confessions of an economic hitman

April 19, 2007 4:07 AM

if you've not heard of the book "confessions of an economic hitman", then these few videos are gonna put your chins on the floor. it is disturbing how much the guy looks like george the second.
posted by 6am (48 comments total)

It's worse than that. He looks like GWB, but he has Kennedy teeth.
posted by psmealey at 4:15 AM on April 19, 2007

That was amazing.
posted by squidfartz at 4:29 AM on April 19, 2007

Is this guy legit? His bio reads like he was also a host of the gong show.
posted by srboisvert at 4:33 AM on April 19, 2007

Btw, I thought "Confessions" was a well structured and somewhat well-written (if a bit breezy, given its subject matter) account of Perkins's career, but what he had to say was hardly news to you if you'd been paying attention to geopolitics and international business over the last 20 years.

When all the innocent and plaintive cries of "why do they hate us?" echoed in the aftermath of 9/11, I had a different thought. The people of Central and South America should hate "us" even more than people from the Mid-East, why haven't they participated in similar activities against us? After all, given both the stuff that Perkins talks about in Peru (which only scratches the surface) and US covert and overt paramilitary operations there, the US goverment has been an active participant in the continued immiseration of the peoples of Latin America since there was a president named Monroe. I have always been curious as to why there haven't been more reprisals from that part of the world.
posted by psmealey at 4:35 AM on April 19, 2007

Doesn't seem that unlikely. Just in day-to-day life you can see what an excellent means of control loans are, especially usurious ones.
posted by reklaw at 4:36 AM on April 19, 2007

He's a bit like John Pilger crossed with Frederick Forsyth. I admire what he's doing and saying, but I'm just not quite sure how to take it.
posted by humblepigeon at 4:37 AM on April 19, 2007

I found the book a bit too conspiratorial. I buy the thesis that MNC's, banks, and governments colluded to bury the developing world in debt and hyper-inflated every project in the name of modernity. What I thought was bogus was the hot chick secret agent training and any need for the NSA involvement at all. Corruption, politics, the onset of globalization, and economics all conspired enough on their own without some James Bond needing to push it through. His old boss says almost exactly the same, for what that's worth (too lazy to dig up the interview, but it's out there on the nets). Of course, he was NSA/CIA/MI6/Mossad too...
posted by trinarian at 5:31 AM on April 19, 2007

I'd just like to say that there is already a perfectly good, gender-neutral, non-specific, monosyllabic pronoun used by a large part of the world. That word is "y'all".

Y'all are re-inventing the wheel, yo.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 5:34 AM on April 19, 2007

I was involved in discussions with a movie studio at one point to adapt Confessions but they withdrew over concerns I understood to be about the accuracy of the depictions of certain events in the book. The exec I was talking to was very passionate about the project but they also felt that the allegations in the book were so serious that to make them into a 'based on real events' movie would be too risky given the concerns their due diligence had raised.

That said I agree totally with psmealey that if you've been paying attention, none of this is particularly surprising.
posted by unSane at 5:36 AM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

bury the developing world in debt and hyper-inflated every project in the name of modernity. What I thought was bogus was the hot chick secret agent training and any need for the NSA involvement at all.

From what I've heard, NSA involvement in business affairs for the benefit of US companies is not that uncommon. I know it was mentioned in a Wired article on Echelon way back in the day (Although their writing is sometimes rather, er, odd). Anyone else have any cites for this?
posted by delmoi at 5:36 AM on April 19, 2007

Well, those aren't the important parts anyway, trinarian. The important thing is enslaving the Third World (mostly South America) through usury; making them proxies of the American Empire by A) fooling them into taking loans they couldn't possibly pay back, and B) making a few elite power brokers very, very wealthy, as long as they played ball. I found his suggestions particularly chilling that we have assassinated multiple leaders down there... the guys dying 'accidentally' in plane crashes, he believes, mostly didn't. If the economic hitmen failed, the jackals (as he called them) went in; if the jackals failed, it ended up being the Army.

Saddam Hussein stopped playing ball with us.
posted by Malor at 5:38 AM on April 19, 2007

I met John Perkins at a book signing a few years back. He was a moving speaker and great guy to listen to.
posted by wheelieman at 5:39 AM on April 19, 2007

I thought was bogus was the hot chick secret agent training

Agreed on that point. He never really offers up enough detail for it to be credible. Clearly, in his words, he had the makings for a good recruit (the desire for money, power, prestige and the, ahem, moral flexibility) already, the hot chick trainer bit just seemed bogus and moreover, superfluous.

That said, all the other stuff, the book cooking, the strong arming to get unnecessary power plants built in the rainforest so that national debt proceeds back into the pockets of Bechtel... All too believeable.

