The Economic Hit Man—The Shadow Government’s Most Useful Weapon

I’ve been reading John Perkins “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and wanted to bring this to everybody’s attention. Now the book did receive a lot of attention and is NYT Best Seller.

It’s also had a lot of criticism from various investigative journalists and columnists. I’m almost done now and can say that in my opinion, the man is spot on and the criticism is just a way of demonizing him for speaking the truth.

So what is an economic hit man?

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly-paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources.

Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

John Perkins claims to have been one of these Hitmen for several years and participated in various operations to undermine leaders, countries and its people for the benefit of the International Banking Cartels.

Here’s a tidbit from an interview regarding his recruitment.

"I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations.

The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew the government of Iran, a democratically elected government, Mossadegh’s government who was Time‘s magazine person of the year; and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed—well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran.

At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.I.A. agent.

He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.

Now, this to most people is actually old news, we all know the Bankers have been attempting to usurp power through debt for the last century.

However, in our time, say the last 20 years, what countries would have been made to do such things?

Iraq for one IMO would have done this when the government contracts for the rebuild were all given to Halliburton to create infrastructure owned and operated by Americans.

I can’t think of any others, although there is an interesting tidbit from Wiki in regards to what John Perkins states is happening recently.

The epilogue to the 2006 edition provides a rebuttal to the current move by the G8 nations to forgive Third World debt. Perkins charges that the proposed conditions for this debt forgiveness require countries to privatise their health, education, electric, water and other public services.

Those countries would also have to discontinue subsidies and trade restrictions that support local business, but accept the continued subsidization of certain G8 businesses by the US and other G8 countries, and the erection of trade barriers on imports that threaten G8 industries.

So to be forgiven debt which the countries never say the money to begin with, they must sell their most basic and needed infrastructure to corporate interests and stop helping local businesses in favor of international ones.

Interesting, is it not?

What are your thoughts ATS? Are there any other countries who recently have been treated this way and forced into submission?

Source

~Keeper

Good book, in fact I'll be doing a conspiracy theorists bookshelf podcast over it in the next few months. I read it last year. Flag

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Well, I have not read the book, but it sure is odd you brought this up.

Considering I was essentially recruited to become the Financial Hitman for the hospital I used to work for, via what I consider a less than ethical request by my manager.

I have told the story of it a few times, on ATS, but not in it's entirety.

I do know what one is, based on reading various other books though, about Wall Street.

It is something that is extremely controversial and highly unethical.

Of course, according to most corporations, it is "just business".

I did however find these videos which look highly interesting.

Interview - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Part I


Interview - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Part II

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


Thanks for the vids Spartan, I will take a look at them.

As for your story, I remember discussing it with you in another thread, it certainly is relevant on a smaller scale, feel free to share.

~Keeper

I read his book when it first came out - an excellent read recommended to everyone - however - after some consideration I find his presentation of things to be incredibly naive - not to sound arrogant but I was like - DER - how could you NOT know this John? Chomsky, Pilger, Said, and everyone else has been pointing this out for decades !

I have recently finished a significantly better book - by Erik Reinert - How the Rich Countries got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor - the upshot is that Perkins has placed a conspiratorial spin on something which is obvious - Reinert simply dissects it as a matter of public knowledge and well understood fact, in the process comes to lay things out very plainly and clearly.

What bothers me about Perkis et al, is that there appears to be some disconnection with reality - people somehow think that western governments and business is somehow altruistic and benevolent - and that any imperialistic tendencies towards global domination and hegemonic power are simply an aberration........however all ofo history tells us otherwise - history tells us that they are, at the very core, corrupt, power hungry, well organized with goals of domination and power which are beyond any control or influence of democracy or the will of the people - so when did our societies suddenly shift to being benevolent - they didn't. Its just that everyone grows up thinking they are - and it comes as a shock to everyone who realises it - that they are not - worse, people tend to feel as though this transformation has been a relatively recent event as their memory of how things were (prior to realisation) remains strong and creates and point in time to reference against - ......

Anyway - good book, but the reality is that this is what is known as neo-colonialism - it is well established norm and is studied readily in any university for decades - there are well documented economic principles behind the approach - its just that no- one has ever put conspiracy spin on what everyone knows to be the norm.

Patents are an ever better example of Hit Man behaviour, as is WTO, tarrifs, rapid democratisation, etc, etc

cheers,

Keep reading,

audas

reply to post by audas


www.amazon.com...

Perkins' second book is much better actually --

but this new documentary on Perkins is excellent:

www.linktv.org...

Apology of an Economic Hitman

heres the You tube link to the whole movie


www.youtube.com...

What are your thoughts ATS? Are there any other countries who recently have been treated this way and forced into submission?

Yes there are. Greece is one such case, but the hitmen were not outside consultants. The hitmen were the puppet governments that indebted the country from 25 to 115% of GDP in 12 years (1981-1993) and then said "ok we're broke, now we have to sell stuff".

Just finished reading the book and was going to make a thread about the concept, but looks like tenth beat me to it by a few years

Regardless, i thought the book was very interesting and the concept to be a logical one. I share most of your opinions.

I thought he would have made more money though....looks like my dreams of being a james bond type like this have been dashed

The Bain Company's bread and butter was that they offered to work for free for people/corporations and only expected to get paid if they increased your net worth/value. Maybe by doing tactics against your competition....you know.

That's the Capitalist....mafia way. We've had Economic Hitmen taking America apart for a few lucky souls personal gain. It's how America was founded.....tradition.

They teach you a few brave souls fought the British to make America free. And don't teach the part about Haym Salomon and the rest of the Jewish moneymen who did it for personal gain, even screwed over their own fellow Jews........it's business. They got some simple minded Christians to die for their economic/personal gain cause.