Jeff Sachs, an academic with a spine

[Benjamin Cole]

I do not agree with everything posted above by Matthew Koch and Matt Cloud, though I enjoy seeing and respecting all points of view, which is what a forum is for: collegial conversation. 

As someone who worked as a financial reporter on-and-off for 40 years (and still yet) I think there is a great deal of merit to deep suspicions about the globalists, especially from the employee classes of the developed nations. 

I understand perfectly the theoretical benefits of free trade, but in practice globalism usually undermines the employee classes, as various elites manipulate government who seek business location in their nation.  Michael Pettis' book "Trade Wars are Class Wars" is a tremendous read, along with some stuff by Dani Rodrik and Angus Deaton. Open borders for cheap labor is a reasonable concern as well. 

As a personal and practical aside, I do not see how the Detroit story was in the national or middle-class interests. 

From JFK's time to today the globalists have become vastly more powerful, and in control of media, academia, think tanks, political parties. 

The resource development companies, and ag businesses, were the globalists of the 1950s-60s. They were peanuts compared modern-day behemoths, such as Apple (market cap $3 tril), GM, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Disney, NBC-Universal, Morgan Stanley, Google, Meta and Eli Lilly. The smallest company on this list, Eli Lilly, has a market cap of $780 billion. 

Jeff Bezos own The WaPo, btw. 

In some ways, the globalists are interesting; they usually want peace, so as to conduct commerce.

But (true to their fiduciary obligations to shareholders) they have no concerns regarding human rights.  This is seen most explicitly in Apple, so heavy into Beijing and the CCP, one of the most repressive governments on the planet, and getting worse. Apple makes up for that by running ads with gays and minorities featured, and waving green issues around. 

If the whole world suffers from human rights oppressions, the globalists will be happy as along as commerce is unaffected. And they run US foreign and military policy. 

Notice how Red China, once the bad guys, gets a huge pass 24/7/365 today in major media. There are some fringe groups concerned about China, and some elements within the earnest US national security complex. 

So it goes. 

Edited June 1 by Benjamin Cole

[Matthew Koch]

 

[Ron Bulman]

11 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sachs wrote a book on JFK in 2013 called 'To move the World' has anyone read it?

Whenever you are not sure of something, go to Kennedysandking.com.  More often than not you will find it.

 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/book-review-to-move-the-world-by-jeffrey-sachs

Good stuff.

He quotes Eisenhower as saying that Kennedy's attempt to keep American forces out was wrong headed because the world was going to know that the Cubans could not have launched such an amphibious assault on their own anyway. So America had to be involved. This shows a lack of understanding of Kennedy's version of the Truman Doctrine. Kennedy differentiated between aiding and abetting forces resisting communism, and the United States actually directly involving itself in a conflict through the insertion of American combat troops. This is something Kennedy resisted for his entire term of office. On the other hand, Eisenhower committed troops into Lebanon, Johnson into the Dominican Republican and Vietnam, and Nixon into Cambodia. Therefore, Kennedy was not a classic Cold Warrior.

[Matthew Koch]

5 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Good stuff.

He quotes Eisenhower as saying that Kennedy's attempt to keep American forces out was wrong headed because the world was going to know that the Cubans could not have launched such an amphibious assault on their own anyway. So America had to be involved. This shows a lack of understanding of Kennedy's version of the Truman Doctrine. Kennedy differentiated between aiding and abetting forces resisting communism, and the United States actually directly involving itself in a conflict through the insertion of American combat troops. This is something Kennedy resisted for his entire term of office. On the other hand, Eisenhower committed troops into Lebanon, Johnson into the Dominican Republican and Vietnam, and Nixon into Cambodia. Therefore, Kennedy was not a classic Cold Warrior.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

The thing that unsettles me about Jeffrey Sachs, and some other observers, such as Aaron Mate, is that they go "so far to the other side" that they start to valorize or apologize for Putin's war-making, the Hamas/UNWRA ghouls, Hezbollah and even the Houthis, the Butcher of Tehran Ebrahim Raisi, or oppressors President Xi of China or Kim of North Korea. 

Putin is a cruel war-pig who has caused 500k casualties, just on the Russian side, and who knows how many deaths among Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. Let alone damage to infrastructure and economies. What was the actual threat to Russia? Ukraine did not even have military to speak of. Blah, blah, blah Putin felt threatened. 

But Sachs finds every reason to justify Putin's war. 

It is one thing to be skeptical of the US security establishment and its role as a global guard service for multinationals. 

But that hardly excuses the ghouls we see in Moscow, Tehran and Syria, or Beijing. They are even worse. 

 

[Matthew Koch]

LOL!  