Syriana actually covers very similar territory.
posted by psmealey at 5:43 AM on April 19, 2007

Malor: He mentioned in his book that most local rulers wanted this. Every nation has their own Haliburton to suck up that loan money along with the MNC's. I can't respond to his specific allegation of assassination, the Panamanian friend, but I don't think it's fair to say Saddam stopped playing ball. It's a simplistic and false Tom Friedman-esque analogy, turning a complex situation into, "he put down his mitt and didn't want to play anymore. The rules were unfair. So we ransacked his museums, leveled his cities, and killed him."

His invasion of Kuwait is pretty clearly linked to the massive debts he took out from said country to finance blowing up Persians for a decade. He was playing ball, buying the weapons and the factories, until we cut him off for going too far to get rid of that bad credit. Let's not let this get into too big of an Iraq war derail though.
posted by trinarian at 6:04 AM on April 19, 2007

The people of Central and South America should hate "us" even more than people from the Mid-East, why haven't they participated in similar activities against us?

My thoughts exactly!
posted by j-urb at 6:09 AM on April 19, 2007

Yeah I find it hard to believe these third world countries have been "fooled" into taking huge amounts of gringo money. The problem is lack of strong governments in these countries and a few elites skim everything off into Swiss bank accounts.
posted by stbalbach at 6:24 AM on April 19, 2007

psmealey, we are too dependent on the US to openly antagonize it, unless we have the luck of getting a Chavez or a Castro. On the other hand, 'Take the gringo's money' is the second most popular sport after soccer in Latin America (yes, that includes illegal immigration, all inclusive spring break specials and pissing in your overpriced food).

< - deleted rant the economic and social rape of my country at the hands a harvard graduated president and his imf pals ->
posted by Dataphage at 6:26 AM on April 19, 2007

stbalbach, maybe we should get stronger governments and stop whining. You know, like the governments in Guatemala that nationalized unused United Fruit Company land in 54, in Panama trying to get control over the canal in 64? Or that Marxist guy in Chile who was against money skimming elites in 73? Strong like the Sandinistas in Guatemala in the 20s, 30s and 80s?

Or do you mean STRONG STRONG, like Pinochet and Somoza and Noriega? Ooops! That last one was a little too strong, I guess.
posted by Dataphage at 6:39 AM on April 19, 2007 [3 favorites]

Agreed on that point. He never really offers up enough detail for it to be credible. Clearly, in his words, he had the makings for a good recruit (the desire for money, power, prestige and the, ahem, moral flexibility) already, the hot chick trainer bit just seemed bogus and moreover, superfluous.

Data point: A couple of years ago I took a class on circuit design, and one of my classmates was this amazingly beautiful girl. Tall, blond, fantastic body. She looked a lot like Charlize Theron. She even had some similar facial ticks, it was weird. She was minoring in Chinese as well, but she was a couple years before me in the program, so I never had a Chinese class with her. We actually got along pretty well, but it turned out she was married.

Anyway, I message her a couple years later, and it turns out she's working for the CIA. She wasn't doing anything covert, as far as I know. She told me a little bit about what she was doing (which I'm not going to get into, other then to say it was pretty straightforward and not that interesting.)

Another data point: Valarie Plame.

So anyway, the hot chick trainer thing makes a lot of sense. For one thing, it's easy to do. I mean come on, if you were going to have a secret agency, wouldn't hot chicks be the first thing you add?
posted by delmoi at 6:43 AM on April 19, 2007

I have always been curious as to why there haven't been more reprisals from that part of the world.

I have a hunch that it's because many people from that part of the world are Catholic. I'm not entirely certain but I don't believe there has ever been such a thing as a Catholic suicide bomber or plane hijacker. I don't want to get into that conversation by considering the other side of the coin because it will be about thirty five seconds before someone shrieks and calls me "Michelle Malkin" but think about it.

I read the book last year and I accept the premise that institutions like the World Bank and IMF are the tools of the wealthy to exert influence and control the resource-rich low-tech impoverished countries in the world and to ensure that they stay that way. Wealth doesn't exist in a vaccuum, it comes from somewhere. I just wish the damn book wasn't written like a novel. If you're going to burn your bridges for the sake of what you deem to be a higher ethical purpose, why not back up your points with data and citations?

Also all this New Age stuff he promotes now gives me the creeps and I suspect its a major reason why many people have trouble taking his very important arguments in Confessions... all that seriously.
posted by inoculatedcities at 6:43 AM on April 19, 2007

psmealey:
The people of Central and South America should hate "us" even more than people from the Mid-East, why haven't they participated in similar activities against us?

