Talk:Jeffrey Sachs/Archive 2

Neo-Keynesian???
In line with the previous comment about his neoliberal credentials: what makes him a neo-Keynesian? Just because he says so? Or calling for aid and debt cancellation? These surely do not. Based on his work, he is definitely a NEOLIBERAL economist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PogiZoli (talk • contribs) 23:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see any justification for that label. He _is_ the world's most famous neo-liberal.Haberstr (talk) 05:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Neo-Keynesians are essentially a subgroup of "Neoliberal" economists. Volunteer Marek 16:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

These personal opinions are not suitable for this page. -- Jibal (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Synthesis regarding Mark Weisbrot
Sachs' bio contains the sentence: A 2019 report authored by Sachs and Mark Weisbrot claimed that a 31% rise in the number of deaths between 2017 and 2018 was due to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela in 2017 ... It is sourced to an article in the Independent. Within the sentence we have included a note about Weisbrot sourced to other articles. Some comments:

- This is synthesis as a number of sources are being merged to produce an implication that is in none of the sources. The implication is that the description of Weisbrot contained in the note invalidates the report by Sachs and Weisbrot. None of the sources say that. If the note about Weisbrot is relevant to Sachs' bio it needs to be separated from the sentence about the report.

- The content of the note is in Weisbrot's wiki, to which we have provided a link. Why would we need to include it again here? Burrobert (talk) 11:34, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * absolutely correct. Have removed. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:11, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * However, I don’t see the rationale for removing this: The report's findings and methodology were described as invalid by the Brookings Institution. They stated that "the bulk of the deterioration in living standards occurred long before the sanctions were enacted in 2017." BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems relevant. When was it removed? Burrobert (talk) 17:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Expansion attempts of Venezuela section
A few comments on the recent attempts at changing the "Venezula" section: This article is about Sachs, so what we do report should be concise unless it's clear that references indicate otherwise. --Hipal (talk) 18:46, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The brookings.edu ref is probably not usable, being self-published. Is there any general consensus to the contrary?
 * The expansion appears to have been done without noticing that the rebuttal in Americas Quarterly is already in this section, in the last paragraph.
 * As far as I can tell, verifikado.com is unreliable, and should not be used anywhere in Wikipedia, let alone in a BLP article.
 * I missed this before posting my comment below. Disagree re Brookings. It’s not SPS. It’s a piece by four economists (two based at Harvard and Yale) published by a respected think tank, used with attribution.BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:19, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Sorry, is only now that I've been able to write an appropriate response. I agree that the section and the changes can be improved, specifically with the wording and with repeated content.


 * However, I was expecting the issues to be more related with due weight and not the reliability of the sources. Besides BobFromBrockley's observations, I have to ask why do you consider verifikado.com unreliable? In my experience, when discussing the reliability of sources, what's common is to at least give examples on why it should be put into question. Since Verifikado is a fact checker, there shouldn't be problems with this.


 * While we're discussing changes on the section, I have to point out Hausmann's description: "Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann, Juan Guaidó's representative to the Inter-American Development Bank". This is synthesis, like Weisbrot's description below, and even worse considering it is included into the main body and not a footnote. Furthermore, the reference does not make any mention of Hausmann's report, and the description is outdated since he resigned from the position shortly after his appointment. --NoonIcarus (talk) 15:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I have to ask I've answered the question many times now, and the onus is on those claiming it is reliable.
 * As for brookings.edu, general consensus would be best. My take from reading a few discussions is that it's reliable opinion. I'm not seeing if it could be used in a BLP though. --Hipal (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, you haven't, and edit summaries you have provided among the lines of doesnt appear reliable suggest this too. I understand absolutely if the onus lies on me to argue in the case of a change that has undue weight issues, but reliability is another matter. --NoonIcarus (talk) 14:43, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I have found no evidence it is reliable, and no one has offered any. If you're unclear what type of evidence is needed, review the policy and relevant RfCs.
 * Please note that especially high standards are required for references in this article per WP:BLP, that there are very high requirements for consensus for inclusion of BLP information, and that Arbitration Enforcement applies here. --Hipal (talk) 00:31, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

