Tuesday, March 5, 2013

John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Now that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is dead, talking heads are yapping about how great it would be if Venezuela "opens up to the world" -- i.e. allows the developed world to go in there and get its oil.

It reminded me of John Perkins' Economic Hit Man youtube video.

General Overview of his book:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is John Perkins' fast-paced autobiography, which reveals his career as an economist for an international consulting firm. Perkins says he was actually an "Economic Hit Man." His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the United States to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to U.S. corporations.

Perkins takes the reader through his career and explains how he created economic projections for countries to accept billions of dollars in loans they surely couldn't afford. He shares his battle with his conscience over these actions and offers advice for how Americans can work to end these practices which have directly resulted in terrorist attacks and animosity towards the United States.

What Is An Economic Hit Man?

Perkins defines economic hit men as "highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign ‘aid' organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization."



Source: http://www.wanttoknow.info/johnperkinseconomichitman
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiAMN5awLYw
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/05/us-venezuela-chavez-idUSBRE92405420130305

Monday, March 4, 2013

China's Housing Bubble, Only One Way to End...

Hopefully you're not an owner of multiple Chinese condos. Hopefully you won't be impacted when the savings of millions of its middle-class are wiped out when the bubble bursts. Hopefully you don't work at a co. or own shares of a co. that exports to China (2011 exports from the US to China were over $100 billion). Or hopefully, this is not a bubble. Or hopefully, this is a bubble and will not burst.

Keep up the good hope.




Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50142079n
Source: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
Source: https://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html

See more: http://stockuponcannedgoods.blogspot.com/2012/04/ghost-towns-of-china.html

DJIA and S&P500 Toppy?

Dow Jones Industrial Average:


S&P 500:


Think back to 2000 (Internet craze) and 2007 (America's largest housing bubble). What do we have in 2013? Perhaps it's the Fed's 3 trillion dollar money-printing fest fueling search for yield as it has driven down interest rates to historic lows attempting to reflate the housing market.

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-01/bubble-margin
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-stocks-likely-to-crater-2013-2