Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Confession it is...., 02 Jan 2008
An integral part of foreign policy is obviously economic ambition.
So, i figured this book may give a reasonable insight coming from the horses mouth, however, it is just that..reasonable and no more. It lacked indepth, specific details (there may well be good reasons for this) and seems to merely touch the surface. Far too much emphasis on Perkins` guilt although he always seemed to manage to deal with it for a few more years! People reading this really wont care too much with his personal struggle but then to be fair to Perkins..it is in the title!
Its a good first book which is easy to read and can help to assist being far more critical when reading other material.
I would recommend this but dont expect too much, and if you well advanced in the economic chess game of the world i`d give it a miss.

Personal account of corporate skullduggery, 18 Oct 2007
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal account of one man's moral awakening, set against a background of international high finance. The author, John M. Perkins, was a consultant for a consulting company that specialised in `assisting less developed countries to achieve their economic growth potential.' In reality, this involved saddling already impoverished populations with further debt that would cripple future generations. This book, though, is not a dry volume of econometrics or development studies but rather a personal journey from amoral corporate executive shill to a man who rediscovers his essential humanity.

Confessions... follows John Perkins career at Chas T. Main, Inc. (MAIN), and his involvement in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia. Crudely put, Perkins' job required him to undertake studies to prove that country X is on the cusp of an economic boom due to underexploited natural resources but that in order to achieve predicted growth rates of twenty per cent per year for the next five years, the country would require electricity generation stations and accompanying infrastructure (roads, hospitals et cetera) and accommodation for all the construction workers (these economic forecasts were deliberately and grossly exaggerated - low/accurate predictions would lead to less profit for MAIN and possibly even loss of one's job).

Once the World Bank signed off on the forecast, massive loans would be made to the government of country X so that it could afford to undertake such substantial projects. However, when Perkins' economic prophesies fell (far) short, the development firms would vacate and the populations of the countries involved would be left to make the debt repayments; their taxes now being used by the government to finance the interest on the loans, often not the capital itself, instead of investment in schools, healthcare and so forth.

These schemes often involved a transfer of funds from the World Bank to construction and consulting companies like Bechtel, Halliburton and MAIN. In essence, this was a gift from the taxpayer to the corporations, a welfare state for the super-rich, with the money never actually leaving the United States but being transferred directly from the accounts of the World Bank to the accounts of one of the above-mentioned firms (or others).

To quote from the book: "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. And the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], and the rest of the banks, corporations, and governments involved in international "aid" continue to tell us that they are doing their jobs, that progress has been made."

John Perkins (whose papers are still referenced in PhD economic classrooms) was instrumental in such corporate deceit; the more he lied, the more he was rewarded for his skills of consulting and persuasion. What Confessions of an Economic Hit Man relates is how one man woke from his dogmatic slumber, how a life of private corporate jets and five star hotels, huge salaries and exotic locations lost its allure when weighed against the social and environmental legacy that he was bequeathing to his daughter and to the planet as a whole. This is where the book is on its strongest footing, with the personal account. Where it is at its weakest, is on the mechanical details; exactly how Perkins achieved such feats of deception is never fully explained.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an easy read, written in a loose, intimate style, more reminiscent of an espionage thriller than a book covering parallel material, such as Joseph Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents. Get Perkins' book for the first-person perspective, get Stiglitz's book for the reform agenda and the academic interpretations of what's gone wrong. Taken together, these two books compliment each other commendably; for details of corporate deception and intrigue, John Perkins' testimony lacks sufficient minutiae but as a narrative of individual corruption, self-justification and ultimately, enlightenment - and which it should be read as such - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a success.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Confession it is...., 02 Jan 2008
An integral part of foreign policy is obviously economic ambition.
So, i figured this book may give a reasonable insight coming from the horses mouth, however, it is just that..reasonable and no more. It lacked indepth, specific details (there may well be good reasons for this) and seems to merely touch the surface. Far too much emphasis on Perkins` guilt although he always seemed to manage to deal with it for a few more years! People reading this really wont care too much with his personal struggle but then to be fair to Perkins..it is in the title!
Its a good first book which is easy to read and can help to assist being far more critical when reading other material.
I would recommend this but dont expect too much, and if you well advanced in the economic chess game of the world i`d give it a miss.

Personal account of corporate skullduggery, 18 Oct 2007
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal account of one man's moral awakening, set against a background of international high finance. The author, John M. Perkins, was a consultant for a consulting company that specialised in `assisting less developed countries to achieve their economic growth potential.' In reality, this involved saddling already impoverished populations with further debt that would cripple future generations. This book, though, is not a dry volume of econometrics or development studies but rather a personal journey from amoral corporate executive shill to a man who rediscovers his essential humanity.

