Saturday, March 27, 2010

John Perkins : How To Destabilize Countries Legally . Economic Hitman


Today, we spend the hour with a man who claims to have worked deep inside the forces driving corporate globalization. In his first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins told the story of his work as a highly paid consultant hired to strong-arm leaders into creating policy favorable to the US government and corporations, what he calls the "corporatocracy." John Perkins says he helped the US cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. John Perkins has just come out with his second book on this issue. It's called The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals and the Truth about Global Corruption. John Perkins joins us now in the firehouse studio. Well, before we go further, "economic hit men"—for those who haven't heard you describe this, let alone describe yourself as this, what do you mean?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, really, I think it's fair to say that since World War II, we economic hit men have managed to create the world's first truly global empire, and we've done it primarily without the military, unlike other empires in history. We've done it through economics very subtly.

We work many different ways, but perhaps the most common one is that we will identify a third world country that has resources our corporations covet, such as oil, and then we arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations. The money never actually goes to the country. It goes instead to US corporations, who build big infrastructure projects—power grids, industrial parks, harbors, highways—things that benefit a few very rich people but do not reach the poor at all. The poor aren't connected to the power grids. They don't have the skills to get jobs in industrial parks. But they and the whole country are left holding this huge debt, and it's such a big bet that the country can't possibly repay it. So at some point in time, we economic hit men go back to the country and say, "Look, you know, you owe us a lot of money. You can't pay your debt, so you've got to give us a pound of flesh."

AMY GOODMAN: And explain your history. What made you an economic hit man?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, when I graduated from business school at Boston University, I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest and perhaps most secretive spy organization.

AMY GOODMAN: People sometimes think the CIA is that, but the NSA, many times larger.

JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it is larger. It's much larger. At least it was in those days. And it's very, very secretive. We all—there's a lot of rumors. We know quite a lot about the CIA, I think, but we know very, very little about the NSA. It claims to only work in a cryptography, you know, encoding and decoding messages, but in fact we all know that they're the people who have been listening in on our telephone conversations. That's come out recently. And they're a very, very secretive organization.

They put me through a series of tests, very extensive tests, lie detector tests, psychological tests, during my last year in college. And I think it's fair to say that they identified me as a good potential economic hit man. They also identified a number of weaknesses in my character that would make it relatively easy for them to hook me, to bring me in. And I think those weaknesses, I [inaudible] might call, the three big drugs of our culture: money, power and sex. Who amongst us doesn't have one of them? I had all three at the time.

And then I joined the Peace Corps. I was encouraged to do that by the National Security Agency. I spent three years in Ecuador living with indigenous people in the Amazon and the Andes, people who today and at that time were beginning to fight the oil companies. In fact, the largest environmental lawsuit in the history of the world has just been brought by these people against Texaco, Chevron. And that was incredibly good training for what I was to do.

And then, while I was still in the Peace Corps, I was brought in and recruited into a US private corporation called Charles T. Main, a consulting firm out of Boston of about 2,000 employees, very low-profile firm that did a tremendous amount of work of what I came to understand was the work of economic hit men, as I described it earlier, and that's the role I began to fulfill and eventually kind of rose to the top of that organization as its chief economist.

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MARC FABER NEWS

NFE/1.0marc faber - Google Newshttp://news.google.com/news?gl=us&pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=marc+faberennews-feedback@google.com©2013 GoogleFri, 28 Jun 2013 00:51:38 GMTFri, 28 Jun 2013 00:51:38 GMTmarc faber - Google Newshttps://ssl.gstatic.com/news-static/img/logo/en_us/news.gifhttp://news.google.com/news?gl=us&pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=marc+faberDr. Doom? Marc Faber Sees Stock Buying Opportunity - CNBC.comhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGHsuxk-dDyhxcxnCl-sfCXfrBDzg&url=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100841125tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100841125Tue, 25 Jun 2013 17:08:32 GMT

Moneycontrol.com

Dr. Doom? Marc Faber Sees Stock Buying Opportunity
CNBC.com
The dean of doom, Marc Faber, told CNBC on Tuesday that a variety of asset classes—including equities—may be worth buying for short-term gains. In the midst of market volatility on concerns over Federal Reserve tapering, he said, "Treasury bonds ...
Marc FaberMoneycontrol.com
Marc Faber aka Dr. Doom: S&P 500 Index Could Fall 20% To 30% EasilyETF Daily News (blog)
Dr Doom warns stocks are oversold but S&P readies for another dropCitywire.co.uk

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Marc Faber Forecasts 30% Stock Market Crash, Says Buy Gold - The Market Oraclehttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHeIcgHV9wRbIf0mJuPEKrVTZpR4Q&url=http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article41119.htmltag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article41119.htmlThu, 27 Jun 2013 15:40:52 GMT

Marc Faber Forecasts 30% Stock Market Crash, Says Buy Gold
The Market Oracle
The Fed's 'tapering' comments have ramped up market volatilaty and Faber gives some advice for short and long-term strategies. For example: ""The best course of action is to actually not buy anything, but rather to reduce positions on a rebound," Faber ...

