Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Happy Friday.

Today I offer a book recommendation, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. While it reads like a John le Carre novel, this biographical tale reveals the true story behind the United States' "aid" to developing countries. It is a quick, intriguing read that sheds some more light on the question of the century, "Why do they hate us?"An excerpt of the prologue is below.

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That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy that runs our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, we provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure—electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. One condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditors), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, like the Mafia, we demand our pound of flesh, which often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installations of military bases, or access to precious resources, like oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money—and another country is added to our global empire.