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| Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
But is this what happened in our country? Well… I am actually starting to believe some of the methods used which are noted in John Perkins’ book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”. This is a must read for everyone!
The book is definitely the most controversial reading I have done after Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code. The only difference here is that it is non-fictional, in other wards everything that John Perkins claims happened while he was working as an economic hitman is backed up with many documents.
After scanning the internet over the last few days and tracing the books legitimacy, I am starting to fear from what I am learning… everything in his book is alarmingly true! The methods used by these so called hitmen, the documents backing up his stories and the information entailed in his book are absolutely shocking!
For those of you who do not know, John Perkins was for many years one of the world's top economists. He worked directly with the heads of the World Bank, IMF, and other global financial institutions. He quit his work about 20 years ago because morally and ethically, he felt it was wrong to play such a key role in creating world empire at the expense of the less advantaged around the world, or so he says. After being persuaded and even bribed not to write a book about his experiences, Perkins changed his mind and went ahead with his plans following the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
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 US 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, etc… (Notice which words have been highlighted in bold and then match them with what has happened in Greece over the last 18 months…. Coincidence?)
Now I know what some of you will think… I am dreaming conspiracy… but judge the facts for yourselves…
Globalisation, or the philosophy by the IMF and the World Bank, is nothing more than manipulation by the corpotacracy and the use of debt, bribery and political overthrow.
The basic scam is simple, put the country in debt through its own indiscretion, or by corrupting the leader of that country, and then impose conditionalities, structural adjustment policies, often consisting of the following:
Currency devaluation – If the value of a currency drops, so does everything valued in it. This makes indigenous resources available to predator countries at a more attractive price and a fraction of their actual worth.
Large financial cuts in social programs; these include the education and healthcare sectors, compromising the well-being and integrity of society, leaving the public venerable to exploitation.
Privatization of state-owned enterprises this means that socially important systems can be purchased and regulated by foreign corporations for profit.
Trade liberalisation – the opening up of economy through removing any restrictions on foreign trade. This allows for a number of abusive economic manifestations, such as trans-national corporations bringing in their own mass produced products under cutting the indigenous production and ruining local economies, lowering the competition of national economies by western imports,
Today countless farmers are out of work, they are unable to compete, because of large corporations.
Another variation is the creation of numerous seemingly unnoticed non-regulated, inhumane sweatshop factories, which take advantage of the imposed only adding even more economic hardship. Additionally due to production deregulation environmental destruction is perpetual as a country's resources are often exploited by the various corporations while outputting vast amounts of environmental pollution.
Furthermore a cursory glance at the World Bank performance record reveals that the institution that publically claims to help poor countries, and alleviate poverty, has done nothing but increase poverty and the wealth gap… while corporate profits soar!
In 1960 the income gap between 1/5 of the world’s people and the richest countries versus the fifth and the poorest countries was 30 to 1. By 1998 it was 74 to 1.
While global GMP rose 40 percent between 1970-1985 those in poverty actually increased by 17 percent. While from 1985 to 2000 those living on less than one dollar a day increased by 18 percent.
Even the joint economic committee of the US congress admitted that there is a mere 40 percent success rate of all World Bank projects.
It is important to understand that the World Bank or the IMF is a US bank and supports US interests for the United States holds veto power over decisions… as it is the largest provider of capital ad where did it get this money? You guessed it made it out of thin air… through a fractional reserve banking system
Of the world’s top 100 economies as based on annual GDP, 51 are corporations and 47 percent out of that 51 are US based.
The basic question after all of this would surely be why Greece?
In February 1998, reports flooded the news that a large concentration of radon was discovered in a market area of Thesprotia. What is radon? Radon is a radioactive element and for those who know, an indication of the existence of uranium. Right away officials began exploring the possibilities and discovered vast amounts in the areas of the Panagaio Mountain, Kavala, and Olympiada in Halkidiki. That is when Skopje friendly and multi-billionaire George Sorros moved in with his TVX Gold Mining Company and began exploiting the subsoil there for gold and uranium. (Yes, the same Soros who has profited highly from our economic crises!)