 

Why Jeffrey Sachs Matters

by Bill Gates

"To me, Sachs is the Bono of economics"

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bill-gates-explains-why-the-millennium-villages-project--though-a-failure--was-worth-the-risk

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matthew Koch]

On 6/1/2024 at 1:05 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

The thing that unsettles me about Jeffrey Sachs, and some other observers, such as Aaron Mate, is that they go "so far to the other side" that they start to valorize or apologize for Putin's war-making, the Hamas/UNWRA ghouls, Hezbollah and even the Houthis, the Butcher of Tehran Ebrahim Raisi, or oppressors President Xi of China or Kim of North Korea. 

Putin is a cruel war-pig who has caused 500k casualties, just on the Russian side, and who knows how many deaths among Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. Let alone damage to infrastructure and economies. What was the actual threat to Russia? Ukraine did not even have military to speak of. Blah, blah, blah Putin felt threatened. 

But Sachs finds every reason to justify Putin's war. 

It is one thing to be skeptical of the US security establishment and its role as a global guard service for multinationals. 

But that hardly excuses the ghouls we see in Moscow, Tehran and Syria, or Beijing. They are even worse. 

 

Ben, you're a financial guy.. Have you ever heard Jeffery Sachs say anything bad about China? 

Also, do you know if Jeffery Sachs is related to the Goldman Sachs family? 

Edited June 2 by Matthew Koch

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Matthew Koch said:

Ben, you're a financial guy.. Have you ever heard Jeffery Sachs say anything bad about China? 

Also, do you know if Jeffery Sachs is related to the Goldman Sachs family? 

Jeffrey Sachs appears to be in love with Beijing. (And Hamas/UNRWA, but set that aside).

As I stated, I think there is a serious and important role for people who are skeptical of the US intel-state, its role as a global guard service for multinationals or globalists, and the role the US intel-state plays in deposing US presidents. 

But the US is hardly the only dubious government in the world. IMHO, many governments are far worse. 

From Wiki:

"Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at Asia Society, noted that Sachs had written a foreword to a Huawei position paper, and questioned whether Sachs had been paid by Huawei. Sachs said he had not been paid for the work.^[80][81]

In June 2020, Sachs said the targeting of Huawei by the US was not solely about security.^[82] In their 2020 book Hidden Hand, Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg commented on one of Sachs' articles in which he accused the U.S. government of maligning Huawei under hypocritical pretenses. Hamilton and Ohlberg wrote that Sachs' article would be more meaningful and influential if he did not have a close relationship with Huawei, including his previous endorsement of the company's "vision of our shared digital future". The authors also alleged that Sachs has ties to a number of Chinese state bodies and the private energy corporation CEFC China Energy for which he has spoken.^[83]

During a January 2021 interview, despite the interviewer's repeated prompting, Sachs evaded questions about China's repression of Uyghur people and referred to "huge human rights abuses committed by the U.S."^[84] Subsequently, 19 advocacy and rights groups jointly wrote a letter to Columbia University questioning Sachs' comments.^[84][85] "

---30---

One could add that Beijing claims the entire South China Sea as a Beijing's lake, and crushed a free Tibet long ago. It wants to take Taiwan back even if by force, and has crushed all domestic dissent in the last 20 years. One long Tiananmen Square since 1989.

All the while US globalists, and allied academics, ballyhooed China's modern emergent economy.  In which US globalists were doing huge business (Apple, et al). 

The globalists will sell your rights, and the rights of China residents, down the river for peace and prosperity (their prosperity). 

As I say, the globalists are not all bad; they actually want peace, which is good for commerce.  But if internet freedoms are snuffed out in the process, it won't be Apple/Disney/Goldman Sachs/Walmart who saves you. If you end up in a concentration camp, the globalists will keep doing business. 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 6/1/2024 at 12:05 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

The thing that unsettles me about Jeffrey Sachs, and some other observers, such as Aaron Mate, is that they go "so far to the other side" that they start to valorize or apologize for Putin's war-making, the Hamas/UNWRA ghouls, Hezbollah and even the Houthis, the Butcher of Tehran Ebrahim Raisi, or oppressors President Xi of China or Kim of North Korea. 

Putin is a cruel war-pig who has caused 500k casualties, just on the Russian side, and who knows how many deaths among Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. Let alone damage to infrastructure and economies. What was the actual threat to Russia? Ukraine did not even have military to speak of. Blah, blah, blah Putin felt threatened. 

But Sachs finds every reason to justify Putin's war. 

It is one thing to be skeptical of the US security establishment and its role as a global guard service for multinationals. 

But that hardly excuses the ghouls we see in Moscow, Tehran and Syria, or Beijing. They are even worse. 

