Some Future Day

Marc: [00:00:00] John Perkins is THE economic hitman. A conman. Perkins arranged meetings with world leaders specifically to create debt traps. Death economies. When the world leaders failed to comply, it was made clear that Perkins had serious force behind him. He calls them his jackals.
John Perkins: Here in one hand, I've got a few billions of dollars for them.
And if they play the game, and if they don't, in this hand I got a gun.
Marc: John Perkins was a chief economist who leveraged the World Bank, the United Nations, and the IMF. to extract valuable resources around the globe in regions like the Middle East and South America. His actions expanded wealth inequality, and as a result, there was an assassination attempt on John's life.
John Perkins: All of this sort of stuff is tough on the psyche. I had to deal a lot. One of the reasons I got out was [00:01:00] finally my conscience, I understood what I was doing.
Marc: The United States has been exploiting various regions of the world for decades. Now, China is following and setting debt traps across Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and beyond.
John, thank you for joining me on this episode of Some Future Day. Your story is truly one of a kind.
John Perkins, thank you for joining me on Some Future Day. It's really such a pleasure to have you today.
John Perkins: It's my pleasure to be with you, Mark. I'm a big fan of
Marc: your work. Looking forward to this. Thank you so much. So John, let's start from my audience. Um, let's start from the beginning and lay a foundation so they understand where we are going.
Ultimately here. Um, it's interesting. You had some very prestigious titles such as chief economic economist. Um, you are an advisor to the World Bank, to the United Nations, to the [00:02:00] IMF, but ultimately what we're talking about here is you being an economic hitman. What is an economic hitman?
John Perkins: That's, uh, yeah.
So I think it's fair to say that essentially, we economic hitmen have created A system today that isn't working very well, but we, what we call a death economy and, but really how we did this and my job was to identify countries that had resources. Our corporations wanted like oil and I had a staff of up to 50 people involved working for me, but we would go in and then convince this country to take huge loan from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations.
The money never actually went to the country. It went to U. S. corporations to build huge infrastructure projects in the country, power plants, uh, transmission lines, highways, ports, airports, these sorts of things that [00:03:00] made a lot of money for U. S. corporations that built them, the Bechtels and Halliburtons and Brown and Roots and Stone and Websters of the United States.
And they also, uh, brought in a lot of money to the, to the, to the people who ran the country, who owned the industries, who owned the commercial establishments. And also, we would give them a lot of perks for doing this, really bribes, but they were legal bribes, like offering their children. Uh, scholarships to colleges in the United States, arranging for them to get into colleges in the United States.
We, we've, our headquarters was Boston. We had really good connections with some great colleges in that area. So these were bribes, but they were legal, you know, giving scholarships.
Marc: Wow. Incredible. And if you're mentioning Boston, I'm sure it's Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College, really some of the most noteworthy academic institutions in the history of America.
John Perkins: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And we could get them in, and most of the scholars were [00:04:00] happy to accept the sons of presidents of countries anyway. And we gave them scholarships, and then brag about it to the Boston Globe. We gave a million dollars last year, the scholarships, for people from poor countries. We didn't bother to mention that they were The families that didn't really need the scholarships.
But anyway, so anyway, we'd go in and we convinced the countries to take these huge loans that would benefit the wealthy families. And at the time, I thought it was benefiting everyone because having graduated from business school and read the World Bank literature, I thought that these projects increased GDP, gross domestic product, which they do.
Uh, and I thought that meant they increased the prosperity of the people, which I would learn later, learn later. They don't necessarily, GDP is not a measure of prosperity in a country, it's a measure of how well the wealthy are doing and the big corporations and the international corporations. But in any case, so these loans then would be used to pay our corporations to build these infrastructure projects.
At some point, [00:05:00] the loan couldn't be paid off. So we'd go in and ask for the collateral, which was the oil, or whatever the particular resource of that country was. I asked that they allow us to build a military, that the United States to build a military base on their soil, or vote with us in the next United Nations vote against Cuba, or China, or whatever.
So we were really creating an empire through Debt, you know, it's what's called the debt trap, uh, because put these countries into debt and then demand a pound of flesh from them. And my job was pretty easy, Mark, because these presidents knew, I, here in one hand, I've got a few bit million, today would be billions of dollars for them.
