[lit-ideas] Economics 101
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 22:59:58 -0800
JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main
in Boston,
Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist.
But my real
job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much
bigger than
they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan-let's say a $1
billion to a
country like Indonesia or Ecuador-and this country would then have to give
ninety percent of
that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the
infrastructure-a
Halliburton or a Bechtel. Those companies would then go in and build an
electrical system or
ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very
wealthiest
families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck
ultimately
with this amazing debt that they couldn't possibly repay. A country today like
Ecuador owes
over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it
really can't do
it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go
to Ecuador
and say, "Look, you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil
companies your
Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil." So we make this big loan, most
of it comes
back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of
interest, and they
basically become our servants, our slaves.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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