This development inspired many geologists and scientists to begin investigating other possible deposits. And they did. In fact they tied it together with a confidential report that was accidently published by the "Investor" newspaper on 23/2/96 –otherwise known in Greece as Ependitis-, concerning the results of measurements of IGME (the Hellenic Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration). The report at the time had said that Greece has immeasurable wealth in deposits of uranium and other rare metals, which are estimated at some 100 trillion drachmas! Yes… you heard correctly… 100 trillion! Meaning almost 270 + BILLION Euros!
The survey, which was signed by seven distinguished Greek geologists/scientist refers to the uranium deposits, which they claim are valued at some 300 million tonnes. It also refers to other rare minerals such as rutile, loutesio and lanthanum, which have very specific uses in the manufacturing of missile systems, but they only gave reference to deposits in the area of Kavala.
Uranium is a rare commodity and very expensive. IT is mainly used for the production of satellites and rockets. In the same report they also note that in their esteemed opinion this might even be the largest uranium deposit in the world. How valuable is enriched uranium? Are you sitting down…? The value of enriched uranium in 1998 was valued at 20.000 a gram…. Yes you heard correctly my friends. Twenty plus years later I am sure that price is more than double.
The same report also made reference to other minerals such as:
- Aluminum - Because France had reduced its production of aluminium at the time, Greece is now viewed as the largest producer of aluminium in Europe. It is the most abundant metallic element, and the third most abundant of all elements in the Earth’s crust, making up 8% of the crust by weight. Only silicon and oxygen are more plentiful.
- Bauxite - They also noted that our country is the largest producing European Union country of Bauxite. This mineral is used in the production of aircraft, electrical equipment, steel structures, etc. Bauxite is the name for a mixture of similar minerals that contain hydrated aluminium oxides. These minerals are gibbsite (Al(OH)), diaspore (AlO(OH)), and boehmite (AlO(OH)). Because it is a mixture of minerals, bauxite itself is a rock, not a mineral. Bauxite is reddish-brown, white, tan, and tan-yellow. It is dull to earthy in lustre and can look like clay or soil. Bauxite forms when silica in aluminium-bearing rocks (that is, rocks with a high content of the mineral feldspar) is washed away (leached). This weathering process occurs in tropical and subtropical weathering climates.
- Lignite - Lignite constitutes the most abundant type of coal in Greece and the most important of the Greek lignite deposits formed in shallow lakes and marshes of closed mountain basins (such as Ptolemais, Florina, Drama in Macedonia, northern Greece and Megalopolis in Peloponnesus, southern Greece). The lignite reserves are currently estimated at 6750 Mt, excluding the 4300 Mm of “Phillipi” peat in Macedonia. The Kozani-Ptolemais, Amynteo, Florina basins in Macedonia contain the largest amounts (about 64%) of the nation’s coal resources. These lignites, which are all already being exploited, have a very low calorific value and high ash and low sulphur contents. The lignite production for 1992 was over 54 Mt. the greatest centres of lignite production are in Macedonia, at the opencast mines of Ptolemais and Amynteo, and in Peloponnese, at the opencast mine of Megalopolis. The vast majority (98%) of the extracted lignite is used for electricity generation and feeds power plants which have a total capacity of 4533 MW. The lignite-based power plants account for more than 720f the total electricity generation of the country. Today, through detailed geological exploration and evaluation, efforts are being made to locate and develop other lignite deposits throughout Greece
- Manganese - Greece is the only country in the European Union that has vast underground deposits of manganese. The main deposits are found in Drama. There is no reference to its use or estimated worth. As a free element, manganese is a metal with important industrial metal alloy uses, particularly in stainless steels.
