I actually read the first version of this book in 2014. I don’t know what the new one adds really.
The new version, by the same author titled, The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How America Really Took over the World, might be a redoing of what looked ugly in the first one. I don’t trust the current world with its ‘woke’ and ‘cancel’ culture.
As for me, nothing was ugly. It was a true representation of how empires are built. In the past, it was through sheer physical violence, but in modern times, it is through economic violence, lies, blackmails and threats.
For example, it is not easy for a country like Kenya to come out of the current quagmire of debts. In the run up to the 2013 elections, we were warned of unspecified consequences, by Johhny Carson, former US assistant Secretary of State, if we elected International Criminal Court human rights abuses and rape suspects. We did and they were blackmailed or captured, often through wrong figures of economic growth or World Bank’s ranking on ease of doing business or even arm-twisted because ‘we saved you from ICC cases’.
All in all, we find ourselves here, saddled with too much debt, corruption, looting and plunder. Kenya is very sick and has to swallow all the prescription medicine given by International Monetary Fund.
Some of the prescription include, raise taxes, lay off a huge number of civil servants, privatize some state corporations (this is mostly done so that USA can invest in them through some businessmen from that country, which also means more Kenyans will not be employed here but Americans.)
The IMF and The World Bank are two institutions that have exported USA authoritarianism all over the world; through money, carrot and stick diplomacy.
They first lie using statistics that country A, B or C needs such and such things to work. They then announce a partnership and give debt or grant to the country.
What does not change however, is that the quality of life doesn’t improve much, but the country is saddled with debts and more debts.
How has United Nations not solved poverty, education inequality and conflicts in the over 70 years of its existence? NGOs need the conflict, poverty and inequality to exist.
You, your uncles, your brothers and sisters etc also love NGO money. Right? Right. See?
(laughter)
The war dogs
But this is not what the book by John Perkins is all about, that’s just one part; the softer part. The central message of the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is about those countries that have refused this kind of lies and have charted their own course.
Iran, North Korea and Libya (too bad now) have not signed truly to the Central Banking system.
Central Banks are all interconnected worldwide to the Federal Reserve Bank of USA and they’ve all signed up to the US dollar as the global currency; which in turn each country’s central bank pegs their currency on the US dollar.
This pyramid scheme of things ensures money is printed non-stop by the Federal Reserve Bank, and every few years the paper money, so called legal tender, that is not backed by anything but govt decree, loses value in inflation.
The saying ‘time is money’ stopped being used when the US dollar was removed from being backed by gold reserves in 1970s.
Bitcoin however, solves this bullshit. Money and wealth should increase as time goes, not decrease as in the Central Banking Fiat money system.
But I digress.
Iran, North Korea and Libya believes in a different kind of world and so such kinds including Iraq and Afghanistan are invaded by dogs of war. Often they are invaded after lies have been passed through the international media and the world ‘terrorist’ thrown here and there.
These two styles are how the USA, and their Betton Woods institutions the IMF and World Bank conquer the world.
You cannot actually improve the live of your people, in the so-called non-western countries without the nod of USA. Libya was well ahead economically, but what do we have now? Slave trade in the 21st century, in the age of UN and ICC.
USA loves this!
I detest any easy explanation on why the rest of the so called underdeveloped world are underdeveloped.
Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid is okay but doesn’t say things in black and white, the same can be said of that intellectually stimulating but plainly white supremacist book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.
For me, the above two books beat around the bush, but they are more suited for academics and international development professionals, to lie to themselves.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins is more direct and truer, but it sometimes parks some episodes that might be easily considered fiction.
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