Bang! you are dead: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

John Perkin's ‘Confession of an economic hit man’ is a page runner that that make for quality reading during the holiday season!

In the 10 years between 1971 and 1981, Perkins worked for an international consulting firm where he earned impressive job titles and salaries. Yet in reality Perkin’s job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy while confessing to alleviate poverty.

Perkin calls himself “an economic hit man”. “Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," he writes. People recruited in to this capacity facilitate lending to third world countries that are strategically important for U.S interest. A necessary conditionality of these loans is that U.S. engineering companies be given the construction contracts of these development projects. So the money once again makes it way back to the U.S economy. Yet “the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest.” The debts are so large that eventually the debtor country has to default. The more the debt ,better the result. The debt becomes a lever forcing that country to serve U.S. and corporate interests, whether with “United Nations votes, the installation of military bases or access to precious resources such as oil.”

Citing Ecuador for example, the country Perkins served in as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1968, Perkin writes “ We loaned it billions of dollars so it could hire our engineering and construction firms to build projects that would help its richest families. As a result, in ... three decades, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, public debt increased from $240 million to $16 billion, and the share of national resources allocated to the poorest citizens declined from 20 percent to 6 percent”.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man landed on The New York Times Bestseller List, and in 19 other bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
What better way to start the Holiday reading!!!

Post Script (2013): I wonder if the "economic hit man" strategy is in the preview of  modern Chinese policies. The billions thrown into economies in South Asia (Sri Lanka etc) and in Africa are mainly for infrastructure development. Unless these infrastructure turn into productive  income generating avenues the shadows of underdevelopment and aid dependency will remain at large.

Best practices? Whtz that?

The developing credit crisis in the United States, linked to the bursting of the housing market bubble, is beginning to reveal the accounting manipulations employed by major US financial institutions to engage in speculative activities and hide risks. The mortgage market – which loans to borrowers with a poor credit history - has been reeling under large losses for months and some of these losses have been incurred by hedge funds. In July number of hedge funds closed down and now in to the 4th quarter many large banks are reporting massive losses running into billions of dollars. Among the affected is Citigroup—an American financial conglomerate that is the world’s largest company measured by asset value and Morgan &Stanley—a forerunner among American banking dynasties. Morgan & Stanley’s reported losses for 2007 is a first in its 73 year old history.

Guess who is baling America out? For Morgan and Stanley it is good old China!(Chinese sovereign funds) While Citi had to latch on to the Moslem world to find a breather with Saudi funding.

The whole crisis coerces one to wonder why there is a duplicity when it comes to “Best Practices and Good Governance” for preachers of these have hardly practiced any to reach and to maintain the “now developed” status. One other thing, gone are the good old days of Allen Greenspan!!!!