*・°☆.. .  Jeffrey Sachs wins the 2022 Tang Prize   *・°☆
Sachs was awarded the 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development for Leading Transdisciplinary Sustainability Science. The citation stated the award was for "leading transdisciplinary sustainability science and creating the multilateral movement for its applications from village to nation and to the world". As reported by the United Nations, the Taipei Times, PR Newswire ... Burrobert (talk) 18:41, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * See WP:SOAP, WP:BLP, and WP:IS --Hipal (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * A coherent explanation, rather than an intellectually lazy and meaningless alphabet-soup would be helpful. Burrobert (talk) 13:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * If you are unfamiliar and dismissive of policy, then you should not work on articles where it is required you understand them. If you cannot respect them, then you're going to have an incredibly difficult time with Wikipedia. --Hipal (talk) 16:55, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, not very helpful. Is there a problem with including the information that Jeffrey Sachs won the 2022 Tang Prize? The United Nations, the Taipei Times, PR Newswire, Yahoo! and others all reported that Jeffrey Sachs won the 2022 Tang Prize . Why is the fact that Jeffrey Sachs won the 2022 Tang Prize a sensitive topic? Burrobert (talk) 17:42, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry that you don't find basic policy helpful. --Hipal (talk) 18:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Let's try another approach. The following awards and positions are sourced to the awarding bodies:

- In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor bestowed by the government of India.

- In 2007, Sachs received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards

- From 2000 to 2001, Sachs was chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health

- In 2016, Sachs became president of the Eastern Economic Association, succeeding Janet Currie

- In 2017, Sachs and his wife were the joint recipients of the first World Sustainability Award. Burrobert (talk) 11:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Remove them. --Hipal (talk) 23:33, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hipal's argument makes no sense, we have independent WP:RS for this. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 15:17, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find a references that doesn't read like a press release. --Hipal (talk) 01:57, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It can read like a press release as long as it isn't a press release. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 02:13, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And be removed as a poor, promotional ref per NOT, POV, and BLP. --Hipal (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Winning the Tang Prize seems like it would warrant inclusion. I frankly don't see any plausible WP:BLP here when the UN is saying that he won the award. —  Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:25, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It is neither poor or promotional. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that Taipei Time piece. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 01:29, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Vaccine mandate Holocaust reference
Greetings everyone! So sorry to bother, but this is my first time ever submitting to a talk page. I read the section regarding Mr. Sachs stance on multiple Covid issues and it quotes him as going on RFK Jr's podcast and comparing a vaccine mandate to the Holocaust. The citation links to an independent article that makes some pretty crazy claims. I just had the distinctly unpleasant experience of listening through that whole podcast and that quote is NOWHERE to be found. I'm not here to cosign that man's views, but unless it was edited after publication, I think this article may be wrong and I cannot find any other sources that support the claim.

Thanks for any help or direction, y'all are seriously some saints in my opinion. 2601:4C0:8005:DF70:8CB0:E759:5343:A42C (talk) 14:32, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Contact The Independent, if you think they made a mistake. If they issue a correction or the like, then we can address it. --Hipal (talk) 16:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm curious as to why the article from the Independent is included in this page in the first place. I also begrudgingly listened to Sach's RFK Jr. podcast appearance and wasn't able to find a source for the mandate-holocaust comparison. The article from the Independent also seems to be the only source alleging that Sachs made such a comparison. Die Kunst Der Fuge (talk) 19:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well I have looked at neither the podcast nor theindependent article yet. However assuming checking both yields that there is no comparison on the podcast despite the independent claiming otherwise, then we can simply drop the content if the independent is really the only outlet reporting that. That is simply within the realm of editorial discretion. Everything we include in an WP article needs to be sourceable, however not everything sourceable needs to be included. If a content is prominently featured in several sources, then it often needs to be included, but content likely to false and relying on a single source only usually can be dropped.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S.: Since the independent article is behind a paywall could anybody provide a copy?--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the article from the Independent without the paywall. Die Kunst Der Fuge (talk) 02:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I’m pretty sure I figured out what happened. The cited article on October 4th borrowed heavily from a mid-September article in the Daily Beast (and also published at yahoo finance). https://www.thedailybeast.com/lancet-report-claiming-covid-could-have-come-from-us-lab-met-with-uproar?source=articles&via=rss The following sentence appeared in the Daily Beast article: “The following month, Sachs appeared on a podcast hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has become one of the internet’s leading anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists and caused outrage by comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.” There was a link in this sentence to an article on Jeffrey Sachs in Politico that made no mention of anything in the sentence and was completely unrelated (the link was a mistake by the Daily Beast reporter). In reading this sentence, the author of the article cited on Wikipedia must have failed to notice the lack of a comma after the word “and,” thus mistakenly assuming it was Sachs who reportedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. I am removing the offending sentence. Thanks for keeping the reporters honest! 😊 JustinReilly (talk) 22:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Ie it was actually RFK jr who reportedly made the comparison, NOT Sachs. JustinReilly (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2022 (UTC)


 * this is super helpful, thanks for finding this :^) Die Kunst Der Fuge (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Bolivia
I think there's vital information missing from the paragraph about Bolivia:

Bolivia is still the poorest country in South America. 79.167.152.19 (talk) 19:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That is important context for the sentence When Sachs began advising Bolivia, it was the poorest country in South America, making it misleading. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:16, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