- Nikel: Greece is the only country in the European Union with substantial deposits of nickel in the subsoil. Nickel, iron and cobalt are the only three elements known to be ferro-magnetic and of the three, nickel is the least magnetic. When all three ferro-magnetic metals are alloyed together, an unusually strong magnet is created. This alloy conducts heat and electricity fairly well, but is not as good a conductor as pure silver or copper
- Magnesite: The magnesite exported by our country, covers almost 46% of total production in Western Europe. Uses include: refractory bricks, cement, etc.
- Chromite: Greece is the only EU country that has significant amounts of exploitable chromite. The most important deposits are located near Mt Kozani. This mineral is mainly used to produce stainless chalyva. Chromite is an iron chromium oxide mineral and the only ore of chromium metal. It is a mineral found in ultrabasic rocks such as peridotite. It is also found in serpentines and other metamorphic rocks derived from the alteration of ultrabasic rocks. It is a high temperature mineral often found in the lower parts of magma bodies from the fractional crystallization process
- Petroleum - According to research results, based on satellite maps, it is now an undisputed fact that there are rich deposits of oil in the Greek area east of the island of Thassos, in the Gulf of Thessaloniki, in the Dodecanese and in particular in the vicinity of Imia, in Zakynthos and Florina.
- Natural Gas – Greece has tremendous amounts of natural gas reserves. The most of which are estimated to be in the area between Greece and Cyprus, or around the island of Kastelorizo…. Where our prime minister so graciously announced to the world that the foreigners were going to come in and lend us moula to save us… Coincidence? More specifically, the moment Israel’s huge Leviathan natural gas deposit officially reared its head from the ocean last year it became perfectly clear that the energy and geopolitical balances in the region were dramatically going to change. The consensus, some would logically say, is that that this development offers major economic and strategic opportunities for Greece, right? Well… I don’t know if the present Greek government wants to break eggs with western interests in this area… and judging by what it has done so far, I am seriously questioning whether or not it is working in Greece’s favour. And I say this because the shifting energy map has almost overnight broken a decades-long taboo in Greece, largely due to Turkish+ then some threats, namely, the exploitation of the country’s oil and gas deposits. Now the debate has surfaced with a vengeance, with a loud chorus of opposition parties and scholars forcefully urging the government to declare Greece’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the 200-mile span in which a country has sovereign rights to exploit natural resources under the international law of the sea. Public discourse is fuelled by an announcement on February 2 by a researcher at the French oil and gas industry consultants Beicip-Franlab, which advises the Cypriot government, that a natural gas deposit that may match Leviathan lies at the border between the Cypriot and Greek EEZs.
Folks… things are not as they appear. NBC is owned by General Electric, ABC by Disney, CBS by Viacom, and CNN is part of the huge AOL Time Warner conglomerate. Most of our newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses in Greece as well as anywhere else in the world are owned - and manipulated- by gigantic international corporations. Our media is part of the corporatocracy, I know, I unfortunately worked for some of these people in the past. The officers and directors who control nearly all our communications outlets know their places; they are taught throughout life that one of their most important jobs is to perpetuate, strengthen, and expand the system they have inherited. They are very efficient at doing so, and when opposed, they can be ruthless.
Wake up everyone… there is no democracy… there is only IBM, AT&T, DuPont, Dow, and of course Exon… those are the nations of the world today….. Wall mart, General Motors and Exon are more economically powerful than Saudi Arabia, Poland, Norway South Africa, Finland, Indonesia, and many others.
If we take what is noted by Perkins in the book even more seriously and apply it to what has happened in Greece then… oh my God… everything begins to make sense!
So the burden falls on you to see the truth beneath the veneer and to expose it. Speak it to your family and friends; spread the word.
We need a revolution in our approach to education, to empower ourselves and our children to think, to question, and to dare to act. You can set an example. Be a teacher and a student; inspire everyone around you through your example.
We must never allow all these corporate assholes to create us into economic units whose only function is to behave and pay off their gambling debts to stock market hunches. We are not subjects, numbers and/or unfeeling machines… we are humans!
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