Whenever he opens his mouth, the world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> The first time was over the weekend at the “What We Stand For” He looked at his watch and noted that the day had just ended in “We are the generation that could end extreme poverty on this planet,” Sach He pointed out the fact that the Pentagon’s $450 billion budget “is half the world’s military Sachs, 50, does not cut a physically impressive figure. On the contrary, he is short, slight, The second time I heard him speak was yesterday to a gathering of “With all of our successes, we have massive waves of degradation,” said Sachs, who is “I feel it particularly hard to be optimistic today,” he added, “when U.S. helicopter gunships Sachs was referring to a U.S. military attack along the Syrian border, which the At the environmental conference, where winners of the U.N.’s Equator Prize for 2004 “How many times has President Bush said how important it is to meet the Millenium Goals?” Whenever he opens his mouth, the world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs speaks truth to power. Or so it seems to me, having heard him twice in the past few days. The first time was over the weekend at the “What We Stand For” conference, where he brought more than 800 liberal Democrats to their feet with an extemporaneous speech that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-bu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nspeaks truth to power. Or so it seems to me, having heard him twice in the past few days. <\/P>
\n
\nconference<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, where he brought more than
\n800 liberal Democrats to their feet with an extemporaneous speech that did
\nnot rely on rhetorical fireworks but rather on a simple statement of facts and an unadorned
\ndeclaration of outrage.<\/P>
\n
\nsub-Saharan Africa. “Fifteen thousand people have just died,” he said, from AIDS, malaria,
\ntuberculosis and other diseases. Another 15,000 would die the next day, and the next, and the
\nnext, every day for the rest of the year. <\/P>
\n
\nwent on after a moment of stunned silence. “If we were serious about our security, there is
\nso much we could do. And we’re doing everything wrong. I don’t think there’s any excuse or ever
\nwas any excuse for supporting this [Bush] gang.” <\/P>
\n
\nexpenditures” and compares with just $13 billion in U.S. foreign aid.<\/P>
\n
\nwears wire-rimmed glasses, and looks somewhat rumpled in his suit and tie. He speaks in a flat
\nMidwestern accent. The only physical hint of the ferocious zest underlying his academic
\ndemeanour is a mop of black hair, which gives this Harvard-trained scholar the oddly
\nboyish aura of a grown-up Denace the Menace. (The New York Times Magazine once
\ncited him as “probably the most important economist in the world.”)<\/P>
\n
\nenvironmentalists at the German Mission to the U.N. He pointed out that the world’s
\ndownward spiral has forced the U.N. to delay its
\nand a half. The new target year for cutting extreme poverty in half, halting the spread of
\nHIV\/AIDS and providing universal primary education, among many others millenium goals, is
\n2015.<\/P>
\n
\nSpecial Advisor to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the director of the Earth Institute at
\nColumbia University. The last four years, “have been wasted” largely by violence, he said,
\npointing to the war in Iraq and armed conflicts all over the globe. <\/P>
\n
\nhave killed 40 people in a wedding party [in Iraq] and an Israeli gunship has killed 10 people [in
\nGaza]. I’m pretty depressed.”<\/P>
\n
\ndenies<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> struck a wedding party. The Israeli attack in
\nGaza<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, which has been condemned by the U.N. Security Council (with
\nthe U.S. abstaining) and for which the Israeli Army has expressed “deep sorrow over the loss of civilian
\nlives,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> is under investigation by Israeli authorities.<\/P>
\n
\nand others spoke about biodiversity, Sachs explained that among the various Millenium
\nDevelopment Goals one of the most significant is to obtain contributions from each donor nation
\namounting to 0.7 percent of its Gross National Product. <\/P>
\n
\nSachs asked. “President Bush — I’m still waiting.” The U.S. donation amounts to 0.13 percent of
\nGNP, “the lowest level” of all the donor countries. Three billion people across the world — half of
\nthe global population — live on less than $2 a day, and a significant portion of them
\nlive on less than $1 a day. “I plead with the leaders,” Sachs said. “Don’t tell me about
\n‘donor fatigue’ when we have just gotten started.”<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"