118 Quotes by Jeffrey Sachs

We give away tens of billions to Brazil, or to one place or another, without thinking. But in those days, to give even a tiny amount to Russia was viewed almost as anathema by many parts of our own society and our political leadership, whether it was the Bush administration or the Clinton administration.

Trade is important, but I visit places that are so cut off from world markets that they aren't really part of the local economy, let alone the world economy.

We, being the Western world, wouldn't let Russia off the hook on debt. So there were demands on debt servicing in the early days until they ran out of reserves. There was no real aid program, just a fictional aid program.

The debts are unaffordable. If they won't cancel the debts I would suggest obstruction; you do it yourselves.

When is the last time anybody heard Vice President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the world's poor?

When countries open up to trade, they generally benefit, because they can sell more, then they can buy more. And trade has two-way gain.

Countries like Malawi need, require and deserve the increased help of the international community, not only in the form of food aid but in the form of help to grow more food.

The Russian government not only acted corruptly, not only built up a new oligarchy of billionaires out of nothing, basically, but also gave away its most valuable financial assets-its ownership of the huge natural resource sector in Russia.

Russia increasingly lived on short-term borrowing. Now, this was an extraordinary merry-go-round.