NYT Business: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and more on the way

[chimpymustgo]

I know this has gotten some discussion on the board, but seeing the Wellstone (and other) plane crash deaths questioned on the front page of the NYT business section, I thought, merited a post. And the article looks at a spate of new books coming out from "insiders" on the raping and plundering by the corporatocracy. It's long, and scary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/business/yourmoney/19confess.html

February 19, 2006
Tapping Fears of Big Business

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Chicago

IT is standing room only in Transitions, a New Age bookstore in Chicago, and John M. Perkins, the author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," is describing to his audience the quandary that faces Evo Morales, the recently elected president of Bolivia.

Leaning low into the microphone, Mr. Perkins affects a deep conspiratorial whisper as he sets the scene for the imagined encounter between the new president and the representative of the multinational corporate interests Mr. Morales had vilified during his campaign.

"Congratulations Mr. President," Mr. Perkins says, assuming the role of the businessman, or economic hit man, as he likes to call his previous profession. "I just want you to know that in this hand I have a couple of hundred million dollars for you and your family if you play the game our way." With the practiced timing of an expert storyteller, Mr. Perkins pauses. "And in this hand I have a gun with a bullet in case you decide to keep your campaign promises."

As the rapt crowd clucks and murmurs as if let in on an unspeakable confidence, Mr. Perkins cautions that he is speaking metaphorically. But for an audience already punch drunk on Mr. Perkins's very own tales of corporate skullduggery, his allegory — overripe though it may be — carries not only a ring of truth but also clues to a long history of unexplained endings.

"And what about those crashes of J.F.K. Jr. and Paul Wellstone?" a woman in the audience asks. "They were awfully suspicious."

Yes, Mr. Perkins says with a nod, and reels off the deaths of others in airplane crashes: Gen. Omar Torrijos, the former president of Panama, in 1981; Jaime Roldos Aguilera, the president of Ecuador, also in 1981; and even Senator John G. Tower, the Republican from Texas, who perished with 22 others on a commercial flight in 1991. "We have had a lot of plane crashes," Mr. Perkins says ominously.

Mr. Perkins's core message is that American corporations and government agencies employ two types of operatives: "economic hit men," who bribe emerging economies, and "jackals," who may be used to overthrow or even murder heads of state in Latin America and the Middle East to serve the greater cause of American empire. During an earlier time, that message might have been mere fodder for conspiracy theorists and fringe publishers. But now, for all of Mr. Perkins's talk of fiery plane crashes and corporate intrigue, his book seems to have tapped into a larger vein of discontent and mistrust that Americans feel toward the ties that bind together corporations, large lending institutions and the government — a nexus that Mr. Perkins and others call the "corporatocracy."

-snip-

[latebloomer]

1. That article sucked!

From start to finish it tried to cast aspersions upon Perkins' assertions, and make out that the many people who are reading it are stupid or gullible.

The book is #5 on the NYT bestseller list, so they have to pay attention to it-- so they essentially trash it. Guess they find it very threatening.

[chimpymustgo]

2. Agreed. Snarky tone. But the very fact that the NYT HAD to address the

book - and the millions of people who have read it, and are on to the massive thievery - is notable.

[latebloomer]

3. Yes, it is pretty amazing

that it's the lead story of the Sunday business page.

Nevertheless, it is extremely derisive-- he practically comes out and calls Perkins a liar-- makes a comparison to James Frey..

[chimpymustgo]

4. I took it more as "guilt by association", raising just enough questions

about Perkins' credibility to cast doubt, if one had that proclivity. But I think the totalitity of the article leaves little question that what Perkins - and other former insiders - claim is happening right before our very eyes.

[1932]

5. This was funny:

Michael M. Thomas, a former investment banker and novelist of Wall Street manners, says a book's success will often be determined more by its voice than its subject. And for now, Mr. Perkins's message of conspiracy carries the perfect pitch for many readers — no matter how fantastic his conclusions may be.

"The odd side of our character is that we believe that dark powers are arranged against us — call it the Da Vinci codes of finance," Mr. Thomas said. "But really, I never heard of anybody being assassinated for lack of taking a loan."

Wall St investment banker skeptical. Never heard of anyone assassinated for (the narrowest possible reason) not taking a loan. I'm not sure the book argues the case so narrowly. It's not that they don't take a loan. It's that they don't run their countries for the benefit of the US.

Indeed, for all the book's success, Mr. Perkins has faced numerous questions about the veracity of some of his dreamier contentions. Earlier this month, for example, the State Department released a brief report called "Confessions — or Fantasies — of an Economic Hit Man" that took issue with one of Mr. Perkins' primary assertions: that the National Security Agency, with a wink and a nod, was aware of and may even have approved Mr. Perkins's hiring at Main.

I think it's most telling that Bush's state department felt the need to rebut the book. And why the word "dreamier" to discribe Perkins's statements? Anyway, my impression from reading the book is that this point wasn't even a contention. Perkins says that he had no idea who employed the woman who trained him. He merely hypothesizes that it was the NSA. He doesnt' contend that she worked for the NSA. The only thing Perkins contends about her is that he later discovered she didn't work at Mains. Perhaps the author of the article could have addressed that?