Marc Faber: Bull in the short term, bear in the long term - MarketWatch (blog)http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHfnXbptbLywfeYVmkyZmZ2DDp7HQ&url=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/25/marc-faber-bull-in-the-short-term-bear-in-the-long-term/tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/25/marc-faber-bull-in-the-short-term-bear-in-the-long-term/Tue, 25 Jun 2013 12:43:25 GMT

Marc Faber: Bull in the short term, bear in the long term
MarketWatch (blog)
... so perhaps it's best left to someone who has historically said “sell.” Marc Faber, author of the ”The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” and often called “Dr. Doom” because of his bearish sentiment, says there are buying opportunities — at least in the ...

Marc Faber: Gold a possible canary in the deflation coalmine - MarketWatch (blog)http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEdSfHdIZdAKgZSaeDMUqQz6Ac3lQ&url=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/24/marc-faber-gold-a-possible-canary-in-the-deflation-coalmine/tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/24/marc-faber-gold-a-possible-canary-in-the-deflation-coalmine/Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:53:27 GMT

Business Insider

Marc Faber: Gold a possible canary in the deflation coalmine
MarketWatch (blog)
Here's what Marc Faber, editor of Gloom Boom Doom report told MarketWatch in an email. “Maybe gold is signaling a deflationary collapse of all asset prices. If this were indeed the case I suppose I would rather own gold than government bonds, high ...
MARC FABER: The Way Things Are Going, Bernanke Will Have To Give Us 96 ...Business Insider
"Incredibly Bad Sentiment" Makes Gold & Bonds a Buy Says Marc Faber, as All ...FXstreet.com
“Sentiment on Gold and Bonds Incredibly Negative” – Marc Faber Predicts ...Gold and Silver Blog (blog)
Wall St. Cheat Sheet -Gold Seek
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Marc Faber Sees Further Downside - CNBC.comhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFjIRlyiY6AOMYxMkr6L_cy3PCHHA&url=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100833048tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100833048Fri, 21 Jun 2013 03:06:42 GMT

Marc Faber Sees Further Downside
CNBC.com
China's factory output weakened to a 9-month low today, and financials saw a huge sell-off today, with the FM traders; and The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report's Marc Faber, shares his economic outlook. There's plenty of room for the stock market to decline ...
Marc Faber: More S&P downside, commodities 'horrible'…except goldMarketWatch (blog)

all 3 news articles »
Marc Faber says 'thanks' to Bernanke - MarketWatch (blog)http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFw6FBq19Oa7Z-kgFqUTh6QhUwZIQ&url=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/18/marc-faber-says-thanks-to-bernanke/tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/18/marc-faber-says-thanks-to-bernanke/Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:33:27 GMT

Marc Faber says 'thanks' to Bernanke
MarketWatch (blog)
[An earlier version of this blog mistakenly attributed the comments to Marc Faber's blog. The original comments were made in an interview with Barron's on June 1. The comments were picked up Tuesday in a tracking blog that aggregates Faber's public ...

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Dr. Doom Marc Faber: Don't Bet on New Market Highs - CNBC.comhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGx2ZJJjiUcIAY7pGO0Re_QDfyyYg&url=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100788714tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100788714Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:51:19 GMT

Dr. Doom Marc Faber: Don't Bet on New Market Highs
CNBC.com
Faber said large cap stocks like McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart "have most likely peaked." However, he thinks there are still stocks that show strength that could continue to appreciate "because all the money flows into fewer and ...

Marc Faber Is Glad He Owned Stocks, Even As He Warned Everyone Of Stock ... - Business Insiderhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNH71e36wHy4eeVNx4RPd5hxby3MTw&url=http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-faber-owns-stocks-warns-of-doom-2013-6tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-faber-owns-stocks-warns-of-doom-2013-6Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:06:05 GMT

Marc Faber Is Glad He Owned Stocks, Even As He Warned Everyone Of Stock ...
Business Insider
"People with assets are all doomed, because prices are grossly inflated globally for stocks, bonds, and collectibles," says the investment advisor in a new interview published in this week's Barron's. But Faber is the first to admit that at least the ...

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Marc Faber notes liquidity squeeze depressing stocks but still buying gold - Gold Seekhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEQgrVW6FlfBnocMrK4PekR18WbBA&url=http://news.goldseek.com/PeterCooper/1371737040.phptag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://news.goldseek.com/PeterCooper/1371737040.phpThu, 20 Jun 2013 13:30:25 GMT

Marc Faber notes liquidity squeeze depressing stocks but still buying gold
Gold Seek
Famously contrarian in his approach, Dr. Faber is usually out of step with Wall Street but has an excellent reputation for calling the major market turns. He does not say he is shorting equities, though he notes emerging market equities and currencies ...

Cheerful Thoughts from Marc Faber - BullionVaulthttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEAa_NvXEnALAQETGbirjKhJF6Zlw&url=http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/marc-faber-060420134tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/marc-faber-060420134Tue, 04 Jun 2013 20:10:21 GMT

Cheerful Thoughts from Marc Faber
BullionVault
SWISS-BORN Marc Faber, who at age 24 earned his PhD. in economics magna cum laude from the University of Zurich, has lived in Hong Kong nearly 40 years. He worked in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong for White Weld & Co., an investment bank ...

and more »
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