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.