Runo Knows...Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
I was given two books by a friend of mine for my birthday. The first of those that I read - and just finished last night - was John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I started reading it on the way home from NYC and finished it fairly quickly - at around 260-some pages in paper back, and a lot of "short pages" (at the end of chapters) it read fast.
It wasn't helped by the fact that the author made me want to punch him in the head.
An Economic Hit Man (or EHM, as oft-abbreviated in the book) is someone who goes to a third world country as part of a consulting group. They come up with cooked economic forecasts to convince the country's government to invest heavily in various infrastructure improvements paid for by loans from the World Bank and other aid agencies. When the country inevitably cannot keep up their payments on their loans, they end up owing a "pound of flesh" to the governments involved - typically the United States - and has to toe that country's line (i.e. allow military bases, vote their way in the UN, etc.) In addition, the money spent simply goes to make the American rich that much richer, and the improvements typically only help the smallest percentage of the recepient country's population.
It's an entertaining read, if anything, to a point. I won't debate the economics or political side of it right now for a couple of reasons:
* without the time or energy (to be honest) to look up the sources quoted (sparse as they are) and do more research, I'm hesitant to argue the economics side.
* the political side - sigh. It's political.
To me, I think it's naive to assume that when the whole system is predicated on the fact that the leaders of these nations are greedy and willing to be corrupt, and that the governments of the recepient countries are willing to ignore what they know is true and believe a fairy tale gold story spun by slick consultants, that the lenders will behave any differently or that we should altruism to take the day. If people are willing to do stupid things in order to benefit themselves, even at the sacrifice of their own country, it's going to happen one way or the other.
But that's just my thought. I could rant for hours on that, but to be honest - I'm hungry. I want to eat dinner and cannot do so until I finish this.
What really got me about the book is the sheer amount of petty whining Perkins does throughout it, mostly concerning his role as an EHM in various countries. He whines and whines that he knew what he was doing was wrong - at least, to his moral/ethical value system and to the ideals that his hero Tom Paine would believe (and dear god do you hear about Paine a lot) - yet he continued to do them. He admits his own complicity, and at the same time, does all he can to blame the NSA, MAIN, and others that they took advantage of his weaknesses forced into him by his parents.
If he'd just come out and said "I did it to make a lot of money and fuck beautiful women, and then decided it was wrong," I'd have much more sympathy for him. Instead, he whines about how he was set up (basically). "Oh, the NSA knew my weaknesses, because I told them what they were! OH WOE IS ME! You can save the world by buying my book!"
Oh yeah - and that part, too. Now that he's all remorseful, he takes an entire chapter at the back of the book to talk about how you can do something about it! Most of that entails promoting and talking about his book to other people who haven't read it.
I LOVES TEH WURLD. I BUY TEH BOOK TO SAVE IT!!!!!!!!
And that's where I'm conflicted. I'd recommend the book, if only to broaden your knowledge on the matter. I'd take just about everything he opines about with a grain of salt and double-check his references, because, to be honest, they seem pretty damn flimsy to me compared to a lot of the other historical books. But, as Perkins himself points out, he wasn't trained as an economicist or a historian. But he's trained himself now as the HERO OF THE DOWNTRODDEN.
It's definitely going to be one of those rare books - it'll go on my shelf and probably never be read again. Though I may read it a few months or years from now to just to see if it still comes off as pretentious and self-important, particularly towards the end, as it did this read-through.
It wasn't helped by the fact that the author made me want to punch him in the head.
An Economic Hit Man (or EHM, as oft-abbreviated in the book) is someone who goes to a third world country as part of a consulting group. They come up with cooked economic forecasts to convince the country's government to invest heavily in various infrastructure improvements paid for by loans from the World Bank and other aid agencies. When the country inevitably cannot keep up their payments on their loans, they end up owing a "pound of flesh" to the governments involved - typically the United States - and has to toe that country's line (i.e. allow military bases, vote their way in the UN, etc.) In addition, the money spent simply goes to make the American rich that much richer, and the improvements typically only help the smallest percentage of the recepient country's population.
It's an entertaining read, if anything, to a point. I won't debate the economics or political side of it right now for a couple of reasons:
* without the time or energy (to be honest) to look up the sources quoted (sparse as they are) and do more research, I'm hesitant to argue the economics side.
* the political side - sigh. It's political.
To me, I think it's naive to assume that when the whole system is predicated on the fact that the leaders of these nations are greedy and willing to be corrupt, and that the governments of the recepient countries are willing to ignore what they know is true and believe a fairy tale gold story spun by slick consultants, that the lenders will behave any differently or that we should altruism to take the day. If people are willing to do stupid things in order to benefit themselves, even at the sacrifice of their own country, it's going to happen one way or the other.
But that's just my thought. I could rant for hours on that, but to be honest - I'm hungry. I want to eat dinner and cannot do so until I finish this.
What really got me about the book is the sheer amount of petty whining Perkins does throughout it, mostly concerning his role as an EHM in various countries. He whines and whines that he knew what he was doing was wrong - at least, to his moral/ethical value system and to the ideals that his hero Tom Paine would believe (and dear god do you hear about Paine a lot) - yet he continued to do them. He admits his own complicity, and at the same time, does all he can to blame the NSA, MAIN, and others that they took advantage of his weaknesses forced into him by his parents.
If he'd just come out and said "I did it to make a lot of money and fuck beautiful women, and then decided it was wrong," I'd have much more sympathy for him. Instead, he whines about how he was set up (basically). "Oh, the NSA knew my weaknesses, because I told them what they were! OH WOE IS ME! You can save the world by buying my book!"
Oh yeah - and that part, too. Now that he's all remorseful, he takes an entire chapter at the back of the book to talk about how you can do something about it! Most of that entails promoting and talking about his book to other people who haven't read it.
I LOVES TEH WURLD. I BUY TEH BOOK TO SAVE IT!!!!!!!!
And that's where I'm conflicted. I'd recommend the book, if only to broaden your knowledge on the matter. I'd take just about everything he opines about with a grain of salt and double-check his references, because, to be honest, they seem pretty damn flimsy to me compared to a lot of the other historical books. But, as Perkins himself points out, he wasn't trained as an economicist or a historian. But he's trained himself now as the HERO OF THE DOWNTRODDEN.
It's definitely going to be one of those rare books - it'll go on my shelf and probably never be read again. Though I may read it a few months or years from now to just to see if it still comes off as pretentious and self-important, particularly towards the end, as it did this read-through.