Jeffrey D. Sachs's Blog, page 24

Lies and the lying lobbyists who tell them

The greatest problem in Washington is not polarization but lying. The legislative machinery has ground to a halt not because of the great divide between liberals and conservatives but because of the great divide between the lobbyists and the people. The lobbyists want things that are against the public interest, and they use lies and [...]

A warning on the eve of the G-20 summit

Is history made by powerful individuals or by long-term changes in technology, population, climate, and other deep factors? As world leaders gather this week in Hamburg for the G-20 summit, we are at a moment when a few individuals are playing an outsized role to our mutual peril. Global survival depends on us limiting the [...]

Trump’s Climate-Change Sociopathy

NEW YORK – President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement is not just dangerous for the world; it is also sociopathic. Without remorse, Trump is willfully inflicting harm on others. The declaration by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, that Trump believes in climate change makes matters worse, [...]

Jeffrey Sachs: America can save $1 trillion and get better health care

(CNN) US health care costs are out of sight, more than $10,000 per person per year, compared with around $5,000 per person in Canada, Germany and France. Obamacare expanded coverage without controlling costs. The Republican plan would ruthlessly and cruelly limit coverage without controlling costs. Read more at CNN.

America’s Broken Democracy

NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump’s ravings against the 2015 Paris climate agreement are partly a product of his ignorance and narcissism. Yet they represent something more. They are a reflection of the deep corruption of the US political system, which, according to one recent assessment, is no longer a “full democracy.” American politics [...]

The G20’s Harmony Without Trump

MEDELLÍN – O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! (Oh friends, not these sounds!), proclaimed the baritone in the stirring performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the G20 leaders in Hamburg last Friday evening. That soul-stirring phrase, the opening line of “Ode to Joy,” Beethoven’s appeal to universal brotherhood, was the perfect message to the global leaders sitting in [...]

Ending the Ronald Reagan lie

As they return from the July Fourth break, the Republican leadership is twisting in agony on the Obamacare repeal and it couldn’t happen to a more miserable bunch. President Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have been trying to jam through a deeply unpopular and cruel piece of legislation, but [...]

America, We Still Have A Jobs Problem

For those with a college degree or above, life is good. Jobs are plentiful, incomes are rising, inflation is low, health is broadly improving, and the impacts of the new information technologies — from smartphones to e-commerce to ubiquitous information — are generally beneficent. For those without a college degree, the situation is starkly different. [...]

America, we still have a jobs problem

For those with a college degree or above, life is good. Jobs are plentiful, incomes are rising, inflation is low, health is broadly improving, and the impacts of the new information technologies — from smartphones to e-commerce to ubiquitous information — are generally beneficent. For those without a college degree, the situation is starkly different. [...]

Tax reform that works for all

The republicans are trying to jam a reckless health care bill through Congress so that they can move on to their real objective: another round of deep tax cuts for the rich, paid for by deep cuts in public services, more debt on the backs of the young, and reckless disregard for the environment. We [...]