Quotes from Jeffrey Sachs

In the early 1990s, when a lot of the developing world opened up to international capital flows... they ended up in very good long-term projects, but projects that weren't going to pay off for five or 10 or 20 years.

We were proposing, in a sense, that the rest of the world be made safe for American ideas, as they adopted intellectual property rights that gave patent protection to our very innovative economy.

The runs started in Thailand after the IMF intervened in such a dramatic way. Then the IMF came to Indonesia.

There's a lot of strength in the U.S., but there's a lot of froth also. The froth will blow off. We're going to have to face up to some realities that we're not fully facing up to right now.

Unfortunately, the real focus in this country has not been on the rest of the world. It's been on our own issues and our own problems. Fair enough. But it means that our simple hopes that everything will just work out abroad aren't really coming to pass.

Let's start fresh with Russia on some real help and some real reform.

The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity.

If we did go into a recession, something that's always possible for the U.S. or Europe, we could lower interest rates and expand the money supply without worrying about the price of gold.

Let the future say of our generation that we sent forth mighty currents of hope and that we worked together to heal the world.

I think the IMF helped to detonate the Indonesian crisis.

In Asia, a lot of successful economies that had been living on their own saving, decided to open up their financial markets to international capital in the early 1990s. So here were countries doing quite well, but they decided they'd borrow a bit more and do even better.

Deep down, if we really accept that their lives - African lives - are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. Its an uncomfortable truth.

Globalization was a deep trend pushed by technology and right ideas, as much as anything else.

Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear, but also Freedom from Want.

The truth of good economic doctoring is to know the general principles, and to really know the specifics. To understand the context, and also, to understand that an economy may need some tender loving care, not just the so-called hard truths, if it's going to get by.

We're going to have to forgive a great deal of the Soviet era debt. There's no question about that. Let's face up to that. We're going to have to put in money if Russia is really going to consolidate a democracy.

Senior development specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America's government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.

The Russian drama began at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union mercifully ended. Russia and 14 other new countries emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Every one of those 15 new states faced a profound historical, economic, financial, social and political challenge.

The idea that UN commitments should be followed by action is indeed a radical one, especially for the United States, where wilful neglect of its own commitments is the rule.

It's not so unusual to run out of someone else's currency.

We had a booming stock market in 1929 and then went into the world's greatest depression. We have a booming stock market in 1999. Will the bubble somehow burst, and then we enter depression? Well, some things are not different.

In my view, there is an urgent need to communicate with the public and help to explain where there is consensus, and where are there doubts about the issues of sustainable development.

We've taken the view that if the rest of the world would democratize and create market economies, that would spread the benefits of prosperity around the world, and that it would enhance our own prosperity, and our own stability and security, as well.

Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialised UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organisations in the world.