 

That's one thing I couldn't understand, Ben , is that you ended up being very pro U.S. involvement in both these wars in Ukraine and Israel..

Yet for years before you recited your big 3 contemporary influences as  Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Aaron Mate. All 3 of those guys see any U.S. involvement in those wars as criminal U.S. self interest. Particularly Mate, being Canadian!

[Benjamin Cole]

3 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

That's one thing I couldn't understand, Ben , is that you ended up being very pro U.S. involvement in both these wars in Ukraine and Israel..

Yet for years before you recited your big 3 contemporary influences as  Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Aaron Mate. All 3 of those guys see any U.S. involvement in those wars as criminal U.S. self interest. Particularly Mate, being Canadian!

You are correct sir. 

In my defense, up until Ukraine and Israel, we had (largely) been involved in Vietnam, then Iraq and then Afghanistan.  Egads, is that a string of nightmares, and expensive ones too in terms of lives and money?  And the upside in any of those three major wars?

And yes, the DoD and VA eat money.

However, on Ukraine and Israel, we are not sending our troops, and spending (relatively) pennies to what was spent in the three major wars aforementioned. 

Putin is not a fabricated bad man, he is the real thing.  I have thrown in the towel on Putin. 

On Israel, I understand some people have raw emotions, but after 10.7 I also threw in the towel on Islamist terrorists. In fact, Islamia is largely going the way of Red China and Russia, into greater and greater oppression and violence, except with an overlay of horrible repression of women and sexual and religious minorities. A sea of failed states, 800k dead in Syria, and 450k dead in Yemen in recent civil wars. Lebanon, once a vacation spot, now a permanent crap-hole. I could go on. 

Greenwald and Mate have proven themselves knee-kerk anti-Americans, no matter the circumstances. You wonder if they would have argued for Hitler's better points, and Germany's point of view.

If you want to say, "I told you so," well, now is your chance. 

PS, for anyone who thinks the Houthis are anything but monsters, please read: 

https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2024-01-15/houthis-and-yemen

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

The reason that Sachs is not a Clint Eastwood HA on China is the same reason he wrote that book about Kennedy.

A recurrent refrain of JFK was that the USA should not be on the wrong side of history.

That is, America should not be a colonialist/imperialist country nor should we back nations that are, even if they were once our allies.

This is manifest in his great Algeria speech in 1957.  Where he attacked Eisenhower, Nixon and Foster Dulles for not condemning France for its colonial war in Algeria.  In fact, they were actually supporting it.  He reminded the senate that this was the same thing America did three years earlier, and he  could not understand why everyone had forgotten what happened at DIen Bien Phu. He said the same thing is going to occur  in Algeria and again, America is going to be backing another failed attempt of France to maintain a lost imperial empire.  And when France loses, the Algerians will remember what America did and did not do. And the USA will again be on the wrong side of history.

When Kennedy made that speech, he was bitterly attacked by just about everyone, the press was against him by 2-1, and even Democrats like Stevenson said he was wrong.  Kennedy called up his father and asked, "Did I just make a mistake?"  His father said, "You don't know how lucky you are.  This is only getting worse.  And a year from now everyone will look back at you like you were a prophet."  Which is what happened.  Eight months later, he was on the cover of Time, the inside story was titled "Man out Front."

America has been on the wrong side of history in so many cases today that it would take a long essay to explain them all.  And this is what has left a huge opening for things like BRICS and the Road and Beltway Project. As many progressive economists have noted, those projects are going to mark the end of American hegemony.

As per Ukraine, I mean one has to be a little myopic not to see what happened there--I mean with McCain  and Biden and others cheerleading it on?  With Boris Johnson nixing the Minsk Accords.  To spend 100 billion on a war that Ukraine cannot win?  

As per Israel, the murder of Rabin, who was in favor of Oslo, was a bloody and irreversible turning point in modern history. Benji N. is a war mongering fruitcake.  And it was his propaganda tactics which got Rabin killed.  This is why John Kennedy Jr. wrote a very long essay on the Rabin case in George, in which he demanded no editorial interference, and he spent months on it.  If you have not seen the Al Jazeera documentary on the current war, made by two British journalists--who knew they could not get it made in UK or USA--you should.

PS: Kennedy told Hilsman he wanted an opening to China in his second term.

 

Edited June 3 by James DiEugenio

[Matthew Koch]

Kennedy's foreign policy does not align with Sachs "Shock Economics" in alot of ways a big one was JFK was pro Independent Nation status as long as they were aligned with the Capitalist Block. 