Confessions... follows John Perkins career at Chas T. Main, Inc. (MAIN), and his involvement in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia. Crudely put, Perkins' job required him to undertake studies to prove that country X is on the cusp of an economic boom due to underexploited natural resources but that in order to achieve predicted growth rates of twenty per cent per year for the next five years, the country would require electricity generation stations and accompanying infrastructure (roads, hospitals et cetera) and accommodation for all the construction workers (these economic forecasts were deliberately and grossly exaggerated - low/accurate predictions would lead to less profit for MAIN and possibly even loss of one's job).

Once the World Bank signed off on the forecast, massive loans would be made to the government of country X so that it could afford to undertake such substantial projects. However, when Perkins' economic prophesies fell (far) short, the development firms would vacate and the populations of the countries involved would be left to make the debt repayments; their taxes now being used by the government to finance the interest on the loans, often not the capital itself, instead of investment in schools, healthcare and so forth.

These schemes often involved a transfer of funds from the World Bank to construction and consulting companies like Bechtel, Halliburton and MAIN. In essence, this was a gift from the taxpayer to the corporations, a welfare state for the super-rich, with the money never actually leaving the United States but being transferred directly from the accounts of the World Bank to the accounts of one of the above-mentioned firms (or others).

To quote from the book: "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. And the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], and the rest of the banks, corporations, and governments involved in international "aid" continue to tell us that they are doing their jobs, that progress has been made."

John Perkins (whose papers are still referenced in PhD economic classrooms) was instrumental in such corporate deceit; the more he lied, the more he was rewarded for his skills of consulting and persuasion. What Confessions of an Economic Hit Man relates is how one man woke from his dogmatic slumber, how a life of private corporate jets and five star hotels, huge salaries and exotic locations lost its allure when weighed against the social and environmental legacy that he was bequeathing to his daughter and to the planet as a whole. This is where the book is on its strongest footing, with the personal account. Where it is at its weakest, is on the mechanical details; exactly how Perkins achieved such feats of deception is never fully explained.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an easy read, written in a loose, intimate style, more reminiscent of an espionage thriller than a book covering parallel material, such as Joseph Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents. Get Perkins' book for the first-person perspective, get Stiglitz's book for the reform agenda and the academic interpretations of what's gone wrong. Taken together, these two books compliment each other commendably; for details of corporate deception and intrigue, John Perkins' testimony lacks sufficient minutiae but as a narrative of individual corruption, self-justification and ultimately, enlightenment - and which it should be read as such - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a success.

This is the definative work on this subject, 09 Oct 2008
This book is the best on the market in my view, the author Constance Brown clearly knows her business. Once I had started the book I could not put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. An easy to read work the style is excellent, the content is first rate. Indeed may people will be very surprised to learn they are actually using Fibonacci incorectly and have been doing so for many years.

Well worth the money as this book is a classic.

John

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Confession it is...., 02 Jan 2008
An integral part of foreign policy is obviously economic ambition.
So, i figured this book may give a reasonable insight coming from the horses mouth, however, it is just that..reasonable and no more. It lacked indepth, specific details (there may well be good reasons for this) and seems to merely touch the surface. Far too much emphasis on Perkins` guilt although he always seemed to manage to deal with it for a few more years! People reading this really wont care too much with his personal struggle but then to be fair to Perkins..it is in the title!
Its a good first book which is easy to read and can help to assist being far more critical when reading other material.
I would recommend this but dont expect too much, and if you well advanced in the economic chess game of the world i`d give it a miss.

Personal account of corporate skullduggery, 18 Oct 2007
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal account of one man's moral awakening, set against a background of international high finance. The author, John M. Perkins, was a consultant for a consulting company that specialised in `assisting less developed countries to achieve their economic growth potential.' In reality, this involved saddling already impoverished populations with further debt that would cripple future generations. This book, though, is not a dry volume of econometrics or development studies but rather a personal journey from amoral corporate executive shill to a man who rediscovers his essential humanity.

Confessions... follows John Perkins career at Chas T. Main, Inc. (MAIN), and his involvement in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia. Crudely put, Perkins' job required him to undertake studies to prove that country X is on the cusp of an economic boom due to underexploited natural resources but that in order to achieve predicted growth rates of twenty per cent per year for the next five years, the country would require electricity generation stations and accompanying infrastructure (roads, hospitals et cetera) and accommodation for all the construction workers (these economic forecasts were deliberately and grossly exaggerated - low/accurate predictions would lead to less profit for MAIN and possibly even loss of one's job).

