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ECONOMIC Hit MEN AND THE GLOBAL CORPORATOCRACY MEN ECONOMIC HIT AND THE GLOBAL CORPORATOCRACY Having once helped to overthrow Third World leaders for the sake of corporate profits, John Perkins now campaigns to convince corporations to become economically, socially and environmentally responsible. ohn Perkins worked from 1971 to 1981 for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main, where he was a self-confessed "economic hit man". Amy Goodman interviewed him on 5 June for the radio/TV news program Democracy Now!, and following is an edited transcript. — Editor. Amy Goodman (AG): Hundreds of thousands of protesters are gathering in Germany ahead of tomorrow's [6 June's] G8 meeting of the world's richest nations. The three-day summit is being held in the coastal resort of Heiligendamm. German police have spent US$18 million to erect an 12-kilometre-long, two-metre-high fence around the meeting site. Global warming will be high on the agenda. Going into the meeting, President Bush has proposed to sideline the UN-backed Kyoto accords and set voluntary targets on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Other top issues will include foreign aid and new trade deals. Today, we spend the hour with a man who claims to have worked deep inside the forces driving corporate globalisation. 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 favourable 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. Welcome to Democracy Now!. John Perkins (JP): Thank you, Amy. It's great to be here. AG: 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? JP: 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 organisations. The money never actually goes to the country. It goes instead to US corporations, who build big infrastructure projects—power grids, industrial parks, harbours, 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 debt 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." AG: Explain your history. What made you an economic hit man? JP: 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 organisation. AG: People sometimes think the CIA is that, but the NSA is many times larger. JP: Yeah, it is larger. It's much larger. At least it was in those days. And it's very, very secretive. There's a lot of rumours. We know quite a lot about the CIA, I think, but we know Interview with John Perkins by Amy Goodman 5 June 2007 from Democracy Now! Webpage: http:/Awww.democracynow.org/ article.pl?sid=07/06/05/149254 by Amy Goodman 5 June 2007 from Democracy Now! Webpage: http://www.democracynow.org/ article.pI?sid=07/06/05/149254 NEXUS = 11 THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE Interview with John Perkins AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com