Quotation for Today: Serf Is Up

The destructive fires of the Little Depression that began in December 2007 continue to rage. Meanwhile, the leaders of the developed nations -- contemporary Herbert Hoovers all -- wring their hands in weakness and indecisiveness. Today's quotation captures the main elements that contribute to our leaders' helplessness.

Yet in the face of high unemployment, growing inequality and looming budget deficits, most governments are paralysed, in thrall to powerful interests. Wall Street, the City of London, the Frankfurt banks and other corporate lobbies hold politics in their grip, and block effective change. Top income tax rates are kept low; banks remain undercapitalised and under-regulated; and urgently needed public investments for education, job skills and upgraded infrastructure are being slashed in response to budgetary pressures.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.

And so, unnecessary human suffering continues as helpless leaders stumble from one summit to the next or encounter corporate-funded, ideology-driven obstructionism.

Sachs, Jeffrey. "Our leadership is dire, but we mustn't despise government."  The Guardian 16 December, 2011: online edition US.