Once the World Bank signed off on the forecast, massive loans would be made to the government of country X so that it could afford to undertake such substantial projects. However, when Perkins' economic prophesies fell (far) short, the development firms would vacate and the populations of the countries involved would be left to make the debt repayments; their taxes now being used by the government to finance the interest on the loans, often not the capital itself, instead of investment in schools, healthcare and so forth.

These schemes often involved a transfer of funds from the World Bank to construction and consulting companies like Bechtel, Halliburton and MAIN. In essence, this was a gift from the taxpayer to the corporations, a welfare state for the super-rich, with the money never actually leaving the United States but being transferred directly from the accounts of the World Bank to the accounts of one of the above-mentioned firms (or others).

To quote from the book: "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. And the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], and the rest of the banks, corporations, and governments involved in international "aid" continue to tell us that they are doing their jobs, that progress has been made."

John Perkins (whose papers are still referenced in PhD economic classrooms) was instrumental in such corporate deceit; the more he lied, the more he was rewarded for his skills of consulting and persuasion. What Confessions of an Economic Hit Man relates is how one man woke from his dogmatic slumber, how a life of private corporate jets and five star hotels, huge salaries and exotic locations lost its allure when weighed against the social and environmental legacy that he was bequeathing to his daughter and to the planet as a whole. This is where the book is on its strongest footing, with the personal account. Where it is at its weakest, is on the mechanical details; exactly how Perkins achieved such feats of deception is never fully explained.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an easy read, written in a loose, intimate style, more reminiscent of an espionage thriller than a book covering parallel material, such as Joseph Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents. Get Perkins' book for the first-person perspective, get Stiglitz's book for the reform agenda and the academic interpretations of what's gone wrong. Taken together, these two books compliment each other commendably; for details of corporate deception and intrigue, John Perkins' testimony lacks sufficient minutiae but as a narrative of individual corruption, self-justification and ultimately, enlightenment - and which it should be read as such - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a success.

This is the definative work on this subject, 09 Oct 2008
This book is the best on the market in my view, the author Constance Brown clearly knows her business. Once I had started the book I could not put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. An easy to read work the style is excellent, the content is first rate. Indeed may people will be very surprised to learn they are actually using Fibonacci incorectly and have been doing so for many years.

Well worth the money as this book is a classic.

John


Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Confession it is...., 02 Jan 2008
An integral part of foreign policy is obviously economic ambition.
So, i figured this book may give a reasonable insight coming from the horses mouth, however, it is just that..reasonable and no more. It lacked indepth, specific details (there may well be good reasons for this) and seems to merely touch the surface. Far too much emphasis on Perkins` guilt although he always seemed to manage to deal with it for a few more years! People reading this really wont care too much with his personal struggle but then to be fair to Perkins..it is in the title!
Its a good first book which is easy to read and can help to assist being far more critical when reading other material.
I would recommend this but dont expect too much, and if you well advanced in the economic chess game of the world i`d give it a miss.

Personal account of corporate skullduggery, 18 Oct 2007
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal account of one man's moral awakening, set against a background of international high finance. The author, John M. Perkins, was a consultant for a consulting company that specialised in `assisting less developed countries to achieve their economic growth potential.' In reality, this involved saddling already impoverished populations with further debt that would cripple future generations. This book, though, is not a dry volume of econometrics or development studies but rather a personal journey from amoral corporate executive shill to a man who rediscovers his essential humanity.

Confessions... follows John Perkins career at Chas T. Main, Inc. (MAIN), and his involvement in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia. Crudely put, Perkins' job required him to undertake studies to prove that country X is on the cusp of an economic boom due to underexploited natural resources but that in order to achieve predicted growth rates of twenty per cent per year for the next five years, the country would require electricity generation stations and accompanying infrastructure (roads, hospitals et cetera) and accommodation for all the construction workers (these economic forecasts were deliberately and grossly exaggerated - low/accurate predictions would lead to less profit for MAIN and possibly even loss of one's job).

Once the World Bank signed off on the forecast, massive loans would be made to the government of country X so that it could afford to undertake such substantial projects. However, when Perkins' economic prophesies fell (far) short, the development firms would vacate and the populations of the countries involved would be left to make the debt repayments; their taxes now being used by the government to finance the interest on the loans, often not the capital itself, instead of investment in schools, healthcare and so forth.