And if they play the game, and if they don't, in this hand I got a gun. which were the jackals. I didn't carry a gun, but there were people behind me. The presidents knew this. They knew what had happened to Allende in Chile, overthrown, and the coups and, and [00:06:00] assassinations, Mosaddegh of Iran, Lumumba of the Congo, Diem of Vietnam.
These are things we've admitted to as a country where we have done these sorts of things. So, you know, here, take a lot of money, or So john, you know,
Marc: I
John Perkins: read
Marc: the book. I actually, I have it here. I wanted to show the audience because it's one of the most fascinating reads I've ever experienced in my life.
Um, but you're hitting on a lot of topics that are complicated. So for my audience sake, do you mind if I back up a second and just ask you like you, you, you fancied yourself a chief economist, a very sexy title. But then in the book, you refer to yourself as a con man. And then just now you mentioned A debt trap.
So can you explain when you talk about the debt trap, maybe we could like look at an actual, um, experience or, or, or, uh, something that you went in, like, how did you set this debt trap? Are you looking for nations where, you know, they're not going to be able to repay the debt? Was that the concept? Like, can [00:07:00] you give us an actual example to find what that trap is and then show us how it worked,
John Perkins: please?
Sure. Um, let's talk about my first job, uh, which after I had been trained by this woman I talk about in the book named Claudine, um, I was sent to Indonesia and Indonesia at the time was incredibly important to the United States. We knew that we were basically lost the war in Vietnam. And there was the domino theory in effect, which said that if, if Vietnam and collapses and goes with the communists, then the rest of Southeast Asia is going to follow.
And one of the most important linchpins in this. And this theory and this idea was, uh, Indonesia because they just discovered a lot of oil in Indonesia. We wanted that oil. And Indonesia, geographically, is located in a strategic place where all the ships between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean pass through there.
And it had the largest population of Muslims in the whole world. So it was [00:08:00] The president of Indonesia was flirting with the Chinese and the Soviets and us. Who's gonna, who's gonna, you know, who's gonna control Indonesia? So I'm sent off to make sure it's, it's us. And to make a long story short, I ended up arranging a huge loan that would hire U.
S. companies to build a big integrated electrical system on the island of Java. Huge, huge project. It would make a lot of money for our companies. But it also put Indonesia deep into debt, and it did provide electricity primarily to the big factories. They were the ones who benefited the most, and the banks and the commercial establishments, they were owned by the people who led the country.
And, you know, in the end, they couldn't pay the debt. So we would go back, usually in the guise of the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, which is sort of a policing agency, and say, since you can't pay your loans, uh, Help our oil companies, you know, [00:09:00] give, sell them your oil real cheap without environmental or social regulations and, you know, let us play a big role in your government and, and, and let our, our, our Navy be off your shore so we can control the traffic that goes through this vital part of the world.
And on, is that
Marc: the con John? So like you go in knowing that Indonesia won't be able to pay that debt. You go in knowing. Or service the debt, right? You know that Indonesia requires some assistance with regards to infrastructure or whatever it might be. And then you also realize that the leaders of these nations are going to benefit both personally, as well as saying, Hey, our GDP grew is, is that the con is that how it existed essentially?
Simple terms, I know, but
John Perkins: yeah, yeah, that's essentially it. And, and, and we would produce these very impressive reports. My staff would produce them that would show that if you invest this amount of money into, in this case, the electrical system, [00:10:00] the economy is going to grow very rapidly, the GDP, and, you know, we produce these.
Reports that made it look really good. And you could, you could use, you could create graphs that showed that in other countries where this, this had gone on, they benefit it. And then the president would have this report to take to his press and to his people and say, look, I'm taking on this huge loan, but it's going to benefit all of us.
And, you know, it wasn't until later that I, I came to understand that it. Didn't benefit all of Indonesia. In fact, it, it hurts the majority of the population because money is diverted from, uh, education, healthcare, and other social services, uh, to pay, uh, the interest on the loans. And then when the principal can't be repaid, that's when we really go in and put the screws to
Marc: them.
So how many nations did you personally work with in that capacity as an economic hitman?