I'm currently reading the Best Book on the Question of Who JFK really was and Richard J. Walton says it best here:

"Though middle-aged liberals may find it difficult to remember, as I did until I sought out the record, Kennedy's campaign had been dominated by a hard-line, get-tough attack on communism. Perhaps we did not remember because we did not really listen. [Emphasis added] We were all so eager for Kennedy to defeat the despised Nixon that we just assumed that what he said was acceptable. Kennedy was a liberal, wasn't he? Well, almost a liberal. he had inherited Stevenson's mantle, liberals such as Schlesinger and Galbraith and Bowles were flocking to his banner-- and writing his speeches. But what many of us did not realize was that by far the biggest group of liberals in the Kennedy camp was composed of hard-line anti communists, more elegant, less dogmatic than the McCarthy-Nixon-Mundt hawks, to be sure, but hawks nonetheless. Blinded by our passion to defeat Nixon, we did not really listen to Kennedy.

But to understand the man who became President and to understand what he did, particularly in the first two years of his administration, it is necessary to re-examine what he said during the 1960 campaign. For Kennedy, much more than most politicians, practiced in power what he preached in its pursuit. There is no shortage of Hawkish statements in Kennedy's reeler Congressional years, but those perhaps could be attributed to his father's influence, his Catholicism, or his constituency. But the following are some of the statements in the weeks preceding the election- and they aren to isolated or atypical- of the man who was to bring a new look to American foreign policy."

 

JFK was an Anti-Colonialist and Anti-Communist.  What most people on the left don't get is that he had a different strategy of the Cold War which was: Get things to stop being fought on the battle field and instead to be fought on the front of Economies were the west also had the advantage. Kennedy's plan was coming to fruition just before  he was killed to where he had used American's Strength to start peace. That only happened because there was a Soviet/Sino split that occurred due to the Cuban Missile crisis. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 3 by Matthew Koch
deleted some spacing

[James DiEugenio]

Did i say anything about Sachs and the Russian economy?

I talked about his book, which evidently Matt had not read.  I read it and reviewed it.

Secondly, for anyone to use Kennedy's rhetoric in the 1960 race against Nixon as some kind of measuring stick, that person should read JFK and Vietnam, especially the second edition, Mahoney's JFK: Ordeal in Africa, Muehlenbeck's Betting on the Africans ,  Rakove's Kennedy, Johnson and the Non Aligned World and Brad Simpson's Economists with Guns.  Or watch the long version of JFK: Destiny Betrayed, which features all of them.

Using Kennedy's campaign rhetoric is what the likes of Chomsky and the late Alex Cockburn did. JFK was very aware of protecting himself in public from the right. When Hammarskjold was killed--and let us make no bones about that, he was killed--JFK called in the Swedish ambassador.  He told him that Dag was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. He could never attain those heights since he had to worry so much about leaving an opening to the rightwing nuts.  Same thing with the March on Washington.  He was the first white politician to endorse it in public.  He then told his brother, you are going to take control of security for this thing.  Because if anything goes wrong, our enemies will use it to destroy us and our civil rights program.

 

[Matthew Koch]

1 minute ago, James DiEugenio said:

Using Kennedy's campaign rhetoric is what the likes of Chomsky and the late Alex Cockburn did. 

Well, I used his last two speeches but here's another one, lol. 

 

[Matthew Koch]

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

America has been on the wrong side of history in so many cases today that it would take a long essay to explain them all.  And this is what has left a huge opening for things like BRICS and the Road and Beltway Project. As many progressive economists have noted, those projects are going to mark the end of American hegemony.

As per Ukraine, I mean one has to be a little myopic not to see what happened there--I mean with McCain  and Biden and others cheerleading it on?  With Boris Johnson nixing the Minsk Accords.  To spend 100 billion on a war that Ukraine cannot win?  

John F. Kennedy, said he was America First [Emphasis added]. That does not align with BRICS at all! 

James you seem to play the same game as Jeffery Sachs which is blame "AMERICA" for the foreign policy that you guys voted for which was Joe Biden.

Jeffery Sachs was Bernie Sanders adviser, and Bernie Sanders said that JFK made him want to "Throw Up" JFK was not a Socialist he was a Capitalist Populist and is alot closer to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders when we look at the Overton Window.

The Socialistic Populist things that JFK advocated for were what England had, not what Obama Care or the Current DNC is advocating for [like 'Health care' being Abortion] which is another place where JFK and Sachs differ. Everything that the Bernie Sanders Squad Crowd advocate for are not in line with the America First aspect of JFK and the current immigration invasion facing America does not align with "A Nation of Immigrants".

And as far as Civil rights go, JFK believed that minorities could do the same job as whites like how current day professional sports operates. He did NOT [Emphasis added] believe in lowering standards.

My Grandparents were Kennedy's age and were New York Democrats they were not Republican. I know what Vatican I Catholics were like and it's Conservative by today's Democratic Party Standards.