Jeff Sachs speaks about Common Wealth

Jeff Sachs is a world-renowned economist, whose book The End of Poverty was a great source for the economics section of The Secret Peace. He was at Barnes & Noble the other day speaking about his new book, Common Wealth.

His theme is sustainable development, and meeting the UN's Millennium Development Goals to alleviate extreme poverty in the world. I think he's a genius. And a great speaker.

The clip here is about the Iraq War. Ironically, this is one issue I'm not sure if I agree with him on, but it was the only video clip I was able to get before my camera ran out of space. I've thought we shouldn't pull out of Iraq ASAP because of the chaos it could leave the country in. However, Sachs's case is simply that being in Iraq is SO expensive that we'd get better bang for our buck using the money to help other countries alleviate poverty, or in developing more sustainable technologies. He makes a good case when you look at the numbers.