Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: Final Review (Questions Five and One)

The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins is one of the most informative, eye opening, and enthralling books I have read in my entire life. From the beginning of the book, with “It began innocently enough.” To “…to come clean, to confess- to write the words in this book.” This gripping story will open the door to a truth you never knew. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a recount of the life of the author, John Perkins, who says that he was part of an organization (or multiple ones depending on the way you look at it) that drained nations to bankruptcy. As described by John Perkins:

           

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, 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 include 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.

     I should know; I was an EHM

           

John Perkins account of his life, packed with politics, deceit, betrayal, and much more will most certainly open your eyes to the world we Americans live in, and how the rest of the world lives.

            John Perkins stated clearly in his book that one of the key reasons he was writing this book was to spread awareness of the situation going on. He knew that most citizens of the U.S had no inkling of the devastation outside of their homes. They led a comfortable life, sheltered from all the things that many would have protested. Perkins mentions this multiple times. In his book, Perkins mentions that later on in his life, while he was an EHM, he observed something that turned his stomach:

           

            A movement up the canal caught my attention. An elderly man had descended the bank, dropped his pants, and squatted at the edge of the water to answer nature’s call. The young woman saw him but was undeterred; she continued bathing…  

This is one of many incidents that contributed to his first attempt at getting information out into the world. Perkins’s first attempt was to write a tell-all book called Conscience of an Economic Hit Man, which ultimately failed. In the near beginning of the book, when John Perkins was training to become an EHM with Claudine, his mentor told him one thing that stuck to him: Once you’re in, you can never back out. The first attempt failed because someone from MAIN, the organization he used to work at offered him a lucrative job, but he had to keep quiet and Perkins accepted the bribe. He never gave up though, and after years of mental torture, he decided that this was it and that he had to tell his story, or forever keep it quiet. Finally, everything that had piled on top of him since the start of his life as an EHM, through 9-11, to the millions of deaths and impoverished countries got to his heart and the voice inside his head that bothered him his whole life won over and the Conscience of an Economic Hit Man was published.

            Born in 1945, John Perkins was an only child of a middle class family. He Graduated prep school in 1963, enters Middlebury College, befriending Farhad, the son of an Iranian general and drops out in 1964. Marrying in 1966, Perkins’s wife’s “Uncle Frank” helped him join the Peace Corps. In 1970, John Perkins’s first contact with the consulting firm MAIN takes place in Ecuador and he joins MAIN a year later, undergoing training as an economic hit man. During his nine-year career as an EHM, John Perkins successfully negotiates plans to bankrupt several different countries, quickly rising through the ranks writing a few books along the way. Even with the success of his career and all the luxuries he could care for, John Perkins experienced the lives of the normal people of the countries he was trying to destroy with friends, or through friends. During the 1980s, he suffered from depression, guilt, and he fact that money and power have trapped him at MAIN and quits soon after. After MAIN, he starts up his own environmentally friendly electricity company. From 1983-1989, his company prospers which he suspects to be the doing of former associates and because of the things he did as an EHM. He starts to write a tell-all book of his life, but a sudden job offer stops him. After September 11, 2001, he is convinced that the truth had to come out. The attack on the twin towers sent him a message that he could delay no longer, accepting bribes and threats. It also gave him a sense of responsibility now since as he was an economic hit man, he might have had something to do with it. Sending all those countries into bankruptcy and dependence on the U.S.A might have sent some people over the edge, making enemies. The first signs of this in the book would be when John Perkins is with Paula and one of his workers receives this threat:

           We, who work every day just to survive, swear on the blood of our ancestors that we will never allow dams across out rivers. We are simple Indians and mestizos, but be would rather die than stand by as our land is flooded. We warn our Colombian brother: stop working for the construction companies.

He wanted to expose the fact that EHM are everywhere today and there are more than before. He felt he owed this to his country, to his daughter, to all the people around the world who suffer because of the work he and other EHMs have done. In the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, he describes the treacherous path his country is taking as it reaches for global domination.