Understanding the - New Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Reading John Perkin’s New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, A deep thought rolled within on what would be the future of developing and under developed countries which are spending lakhs of crores on infrastructure enrouting through private MNCs. Perkins began in 1971 as an economic consultant — “economic hit man”— with the engineering firm, MAIN, travelling to Indonesia, Panama, Colombia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and elsewhere. His job was to convince leaders to undertake wildly overambitious or merely of no use infrastructure projects those which would never gain revenues that would enrich them and big U.S. engineering firms like Bechtel. In most cases, the projects would fail and leave nations beholden to US banks or the World Bank. Saudi Arabia was a special case; the flood of dollars from the new OPEC cartel would purchase both sophisticated infrastructure like desalinization plants and U.S. military protection against insurgents. Leaders were lured by means of Money, Sex, Power and Fear. Out of those who still refused to cooperate with such plans would be picked off by CIA-supported “jackals”. Thus the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran (1953); the Jacobo árbenz coup in Guatemala (1954); the Salvador Allende coup and murder in Chile (1973); the mysterious airplane explosions that killed Jaime Roldós in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama (1981); the overthrow and murder of Maurice Bishop in Grenada (1983); the bloody invasion and capture of Manuel Noriega in Panama (1989). Somehow Fidel Castro in Cuba successfully dodged dozens of assassination attempts.

In a war over mind with heart, under a fit conscience, Perkins quit MAIN in 1980. But he continued as an energy entrepreneur and consultant for another twenty years, while becoming increasingly involved in projects to help embattled natives in the Amazon. In 2005 he published Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, an immediate bestseller and my all-time favourite book which has a lot of sway over me. In the new updated version, The new Confessions - he focuses on how the debt-and-fear strategy is now at work all over the world, in developed as well as less/under-developed countries. For example, many local governments have been suckered around the world into building aggressive P3 projects, Many projects in the developing countries are now finding it hard to manage (With huge expenditure but very less revenue) and some of them do not even impact its citizens after huge capital input all of which eventually failed, sticking the governments with poorly constructed infrastructure and piles of debt. The recent crisis in Greece is one of a modern example for the same.

John Perkins probed the dark depths of global financing institutions and the master minds behind them. Their failure in Iraq and the reason I presume, the reason for the military attack to dethrone Saddam. It is clear throughout the book that the Perkins was torn between comprehending the distinction of the ideals of the American republic and the new global empire that has been created. The American republic offered hope and moral promise, while the global empire offered only a self-centred, greedy, and materialistic domination of weaker but resource-rich countries. Throughout his work in various countries, learning from the natives’ experiences, he got a clearer sense of the actual impact of his job and struggled with whether or not to continue working for MAIN. Although his conscience wanted him to quit, his business-school persona was not quite convinced, as the monetary seduction and a lucrative business-class lifestyle fed his ego and pocketbook.

The objective of any project they undertook was to maximize U.S. profits while making countries like Saudi Arabia dependent on the United States through ongoing maintenance agreements and the Insolvent countries to be raided over by them. EHMs flew in first class all over the world, were put up in the best hotels, ate at the finest restaurants, and were treated like royalty, because the countries they visited desperately wanted the consulting company to make their local economies soar. The EHMs would communicate directly with leaders of target countries for the purpose of manipulating data and coercing them to allow the international engineering company (MAIN) to build dams, bridges, and any other large infrastructure projects for billions of dollars. One contract that MAIN presented to the Indonesian government, the Asian Development Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development required someone from MAIN to visit these countries for 2 or 3 days, meeting with the leaders, presenting the objectives and contracts, and then leaving. Perkins found it deeply disturbing that not a single person questioned his data and compared the meeting to a game of poker, where the cards were left hidden and each player bet on his hand. This type of game was more serious than poker, as it affected millions of lives for decades afterward.

Perkins compared the dealings and power of the EHMs as similar to the Mafia, in which their job titles and deceptive resumes are as sketchy as the legitimacy of the economic deals made with the other country. For instance, Columbia was looked at by the United States as a key area to promote political and commercial interests. Huge investments in electrical power grids, highways, and telecommunications would open up Columbia’s gas and oil resources. Here Perkins job was, once again, to go to Columbia, present an argument for its accepting an exceedingly large loan for inflated economic and electric forecasts under the guise of development. Just like the Mob, EHMs are offered a significant amount of money for a simple job—for example, creating a fake economic plan stating that over the next 25 years, a country would see a 17–20% increase in economic growth. Which cash/power greed leader or a poor country can deny the numbers of an economic specialist and potentially miss such a too-good-to-betrue deal?

To be continued….