Jon Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (Repost)

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Jon Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (Repost)

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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man reveals a game that, according to John Perkins, is "as old as Empire" but has taken on new and terrifying dimensions in an era of globalization. And Perkins should know. For many years he worked for an international consulting firm where his main job was to convince LDCs (less developed countries) around the world to accept multibillion-dollar loans for infrastructure projects and to see to it that most of this money ended up at Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies. This book, which many people warned Perkins not to write, is a blistering attack on a little-known phenomenon that has had dire consequences on both the victimized countries and the U.S.

John Perkins describes himself as a former economic hit man. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies.

Amazon.com
John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.
Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. –Alex Roslin

german:
Economic Hit Men (EHM) sind hochbezahlte Profis, die Länder auf der ganzen Welt um Billionen von Dollars betrügen. Sie schleusen Geld von der Weltbank, der U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) und anderen auswärtigen "Hilfs"-Organisationen in die Koffer von riesigen Unternehmungen und die Taschen einiger weniger reicher Familien, die die natürlichen Ressourcen unseres Planeten kontrollieren.

russian:
Книга Дж. Перкинса - первый в мире автобиографический рассказ о жизни, подготовке и методах деятельности особой сверхзасекреченной группы "экономических убийц" - профессионалов высочайшего уровня, призванных работать с высшими политическими и экономическими лидерами интересующих США стран мира.

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Jon Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (Repost)

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