John Perkins is the author of the book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004) in which Perkins describes his former life as an Economic Hit Man. Perkins states that he worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies. According …
John Perkins is the author of the book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004) in which Perkins describes his former life as an Economic Hit Man. Perkins states that he worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies. According to Perkins' his function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with debts they could not hope to pay, those countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues.
Perkins argues that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes his role of an EHM as follows:
* Economic Hit Man (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.
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. Perkins repeatedly denies the existence of a "conspiracy." Instead, Perkins carefully discusses the role of corporatocracy.
In the 1980s Perkins left Main and founded and directed an independent energy company. Perkins implies in New Confessions of an Economic Hitman, published in 2016, that he was poisoned in 2005 on behalf of the NSA or CIA. Doctors diagnosed him with diverticulosis.