John Perkins: Well, my [00:11:00] main modus operandi was, would become after Indonesia, mostly Latin America, because I had been a Peace Corps volunteer there. I speak Spanish. I know the culture well. So in Latin America, I was working with Columbia, Ecuador, uh, Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, uh, a lot there.
Uh, there's another side of this coin mark, which is, is not the debt side, but I also worked in Iran extensively and in Saudi Arabia, and those countries didn't need, they didn't have to take on debt. They had oil. And they were making a lot of money, so the assignment there was to make sure that the money that came in, what we call petrodollars, you know, they get paid around the world for their oil, uh, would go to hiring our companies to westernize, to modernize petrodollars.
Those countries, so Iran and Saudi Arabia, to name two of them, were rich in oil, but they were [00:12:00] living, you know, as though they were in the, what we might call the medieval times in many respects. So my job was to go in and convince the Shah of Iran or the royal family of Saudi Arabia that they needed to divert a lot of their petrodollars to hiring our companies to help them modernize.
Marc: So you spent a lot of time in Iran. I, I, I understand if I, if I understand correctly, it was about 10 years with about a full year worth of time where you were working and living in Iran, correct?
John Perkins: That's correct. Uh, I don't think I was ever there for longer than A couple of months at that time, but I would go frequently and spend 10 days, 20 days, whatever was needed to negotiate contracts and to help put together these studies, yes, for over a period of about
Marc: 10 years.
Very different time period back then for Iran. It's fascinating to me, but part of the story that really is so intriguing, I can't help but think. So you're [00:13:00] working for a corporation, it's a separate entity from any United States government banter, government agency. Right.
John Perkins: Well, it's not a, yeah, it's a private corporation, but we had contracts, uh, with the U.
S. Treasury Department, uh, the U. S. State Department, uh, the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the IMF. So, so we're a private consulting firm with contracts. So I was paid by the consulting firm. I was never paid by a government agency. Right. But the money came from the government agencies.
Marc: Right. So, so here's what's so intriguing. So you talk about like working within Iran over a 10 year period, but how does that initial meeting occur? Like, how do you, like, you can't just knock on the Shah's door and say, Hey, it's John Perkins. I have this interesting financial opportunity for you. Like, how do you, how did John Perkins meet, I'm assuming you met with the Shah or at least like the Shah's senior team, executive team, how does that.[00:14:00]
How do you create these meetings with the Shah, for example?
John Perkins: Yeah, well, I did meet with the Shah, but it started, it starts at a lower level and the decisions are usually made by a minister of finance or someone. Uh, and you know, it's, I had a reputation and my company had a reputation for, for building incredible projects.
Uh, and we, we were not a construction company, but we were, we're also an engineering. management, design and management. So although Bechtel or one of the big construction companies might end up building the project, we were really in charge of telling how it would be built. And the Shah had seen us do this in other countries.
His people knew of our ability to do this. And frankly, we built good projects. Today, the Chinese are doing something similar and some of their projects are a bit shoddy, frankly, but we were good. And, and the Shah was, was, uh, you know, the, the, the, the, so the Shah was very concerned about Russia, uh, [00:15:00] Soviet Union, right on its borders.
And so part of the selling point there was, you know, work with us, work with the United States, we'll protect you, uh, from the Soviets. And you right on the border there. And in fact, you know, we'd put the Shah in power. So before the, before the Shah, there'd been a democratically elected president named Eck, and he'd been taken out by a CIA agent, a card carrying CIA agent named Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's grandson.
And it had been done very, very subtly. Uh, through economic hitmen techniques, essentially, I can go into more detail if you want. But we'd taken out Mosaddegh, democratically elected, and put the Shah in, in his place. So the Shah had every reason to want to work with, with the U. S. and we were the designated company to go in first and, and work with him to, to set up the development of these projects.[00:16:00]
Marc: So it's so attractive to these leaders. It's so appealing. They can, uh, benefit financially. They can win popularity amongst their people for, you know, improvements in their infrastructure or various parts of, of the way that their infrastructure functions on a personal level, there's like almost like a bribe in there, right?
You had mentioned they could go to universities, they can. Probably receive some financial benefit. I think I read in the book that in some cases, uh, they were even creating their own businesses that would last, uh, longer than their presidency or their leadership. But I also know some resisted, right? Some resisted all of this, you know, the shiny object of America coming in.
