The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

I openly discussed the deceptive nature of GNP. For instance, GNP may show growth even when it profits only one person, such as an individual who owns a utility company, and even if the majority of the population is burdened with debt. The rich get richer and the poor grow poorer. Yet, from a statistical standpoint, this is recorded as economic progress.

How many of our top government officials are driven by personal greed instead of national loyalty?

Over the past three decades, sixty of the world’s poorest countries have paid $550 billion in principal and interest on loans of $540 billion, yet they still owe a whopping $523 billion on those same loans. The cost of servicing that debt is more than these countries spend on health or education and is twenty times the amount they receive annually in foreign aid.

Howard Zinn understood why a majority of us accept these platitudes. Those in the middle class, he said, who have the material trappings of prosperity, are complacent because they possess the things they were taught to covet, and they don’t want to lose them. Those who live in poverty are complacent because they have to devote their energies toward simply surviving.

In this US version, no one has to put up the funds. Instead, the money is simply removed from the tax base and handed to the corporation; in essence, the money is stolen from the US taxpayer. Funds that had been earmarked for health care, education, and other social services are diverted to the coffers of greedy corporations

Elliott Associates, a hedge fund run by Paul Singer, a major supporter of political campaigns, purchased around $20 million of the defaulted Peruvian loans for about $11 million and then sued the country and its central bank for the original amount, plus interest, in a New York court. Elliott won a $58 million settlement and cleared $47 million in profit — a more than 400 percent rate of return on its investment. This windfall profit came at a huge cost to environmental and social programs in Peru.

One percent of Americans received 95 percent of all the wealth created since the depression was officially pronounced as ended in 2009, while 90 percent of us became poorer.

Globally, eighty-five individuals own more resources than half of the world’s population.

drone operators! They don’t risk their lives; they don’t hear the screams of the wounded and dying or witness the suffering of innocent victims. They sit at computer monitors. They aren’t brave. There is nothing heroic about their jobs. Nor is there anything heroic about a nation that inflicts such suffering on other people.

refuse to be caught in work patterns that deplete your energy and creativity.

Western nations have accomplished depressingly little with the trillions they have spent on foreign aid. That evidence suggests that in some countries — including Haiti, Zaire, and Angola — foreign aid has actually intensified the suffering of the poor.