Well, there are a huge variety of reasons for that. One is that, despite concerted attempts to do so, the traditional Left in Latin America hasn't been crushed and discredited the way that it has in the Middle East. Resistance against imperialism is channelled into left politics (see the recent tide of center-left and left electoral victories, not to mention left-nationalism in the past, such as Peronism) or guerrilla warfare (Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Colombia), with mixed success. In the Middle East, pan-Arabism and "Arab socialism" were dismal failures, and the ideological decks were cleared for the arrival of a hodgepodge of Islamist ideologies.

Two, you didn't have the same dynamics during and after the Cold War in Latin America as you had in the Middle East. The ME was more of a direct battleground between the US and Soviet blocs. The big polarizing events were clear — Israel/Palestine, the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Aspects of these conflicts "proved" a certain limited effectiveness of individual terrorism; while as a long term strategy it is certainly morally and politically bankrupt, that it had some success cannot be overlooked. And the US, of course, bears a great deal of responsibility for creating Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which thrived on its assistance in Afghanistan during the '80s. Terrorism hasn't "worked" in Latin America; you haven't had experiences to validate it as a tactic. The only people who've used terrorism were rightists supported by the US (e.g., Luis Posada Carriles in Cuba, the Contras in Nicaragua during the '80s). [I don't want to cause any misconceptions: I use scare quotes when I say that terrorism "works" in certain cases because it can achieve limited objectives, but at a terrible overall price, both moral and political, and cannot be considered legitimate.]

I'd say that the availability of alternatives, combined with the lack of positive examples of anti-American terrorism, make the likelihood of using individual terrorism from Latin America much lower than in the Middle East.
posted by graymouser at 6:46 AM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

The people of Central and South America should hate "us" even more than people from the Mid-East, why haven't they participated in similar activities against us?

Well, there's nothing like the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict to really get people worked up. I don't really think subtle economic influence and so forth are really enough to motivate people to that kind of violence.
posted by delmoi at 6:47 AM on April 19, 2007

I have a hunch that it's because many people from that part of the world are Catholic. I'm not entirely certain but I don't believe there has ever been such a thing as a Catholic suicide bomber or plane hijacker.

Are you serious?

(Well, okay no suicide bombing, but plenty of plane 'ole bombing)
posted by delmoi at 6:52 AM on April 19, 2007

delmoi, I didn't mean to imply that it didn't happen, or that she didn't exist... it was just that Perkins didn't work it into the narrative in a very complete or credible kind of way. Perhaps he did so in an effort not to be salacious, but the whole vignette kind of fell a bit flat and wasn't necessary to the story. His seduction had already been complete at the point anyway.
posted by psmealey at 7:01 AM on April 19, 2007

and economics all conspired enough on their own without some James Bond needing to push it through.

I think Kermit Roosevelt and Mossadegh would disagree.
posted by spicynuts at 7:20 AM on April 19, 2007

Yeah I find it hard to believe these third world countries have been "fooled" into taking huge amounts of gringo money.

Nobody got 'fooled'. Rather we exploit greed by dangling a lot of money in front of an elite few with the condition of acceptance being loan terms that would never ever allow any successive government, dictator, parliament, ruling class to climb out of debt. Thus the only choices available to a country becomes default or nationalization, and everyone knows the consequences of that.
posted by spicynuts at 7:27 AM on April 19, 2007

This is the same John Perkins who wrote books like "Psychonavigation: Techniques for Travel Beyond Time" and "The World Is As You Dream It," both of which must have hurt his credibility. Interestingly, Boston Magazine tried to look into his claims but hit a dead end, with the pertinent company shut down, and a key person or two deceased.

I enjoyed the write-up on Perkins from our State Department. Take anything from the White House with a grain of salt, but they make a funny point: While Perkins claims to have been hired by the NSA as an "economic hitman," that's the wrong department. The NSA is a big glassy building for eavesdropping and code-breaking, not CIA type antics. Even the U.S. Trade Department would be a more believable employer.

Best .gov domain snark ever:

"As to whether Perkins was acting at the behest of the U.S. government, the world is not 'as he dreams it.'"
posted by Kirklander at 7:55 AM on April 19, 2007

I'm not entirely certain but I don't believe there has ever been such a thing as a Catholic suicide bomber or plane hijacker.

'cause the IRA and ETA are all about flowers and fluffy bunnies.
posted by bonehead at 8:49 AM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

The people of Central and South America should hate "us" even more than people from the Mid-East, why haven't they participated in similar activities against us?