Tell me, um, in your experience, who, who was it that resisted? What was like that experience like?
John Perkins: Only two of the presidents I worked with resisted, and one was Jaime Roldos of Ecuador, and the other was Omar Torrijos, the head of state of [00:17:00] Panama, and, you know, Roldos came into power as a democratically elected president after a long line of military dictators who'd struck deals with U.
S. oil companies and, and, and the U. S. government and, um, Taking out huge loans from the World Bank that the country, the country's still suffering under. Incidentally, I'm going to Ecuador in two weeks. So a roll dose comes in under the promise that he's gonna reign in the oil companies, that he's gonna insist that either they get the hell out of Ecuador or they pay a really fair price to the oil that they're exploiting, which they hadn't been doing.
They'd gotten a hell of a good deal and. So he gets elected and, and, and begins to implement these policies and I'm sent down to convince him otherwise. He will not be convinced. He has tremendous integrity. It was, it was amazing to me. He, he wouldn't, he wouldn't have any part of it. And later I came to know his daughter who'd be, Martha, who's, [00:18:00] who's still involved in politics in Ecuador.
The other, the other one was Omar Torrijos, head of state of Panama. Omar was a bit of a different situation, uh, the small country that happened to have a canal through it that the United States owned, and this canal zone, which was about 18, 20 miles wide, was just, it was a sore thumb in the country, you know, just People living incredibly wonderful lives in this canal zone, and right outside would be slums and poor, really poor people.
So, Omar was determined to change that. He negotiated the Panama Canal Treaty with Jimmy Carter. He was in the process when, he was in the process when I was sent down there to convince him to lay off. And he wouldn't be convinced either. He had also had tremendous integrity and he was actually the person ultimately who helped me understand that what I was [00:19:00] doing was not what I said I was doing.
Not what I told him. I said, you know, you're lying to yourself and you're lying to the world with what you're doing. And he helped me understand that showing increases in GDP did not necessarily help the majority of the people.
Marc: So, so you painted this image a moment ago where I see you as Uncle Sam, and in one hand you have billions of dollars in cash, fiat currency, and right behind you is the gun, and those are the jackals.
So in these two instances, when they rejected America, did the jackals step in, or did they step in earlier? How, how did those situations end?
John Perkins: Both of those men died in very suspicious. Private plane crashes within less than three months of each other and most of Latin America and I have no doubt or very little doubt, but what those were both assassinations, it's never been proven [00:20:00] if you want to assassinate someone, a small plane crash is a good way to do it because if there's a smoking gun, it goes down with the plane.
So, but they both, you know, it was, It was, it was, it was heart wrenching for me. I just, I wasn't surprised, frankly, but it was interesting that after Roldos plane crash, uh, Torrijos got his family together, and, and again, I know his daughter quite well. Now, he has a daughter who is a very successful lawyer in, uh, Washington, D.
C. And he got his family together and he said, you know, my brother Jaime Roldos was assassinated and I'll probably be next, but don't let it bother you. Don't let it bother you because I've successfully negotiated the canal treaty with Carter. The canal's coming back to Panama. I've accomplished my task.
And he was looked at around the world as a great hero, a David who stood up to Goliath. [00:21:00] And so, you know, one of the reasons he had to be taken out was that, uh, he'd become a hero and that would encourage other presidents of other countries to do similar things. At least that was the theory. On the other hand, when you take these two presidents and when they have these mysterious accidents, it serves a notice to leaders around the world that, hey, you better play the game.
Or something similar will happen to you. It's a very, it has a very, very powerful effect, uh, something like that.
Marc: Yeah, it's pretty scary. So the jackals are the CIA and technology matters. I, I, some, one part of your book that really caught my attention because it's heavily in my world right now is the use of artificial intelligence and drones.
It's like the evolution of jackals, right? Like this generation today. Doesn't need to be in person anymore to enforce, right? They could be, um, far away [00:22:00] in a different, on a different continent. And, and I learned actually from one of our guests, uh, the founder of extend drones. This is the drone company, John.
That you might've seen the video where the, uh, recent, uh, killing of Hamas's leader, Sinwar, there was a drone that went in and he was throwing the stick. This is the founder of that drone company. He said that his technology is so advanced now that an untrained individual with no military training at all can go ahead and.
