Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins goes over, well, the confessions of a hit man. However, not the hit man that most are likely to envision first when they hear of that term. Yes, a hit man has a goal of taking out a selected target, usually via stealth with James Bond type weapons. You know, stuff we see in the movies. But how does a hit man take out an entire country? Sure, you could take out the president or other high ranking officials to even the military. But how do you go one step further? What if you wanted that country to be indebted to you going forward? How do you force that country to not just say yes to your every whim, but to continue pumping money into your own country’s economy to benefit big corporations and the government? The answer to that question is debt. A lot of debt. Oh, and sprinkle in a bit of fear in the mix as well, and you’ve got yourself a country to help enrich your own regardless of what the consequences are.

This book can be considered and called a lot of things such as an eye-opener, shocking, horrifying and unbelievable. To me, I’d like to describe it as just wild. Politics in my opinion has always been fascinating for those who take the time to read and dissect it a bit. It’s equally fascinating to learn how a country such as big as the United States and China use strategies such as described here by an actual economic hit man to literally enslave other smaller countries by shackling them with billions and billions of debt, all in the name of prosperity. So much sounds good on paper but as discussed and confessed here, it rarely works as advertised and the horrifying thing is that millions of lives are affected for the worse yet only a very, very select few benefits. It’s the usual case of corporate greed and corruption, but done from a much more massive level.

This is truly a must-read for anyone wanting to learn how and why geopolitics are playing out the way they are in this modern day and age. The China chapters specifically was something I very much looked forward to. It’s not really a secret that China is gearing up to take over the United States as the world’s number one economy. It’s just a matter of when. The tactics used to accomplish this lofty goal has been refined and tweaked from the tactics used by the United States in earlier decades. The author points out how China is taking advantage of the mistakes that the United States made, along with their seemingly complacency in simply letting China do whatever it wants without hitting back.

As I write this very review, the world found out that the Iranian president has been confirmed dead due to a helicopter crash in foggy weather. Having just read the book and recounting the conspiracy theories on how the United States in the past have had a hand in terminating certain high profile individuals who did not conform to their demands and wishes having also died in similar airplane crashes, reading this in the news literally gave me goosebumps. One does not need to be familiar with economics or even politics to enjoy this confession novel. With its third edition recently published, the author is able to give his thoughts and insights on the economic hit man strategy is still being employed today by China and how it is so impossible to stop. Those few chapters are worth it alone.