Maybe because there isn't the huge personal fortunes to the same degree? A shitload of extremism comes from the insanely rich families in the middle east funding extremist organizations who fund schools, armies, and most probably plots.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

I lived in Guatemala for a year in 2002. I remember learning about this for the first time. The CIA and UFCO. Man was I green about the US then.

Thanks for the post.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 8:59 AM on April 19, 2007

'cause the IRA and ETA are all about flowers and fluffy bunnies.

And do the IRA and ETA commit terrorism in the name of the Pope or their God? Or do they do it to further a sepratist cause that's deeply entrenched in regional/national politics and in reality has very little to do with religion? These are complex issues; all terrorism should be condemned, but not all of it is the same.

PS - The ETA doesn't make it's Catholicism a part of its program at all. The PNV, who are far more popular, do.
posted by inoculatedcities at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2007

The only people who've used terrorism were rightists supported by the US

Really? Shining Path? FARC? Those two come to mind almost immediately.
posted by Snyder at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2007

The only people who've used terrorism were rightists supported by the US

That's not true at all. That's not to say that the US didn't support right-wing extremism all over the world but come on...
posted by inoculatedcities at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2007

Economic hit woman
posted by hortense at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2007

At a guess, I'd say the larger picture he paints is broadly true, while many of the particulars are guessed at, overgeneralized and simplified, and the personal details largely if not entirely made up. You see quite a bit of this in new age circles, basic truths tied up in bullshit bows.

Similarly, the State Department refutation contains details I would guess to be true, but its denial that our systems of foreign economic development are a tool for to manipulate economies in directions that suit us and certain powerful multinational corporations is essentially false; though this may be more the result of pressure in individual cases than consistent pollicy. I speak from a position of no direct knowledge whatsoever.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Really? Shining Path? FARC? Those two come to mind almost immediately.

Guerrilla warfare (which I mentioned earlier in the same paragraph) does not equal terrorism, despite the brutality of both Shining Path and FARC. The line there has to be drawn clearly – while I don't support either guerrillaism or terrorism, they are not one and the same, and it's illegitimate to blur the lines.
posted by graymouser at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2007

I enjoyed the write-up on Perkins from our State Department.

I'm skeptical of the book too, but that press release is mainly character attacks, rather than responses to the content of the book. Of course, the book offers very evidence to be contradicted, which was my main problem with it. Perkins offers literally no statistics until the very end, and there the entirety of his data is (talking about Ecuador)

My contemporaries and I, and our modern corporate equvalents, had managed to bring it to virtual bankruptcy. We loaned it billions of dollars so it could hire our engineering and and construction firms to build projects that would help its richest families. As a result, in those three decades, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, under-or-unemployment increased from 15 to 70 percent, public debt increased from $240 million to $16 billion, and the share of national resources allocated to the poorest citizens declined from 20 percent to 6 percent. Today, Ecuador must devote nearly 50 percent of its national budget to paying of its debts- instead of to helping the millions of its citizens who are officially classified as dangerously impoverished.

Along with the line

I was reminded of a statistic that sums it all up: The income ration of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995.

Some of the best indirect evidence I've seen for Perkins arguments is the study published last year by two Harvard economists that found that the rotating members of the Security Council receive 59% more foreign aid during the years of their membership, and up to 170% more immediately before major votes. Interestingly, the study also looked at correlations with aid from the UN itself, and found the strongest connection between council membership and aid from UNICEF and the UN Development Project, two agencies that have traditionally always been headed by Americans (though Mark Malloch Brown of the UK recently took over at UNDP). That's a sign that at least a few powerful individuals theoretically outside the government have continued pulling levers on it's behalf.

The talk also offers little evidence, though I guess that's more forgivable in that format. At one point, he asserts that a young Saddam Hussein worked as a hitman for the CIA in the 1959 attempted assassination of Iraqi PM Abd al-Karim Qasim. That theory has become very popular recently, and is based entirely on one 2003 UPI wire story. I bought it, for awhile, but Juan Cole now says he doubts that, based on personal communication with former CIA officials who would have been involved. Given Cole's expertise, connections, political leanings and the fact that he hasn't been afraid to say controversial things, I'm inclined to trust him on it. Regardless, Perkins treats that as uncontroverted fact (possibly because Wikipedia also does), which is silly, since he has no personal knowledge of that conspiracy.
posted by gsteff at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2007

Also, the State dept criticism that Perkins's story is unbelievable because the NSA only hires mathematicians is laughable.
posted by gsteff at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2007

This sort of thing is impossible to talk about in any concrete manner, but I'll just throw my two cents in as another semi-anonymous moron on the Internet:

1. Are there such things as economic hitmen? Sure. This sort of activity does take place. Most folks who do this sort of work do not see themselves as hitmen.