These schemes often involved a transfer of funds from the World Bank to construction and consulting companies like Bechtel, Halliburton and MAIN. In essence, this was a gift from the taxpayer to the corporations, a welfare state for the super-rich, with the money never actually leaving the United States but being transferred directly from the accounts of the World Bank to the accounts of one of the above-mentioned firms (or others).

To quote from the book: "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. And the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], and the rest of the banks, corporations, and governments involved in international "aid" continue to tell us that they are doing their jobs, that progress has been made."

John Perkins (whose papers are still referenced in PhD economic classrooms) was instrumental in such corporate deceit; the more he lied, the more he was rewarded for his skills of consulting and persuasion. What Confessions of an Economic Hit Man relates is how one man woke from his dogmatic slumber, how a life of private corporate jets and five star hotels, huge salaries and exotic locations lost its allure when weighed against the social and environmental legacy that he was bequeathing to his daughter and to the planet as a whole. This is where the book is on its strongest footing, with the personal account. Where it is at its weakest, is on the mechanical details; exactly how Perkins achieved such feats of deception is never fully explained.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an easy read, written in a loose, intimate style, more reminiscent of an espionage thriller than a book covering parallel material, such as Joseph Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents. Get Perkins' book for the first-person perspective, get Stiglitz's book for the reform agenda and the academic interpretations of what's gone wrong. Taken together, these two books compliment each other commendably; for details of corporate deception and intrigue, John Perkins' testimony lacks sufficient minutiae but as a narrative of individual corruption, self-justification and ultimately, enlightenment - and which it should be read as such - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a success.

This is the definative work on this subject, 09 Oct 2008
This book is the best on the market in my view, the author Constance Brown clearly knows her business. Once I had started the book I could not put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. An easy to read work the style is excellent, the content is first rate. Indeed may people will be very surprised to learn they are actually using Fibonacci incorectly and have been doing so for many years.

Well worth the money as this book is a classic.

John


Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

amazing book, by far the best rigorous introduction on the subject, 30 May 2007
This is an excellent book, precise, rigorous and damn interesting.

Although I would recommend a good mathematical background almost all you need is included and some more advanced optional chapters are here to statisfy the mathematically inclined reader.
There are a few typos in the book, but nothing an attentive reader couldn't correct immediatly so it doesn't spoil any of it.
If you are looking for an introduction to modern financial maths, this is THE title to get.

The only "interesting" one in this area, 21 Nov 2006
This book is highly recommended by my professer and past students. It covers everything you need to know about financial application of stocastical method. And the most important point is, this book is interesting!

A very good book to understand derivatives pricing, 19 Jan 1999
The book by T. Bjork illustrates how to price derivatives, and how term structure models work. It applies a consistent and modern approach to this tasks, starting by explaining the maths which is required to understand modern finance (without using a purely mathematical perspective) and moving on to illustrate pricing problems in order of difficulty. The author explains all the main models (Black and Scholes, Black, Vasiceck, CIR, etc.) and the main approaches to pricing (risk neutral pricing and change of numeraire techniques). Used in conjuction with Hull (which is a very good introduction) this book can really alow one to understand the foundations of modern financial theory without going into abstract mathematical models.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Confession it is...., 02 Jan 2008
An integral part of foreign policy is obviously economic ambition.
So, i figured this book may give a reasonable insight coming from the horses mouth, however, it is just that..reasonable and no more. It lacked indepth, specific details (there may well be good reasons for this) and seems to merely touch the surface. Far too much emphasis on Perkins` guilt although he always seemed to manage to deal with it for a few more years! People reading this really wont care too much with his personal struggle but then to be fair to Perkins..it is in the title!
Its a good first book which is easy to read and can help to assist being far more critical when reading other material.
I would recommend this but dont expect too much, and if you well advanced in the economic chess game of the world i`d give it a miss.

Personal account of corporate skullduggery, 18 Oct 2007
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a personal account of one man's moral awakening, set against a background of international high finance. The author, John M. Perkins, was a consultant for a consulting company that specialised in `assisting less developed countries to achieve their economic growth potential.' In reality, this involved saddling already impoverished populations with further debt that would cripple future generations. This book, though, is not a dry volume of econometrics or development studies but rather a personal journey from amoral corporate executive shill to a man who rediscovers his essential humanity.

Confessions... follows John Perkins career at Chas T. Main, Inc. (MAIN), and his involvement in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia. Crudely put, Perkins' job required him to undertake studies to pro