Confessions Of An Economic Hitman

[polly7]

I listen to these every once in a while just to remind myself why people and nations around the world are being targeted, realizing, of course, that many countries are just as responsible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARBdBtGenM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAqG51uwzMI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l22O33KyWa4&feature=related


"According to Perkins, a former Economic Hit Man and founding president of Dream Change Coalition, "Economic hit men (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." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARBdBtGenM&feature=related

[Jackpine Radical]

1. A great book, I very timely these days.

[polly7]

6. Yes, it really is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAqG51uwzMI&feature=related - deals with corporations, not politicians, as the 'emperor' / entity controlling the planet.

[david_vincent]

2. I loaned my copy to my former boss, a Republican, and never got it back

and since then she was sacked.

[polly7]

4. That sucks. Hopefully she at least learned something from it.

I don't have the book, I wish I did.

[Welibs]

8. She probably burned it! Republicans don't deal with reality!

[mod mom]

3. This book along with Best Democracy Money Can Buy and A People's History of the U.S.

were rec'd when I first came to DU. Real eye openers.

[DCKit]

7. Don't forget "The Shock Doctrine". nt

[Hotler]

5. k&r n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Very eye-opening book

I had never thought about the fact that so much of the so-called "foreign aid money" is simply transferred to U.S. corporations and the supposed recipient countries never saw the money but were still expected to pay it back.

My parents had a friend who was a missionary in Liberia in the 1950s, and the thought of how U.S. foreign aid for that country was administered put him into rant mode. He cited a road-building project. Some U.S. corporation would deliver a bunch of road building equipment, give some Liberians elementary instruction in how to operate it, and then leave. Eventually, the equipment would break down, and the Liberians would not have been taught how to repair or maintain it, so it would sit rusting in a lot somewhere.

Meanwhile, the streets of Monrovia were full of unemployed young men, many of whom eventually drifted into crime (or years later, into brutal insurgent forces). This missionary suggested that instead of supplying heavy equipment, USAID should hire these young men at the then-prevailing wage of 10 cents an hour and build a gravel road by hand. This would give the young men some focus for their lives, put legal money in their pockets, and integrate them into mainstream society.

But what did he know? He just lived among ordinary Liberians in Liberia for twenty years.

He retired several years before the civil war broke out, and his former church was the site of a massacre after people crowded in there trying to escape the rebels.

One has to wonder if the civil war would have occurred if USAID had concentrated on creating jobs for ordinary Liberians instead of sweetheart deals for U.S. corporations.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. So THAT's what the gold standard and petro dollars were all about!

And that is just the first 1/3 of the first clip.
i have the book , I gotta dig it out and read it.
Who wants it when I am done????