Economic Hit Man = Ah Long ?

I spent the entire Sunday afternoon at my neighborhood Starbucks reading the paperback version of John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man over the Toffee Nut Latte. 

What amuses me when reading this book is that when I read The Sunday Times, which featured some articles on Ah Long; I can't help but noticing the resemblance between the micro (Ah Long) and macro (Economic Hit Man, EHM) version of loan shark.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from the book's prologue describing what EHM does.

" That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy that runs our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, we provide favors.

These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure—electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. One condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco."

Can you imagine the extend of chaos if Ah Long dictates the entire business chain; for example dictating business borrowers' source of raw materials, etc!

Here's en excerpt from the book.

Comments

[Natalie]

You read a lot. That's awesome. I should follow your example. Sometimes my head hurts so much from work, I find myself in the weekend engrossed in the Zen of folding laundry.