Jeffrey D. Sachs's Blog, page 55

To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (Part Three)

The most important lesson that we learn from John Kennedy is to fashion the future out of our rational hopes, not our fears. He was the first to deny the baseless hopes of idle dreamers: I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and [...]

To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (Part Two)

The hopes of the world were set alight by the signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban treaty. At this moment of high hopes, on September 20, Kennedy stepped up to the rostrum of the UN General Assembly to address fellow world leaders and senior statesmen, two long years after he had last spoken there. [...]

Bloomberg TV: Happiest Countries in the World

What the US Can Learn from Denmark About Happiness!

The new results are in. The U.S., for all its riches, stands just 17th in the new world happiness rankings released today in the World Happiness Report 2013. Denmark tops the world tables. Indeed, there is something good going on in the northern latitudes. The top five countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Sweden. [...]

To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (Excerpt)

“There’s always some son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t get the word,” John F. Kennedy exclaimed in frustration. The president and his advisors were huddled at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, with the United States and the Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear war. Kennedy had grounded U-2 spy-plane missions to avoid [...]

Calling Off America’s Bombs

As the US Congress considers whether to authorize American military intervention in Syria, its members should bear in mind a basic truth: While Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has repeatedly used extreme violence to retain power, the United States – and other governments in the Middle East and Europe – share responsibility for turning Syria into [...]

Why Wall Street Wants Summers And Why The Rest Of Us Should Not

On the surface the debate about the Chairmanship of the Federal Reserve is about the merits of the two leading candidates, Lawrence Summers and Janet Yellen.  But looks can be deceiving.  President Obama leans towards Summers not on the merits but because the Wall Street bankers want him.  Summers is one of the boys, and [...]

Global Development’s Winning Goals

NEW YORK – The world’s governments meet at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25 to discuss how to accelerate progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and also to agree on a timetable for a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. The MDGs, adopted in 2000, will conclude in 2015, [...]

A retórica sedutora de JFK (The Seductive Rhetoric of JFK)

SÃO PAULO e BOSTON “Era de manhã, e ele voltou para o seu quarto na Casa Branca e começou a chorar, somente comigo…colocou a cabeça entre as mãos e soluçou”. As palavras são de Jacqueline Kennedy ao se recordar como o marido, o então presidente americano John Fitzgerald Kennedy, reagiu ao desastre da Baía dos [...]

March on Washington 50th Anniversary

Prof Jeffrey Sachs’ remarks at the March on Washington 50th Anniversary. Delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: If the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, as Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, it is because righteous souls in each generation pull that arc towards its hallowed end. 50 years ago at [...]