Jeffrey D. Sachs's Blog, page 34

How the US Congress Hands US Corporate Taxes To Europe

The American Congress is so incompetent that it is arbitrarily handing billions of dollars of U.S. tax revenues to Europe. The issue involves tax manipulation by America’s top IT and pharmaceutical companies, including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Gilead and others. These companies should be paying U.S. taxes that instead are increasingly being collected by European [...]

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine

There’s no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy “experience” has been to support every war demanded [...]

The GDP doesn’t tell the whole story about economic growth

Last week’s GDP report, showing that growth had slowed to an annual rate of just 0.7 percent, was a striking reminder that US long-term economic growth has been slowing for decades. In a fascinating new book, “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,’’ economist Robert Gordon argues that the period of rapid US growth, from [...]

Discussing Global Economy on BBC Newsnight

Video courtesy of BBC Newsnight. Originally aired on Jan. 19, 2016.

The Global Economy’s Marshmallow Test

NEW YORK – The world economy is experiencing a turbulent start to 2016. Stock markets are plummeting; emerging economies are reeling in response to the sharp decline in commodities prices; refugee inflows are further destabilizing Europe; China’s growth has slowed markedly in response to a capital-flow reversal and an overvalued currency; and the US is [...]

China at the economic crossroads

SEVEN YEARS AFTER the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered a panic on Wall Street and sent the world economy into a tailspin, a free fall of the Chinese stock market has set off a new alarm. China’s stock market travails are also pulling down US and European stocks. Equity markets worldwide shed more than $2 trillion [...]

Jeffrey D. Sachs on How to Forge a Grand Bargain on Energy

The wars over climate science aren’t really about whether humanity is dangerously changing the climate. It is. They are proxy wars—lobbying wars—over 21st-century energy sources: fossil fuels vs. renewables vs. nuclear energy. In fact, we will need all energy sources that meet three conditions: homegrown (for national security), low-cost (for competitiveness) and environmentally safe. With [...]

A New Century for the Middle East

NEW YORK – The United States, the European Union, and Western-led institutions such as the World Bank repeatedly ask why the Middle East can’t govern itself. The question is asked honestly but without much self-awareness. After all, the single most important impediment to good governance in the region has been its lack of self-governance: The region’s [...]

The Wall Street Journal Abandons Its Business Readers

The Wall Street Journal has become the Fox News of print journalism, another entertainment outlet of the Murdoch media empire. The paper’s opinion pages are lively, clever, and increasingly fact free. Business leaders looking for serious analysis instead of entertainment should turn to The Financial Times and other leading business outlets. Read the full article [...]

Let’s hail the Paris climate agreement and get to work

The Paris Agreement and the supporting decisions are a diplomatic triumph. They are an act of true global co-operation of historic significance. Yet it is crucial to distinguish between diplomacy and implementation. The diplomats have done their job: the Paris Agreement points the world in the right direction, and with sophistication and clarity. It does not, however, [...]