2. It is not just American companies that do it. In fact, you can make a pretty good argument that American companies are addressing a fairly insignificant segment of the market, depending on how you segment.

3. It is not just companies that do it. Yes, countries do it as well.

4. It is not just third world countries on the receiving end.

5. You're on your own as to how you feel about this stuff, but in these discussions, no one at the table is a fool. If you think people are being taken advantage of, okay, but no one is being taken advantage of because they don't understand how it works. I might go so far as to say it only works with a healthy dose of education and understanding.

6. Are there hot chicks? Yes, but no more than any other sales/consulting team focused on long deals. Call up your local hulking software integration firm, and I'll bet dollars to donuts they send out two guys and a hot chick.

7. Do some people think they are James Bond? Sure.

8. Is it part of a vast conspiracy? You decide, but for what it's worth, most places I've ever worked had a hard enough time playing nice with the taxman. Orders from the secret pulpit? Not unless you're talking about the Invisible Hand. That having been said, there are a lot of folks in the business who have a very NeoCon view of things. I don't know that it helps them sleep, though. As a coworker once said, "China is spooky-good at debt." It's a phrase that gets repeated often.
posted by rush at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2007

Clarification: the Security Council study I mentioned measured the correlation with U.S. foreign aid, not all foreign aid.
posted by gsteff at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2007

"the oil standard". great stuff. reminds me of the "dali check" comedy routine somebody posted a while back.

salvador dali goes to eat at a restaurant, writes a check for the food, and then draws a small doodle on the back of it. so nobody wants to cash the check.
posted by phaedon at 1:44 PM on April 19, 2007

Guerrilla warfare (which I mentioned earlier in the same paragraph) does not equal terrorism, despite the brutality of both Shining Path and FARC.

According to wikipedia, FARC is listed as a terrorist group by both the U.S. State Dept. and the EU.

Also from wikipedia: "Many of [FARC's} fronts have also overrun and massacred small communities in order to silence and intimidate those who do not support their activities..."

The U.S., Peru, Canada and the EU all consider Shining Path to be terrorists too.

"During this period, Shining Path also practiced many selective assassinations targeting specific individuals, notably leaders of other leftist groups, local political parties, labor unions, and peasant organizations, some of whom were anti-Sendero Marxists."

It seems you are in a minority opinion about the nature of these two groups.
posted by Snyder at 2:33 PM on April 19, 2007

Guerrilla warfare (which I mentioned earlier in the same paragraph) does not equal terrorism, despite the brutality of both Shining Path and FARC

That is crap.

The FARC kidnaps about 4,000 people a year in Colombia. They stop buses on highways, take the passenger's IDs and if they deem you important enough, they kidnap you for the ransom money. They kidnap and torture women and children. They loot and pillage small businesses who don't make monthly extortion payments (vaccines). They murder their political rivals. They are narco-terrorists. Everyone from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International to the UN Commission for Human Rights agrees on that.

Shining Path, they're terrorists too, but they've been on the decline for quite a while, so it's more of a moot point.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2007

if you were going to have a secret agency, wouldn't hot chicks be the first thing you add?

Nope. Pretty people attract too much attention. If you want to have a secret agency, Mr and Miss Bland are who you want to recruit.
posted by Sparx at 2:40 PM on April 19, 2007

as if he really stopped working for that organization.
posted by exit at 6:57 PM on April 19, 2007

A follow-up collection of essays has just been published.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 7:38 AM on April 20, 2007

rush: If you think people are being taken advantage of, okay, but no one is being taken advantage of because they don't understand how it works.

Likely true, but that's not the issue. Whether these bad decisions are being made willingly or not is secondary to the fact that the consequences of them are not borne by those who made them.
posted by Adam_S at 8:09 AM on April 20, 2007

Adam S, that's an excellent point, and one with which I am familiar (in fact, my wife has made it a couple of times, though, I suspect, more as a vehicle for personal concern).

I agree that it requires one to do some fairly grim arithmetics to conclude that the ends justify the means. These arithmetics result in the accusations of "moral flexibility" which psmealey expressed.

However, I believe we disagree on our metrics. I think it's a luxury to criticize the consequences of a decision in a vacuum. Sometimes, one has to make a call between a few options, all of which involve strife and loss of lives. Please recognize that, in many parts of the world, a single power plant can make a huge difference in the lives of the people. One's principles about the nature of the necessary debt, and to whom you will be indebted, just don't have the same weight as other concerns. I assure you that the people are among those concerns for many of those who make these decisions. I permit that greed is among them, as well.
posted by rush at 11:54 AM on April 20, 2007