of froth also. The froth will blow off. We're going to have to face up to some realities that we're not fully facing up to right now.
Jeffrey SachsThere 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 SachsEvery morning our newspapers could read, 'More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.' How? The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly, sad stories rarely get written.
Jeffrey Sachs