John Perkins an ex-EHM wrote a tell all book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman".
EHMs have existed for decades but have become more important with the current increase in the rate of globalization. They are responsible for selling inflated development plans to poor and developing countries and convincing them to buy into these grand but totally unrealistic and unachievable plans. In the process the poor countries are cheated out of their natural resources and left riddled in debt and are brought to their knees. Then this is used as leverage and circle continues. This whole system runs into trillions of dollars all being siphoned from the public into private corporate houses in the US. John Perkins gives several such examples about countries like Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. He describes how companies like Bechtel and one he worked for gained from this.
Also when EHMs fail to convince a country or its leaders to buy into their plan or when a leader of a country starts going astray in the middle of the plan the result is military action like the invasion of Panama over the Panama Canal and of Iraq.
My colleague Rajeev has written two nice posts about the book and you can read them here:
1 comment:
Some info i found while reading about this book. Not sure if u are aware of it.......
20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title, "Conscience of an Economic Hit Men."
John Perkins goes on to write: "I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop."
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