See also & Neocolonialism
- When I published my edit, your later edit summary didn't exist. This is very, very basic Wikipedia tenets here, but you absolutely cannot drop "attack" See alsoes into an article, in the same way you can't just throw "See also: Fascism" into a random modern politician's article. Something like that *must* be referenced and verifiable, period. Sachs doesn't appear to identify as a neocolonialist personally (which isn't surprising because very few people do). If Sachs is attacked as a neocolonialist, that is something to explain in prose along with who is making this claim. I see that you've been on Wikipedia since 2006; it is rather worrying that you are defending an absolute slam-dunk of a "never do this" case. You cannot include unreferenced negative BLP material, and this applies to everything: See also links, categories, navigation templates, etc.

I don't know or care about Sachs well enough to fight for it, but I don't see why you're so opposed to including his work with the WHO as well. UN Commissions aren't super-powerful or anything, but they're a standard bio type thing to discuss - even from a simple primary source link. But maybe you know something I don't here if his involvement was merely pro forma or something. SnowFire (talk) 04:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "you absolutely cannot drop "attack" See alsoes into an article" I'm not sure what you mean. You believe it was added as an attack, or the word itself is inherently an attack?
 * Did you look at Neocolonialism to see why I believe it belongs, as I suggested?
 * Are you going to explain why you removed Gro Harlem Brundtland? --Hipal (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * For Bruntland: Re-read the edits. You are the one who removed me trying to include that bit of Sachs' life (she was the WHO Director-General) and integrate her relevance into the article, so really I have to ask you that question?  If you are paying so little attention to the edits you reverted, that's not a good sign.
 * For neocolonialism: This is very, very basic. Either you're the one who needs to read the neocolonialism article or you need to re-familiarize yourself with WP:BLP.  "Neocolonialist" has a negative connotation, Sartre was an anti-imperialist, he wasn't inventing the term to say that it was rad but rather to criticize others.  Its usage 99.8% of the time is as a term used to attack someone or some policy.  Which is fine, but means that you can't just drop it in casually because you think it matters.  I'm not even saying it can't be in the article, just it has to be referenced and properly attributed for who is saying this specifically about Sachs.  If the person saying this is just Hipal, then make a blog post about it rather than use Wikipedia.  SnowFire (talk) 05:27, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Please WP:FOC. WP:AE applies. I didn't add the link, nor did I add material in Neocolonialism about Sachs. --Hipal (talk) 20:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but there clearly is a user issue as well at this point. WP:BURDEN and WP:V are very basic policies that you are expected to know about by now.  I'm not dragging you down to ANI or anything, but please, please take these into account in your future editing: contested material needs to be referenced.  You can't just say it's obvious.  See below for more on the merits of the content.  SnowFire (talk) 17:44, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the rationale for these See also links. I think if anyone wants to establish a consensus for inclusion need to explain this rather than say "read the article". BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sachs is mentioned in Neocolonialism. It seems to me that we should have it at least linked in the other direction. --Hipal (talk) 20:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

If there's no response, I'll be restoring Neocolonialism. I hope that editors can see that it's not an attack on Sachs, but an area where Sachs work against poverty is recognized and due some weight. --Hipal (talk) 18:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Anyone? --Hipal (talk) 20:18, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's very simple. WP:BURDEN says that contested material is not included by default.  WP:USERGENERATED says that user-generated websites like Wikipedia are not valid sources, with "In particular, a wikilink is not a reliable source."  All you had to do was reference this addition and you wouldn't have even had to ask "permission" on the talk page.  But okay, fine, let's examine Sachs' mention in the Neocolonialism article.  The reference is to this short article from 2004 where he suggests cancelling African debt.  The word "colonialism" never appears in it, nor does "neocolonialism".  In other words, it's a terrible reference that isn't that important and isn't even clearly on topic.  It could be used to mention his debt proposal here in the sections on his work on African economies, but that wouldn't be a link to neocolonialism, and frankly it's not even clear if it's due weight: this proposal clearly went nowhere and he wasn't in a position to order around other governments to cancel their debt.  So if you really wanted to, you could add a sentence to the article summarizing this 2004 proposal (still not sure it's due weight), but just...  do that then.  Don't add an unreferenced link to neocolonialism without the article explaining the relevance (i.e. not a See also link), because that comes across as an implication that Sachs is a neocolonialist when adding such an unexplained link, per previous edit summaries and discussion.  (And yes, I know you said he isn't a neocolonialist, but that just goes to show how bad an idea it is to have an unexplained link, because that is not how many/most readers would interpret it.)  SnowFire (talk) 17:44, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking over Neocolonialism. Sounds good. --Hipal (talk) 01:25, 14 March 2023 (UTC)