Sunday, June 17, 2012

Who Knew? June 14 Was Economic Hit Man Day

On June 14, U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the world celebrated "Global Economic Statecraft Day".

In a DipNote, Hillary Clinton explains the monstrous global meddling initiative, here.

John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man reported on what really goes down:
Quito, Ecuador’s capital, stretches across a volcanic valley high in the Andes, at an altitude of nine thousand feet. Residents of this city, which was founded long before Columbus arrived in the Americas, are accustomed to seeing snow on the surrounding peaks, despite the fact that they live just a few miles south of the equator. The city of Shell, a frontier outpost and military base hacked out of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle to service the oil company whose name it bears, is nearly eight thousand feet lower than Quito. A steaming city, it is inhabited mostly by soldiers, oil workers, and the indigenous people from the Shuar and Kichwa tribes who work for them as prostitutes and laborers.

To journey from one city to the other, you must travel a road that is both tortuous and breathtaking. Local people will tell you that during the trip you experience all four seasons in a single day. Although I have driven this road many times, I never tire of the spectacular scenery. Sheer cliffs, punctuated by cascading waterfalls and brilliant bromeliads, rise up one side. On the other side, the earth drops abruptly into a deep abyss where the Pastaza River, a headwater of the Amazon, snakes its way down the Andes. The Pastaza carries water from the glaciers of Cotopaxi, one of the world’s highest active volcanoes and a deity in the time of the Incas, to the Atlantic Ocean over three thousand miles away.

In 2003, I departed Quito in a Subaru Outback and headed for Shell on a mission that was like no other I had ever accepted. I was hoping to end a war I had helped create. As is the case with so many things we EHMs must take responsibility for, it is a war that is virtually unknown anywhere outside the country where it is fought. I was on my way to meet with the Shuars, the Kichwas, and their neighbors the Achuars, the Zaparos, and the Shiwiars—tribes determined to prevent our oil companies from destroying their homes, families, and lands, even if it means they must die in the process. For them, this is a war about the survival of their children and cultures, while for us it is about power, money, and natural resources. It is one part of the struggle for world domination and the dream of a few greedy men, global empire.

That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure —electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.

Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money—and another country is added to our global empire.

Read more here.

4 comments:

  1. "EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure"
    Who is agreeing to the loans? Nobody?

    It just seems like an odd way to do it if that's the case. I mean if the government/banks/etc. just want the resources why don't they just take them and not "develop infrastructure" as a "favor"? What is the purpose in the farce of offering the loan that you want them to default on?

    The problem with a book like this to me is that it's not specific enough for me to know if it's just a hatchet job or if it's genuine. The missing details are important.

    Now on this point here..
    "like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh."
    I think we all agree that defaulting on a loan doesn't mean someone has a right to take anything not used as collateral for the loan, and in that way I think say it's "like the Mafia" is correct if that's the way things are happening.

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    1. Duh! Have you been paying attention to what has been going on in the eurozone?

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    2. You'll have a harder time extracting resources without first developing some amount of infrastructure (water, roads, power, et al).

      Now on this point here...approval and comparison are two different things.
      Simply comparing someone or something to "the Mafia" (or anything else) does not alone indicate approval of "the Mafia" (or anything else).
      But beyond that, the context and usage of the phrase "like the Mafia" clearly demonstrate that the author disapproves of "the Mafia", its actions, and at least some actions resembling those of "the Mafia."

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    3. I agree with you on a reason for infrastructure, what I'm saying is.. if you don't really care who you screw over why hold back by only going after them if they default on loans? It seems a little odd. I'm skeptical of everybody. I'm an ancap, and I certainly "hate the state" but when I read things like the above I don't just unthinkingly accept the argument if some things seem off to me.

      It's not that I think the scenario can't be made plausible, but I don't really follow the logic of it with the details it has.

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