Run that drone and also drop a munition, drop a bomb on a person's head. So how do you see the role of the jackal in this like economic, modern economic hit man playing itself out? Like they, they don't need to like be as sophisticated as taking a plane down. Now they can just drop a bomb on, on, you know, the leaders, a nation States and autonomous nation States head.
Yeah,
John Perkins: yeah. James Bond is gone, I guess. I, I think that's still there. Uh, we mentioned, we talked earlier about, [00:23:00] uh, Bob Bayer, who was a CIA asset in this agent. Actually, he did work for the CIA. A lot of these people don't. They're what's called assets. They work for private consulting firms like me. And so some of the jackals, but, and, and he was, the movie Syriana is based on his life.
Uh, Bob's an old friend and, and. You know, he lived a very exciting life in the Middle East. He spoke the languages and it was a James Bond type. And I don't know today. I think that that's, that's really been downplayed. Although I'm, I'm, I suspect very strongly, uh, that there's still people in there.
They're, they're having to have people figure things out. I can't, I can't imagine that they weren't in Syria that we didn't have. People on the ground also, uh, yeah. And, and the drone strike, you mentioned, you know, that they had to know where to shoot, where, where to take, take the drone. So there's, I think there's still this need for people on the ground, but it's very different and it's taken the [00:24:00] romance, if you want to call it that, uh, can you imagine sitting someplace in front of a computer, basically you're looking at a computer game.
Well, at least you can convince yourself of that. But you're killing people with drones. And what does that do to a person's psyche? You know, it's, it's got to be tough. Uh, all of this sort of stuff is tough on the psyche. I had to deal a lot as one of the reasons I got out was finding my conscience. I understood what I was doing.
Omar Tariqo's helped me and my conscience got to me. And, but, You know, and, and the jackals that would go in and do these things, I've, I've known several of them, uh, and, uh, you know, they, they kind of justify what they do because they're, they're defending the American way or whatever, they're, they're indoctrinated this way, and they're taking huge risks of their own lives, uh, whereas the drone operator, I, I don't know what, They're thinking it must be tough, frankly.
I mean, [00:25:00]
Marc: I think it's a generational thing too, right? Killing and gaining. It's like a gaming thing, right? It's very important. It becomes very, uh, impersonal and, uh, humanity comes out of it. If it's just screens and, and a controller and you don't even need to be in the military, it's, uh, of, uh, humanity in a certain way.
But I know that danger goes both ways. And I know that there was an assassination attempt. Somebody tried to kill you while you were, uh, right here in New York city.
John Perkins: Yeah, it was about three months after. The first edition of this, what became a trilogy of economic hitmen, uh, came out as it was, it was in 2005.
And I was, I was due to speak at the United Nations on a Tuesday. I flew from my home and I was living at the time in Florida up to New York and, and, uh, was met at the airport by a, a journalist, this had all been set up by [00:26:00] my publicist. And I, we resisted this journalist cause he didn't seem to have very good credentials.
He was. He defined himself as a freelance journalist. He offered to pick me up at the airport, take me out to a nice lunch, and then take me to a friend's home, where I was spending the night before speaking at the United Nations. So, it seemed like a good idea. And so, we do this, and over lunch, I've ordered food, it's there, and I go to the restroom, which was I'll never do that again.
And, you know, I, I come back and I finish the meal and, and I go to my friend's, uh, uh, uh, townhouse and, and within three or four hours I am bleeding really badly internally and, uh, called a friend of the person I was living with who happened to be an, uh, a, a doctor in New York. Uh. And, and, and he, he said, you know, I talked to him on the phone and he says, um, and this was a very well known gastroenterologist, one of the best in the, in the field.[00:27:00]
And he says, you know, you'll be dead within a couple of hours, a lot of blood you're losing, grab a cab, don't, don't wait for an ambulance, get a cab and get to Lenox Hill Hospital. I'll call ahead and get intravenous. Fluid going and get them and, you know, blood transfusions and I did and, and, and then what ended up happening was they ended up removing three quarters of my large intestine and it wasn't till after the operation that we began to get, you know, people calling in and to my publicist and, and, and others and saying, you don't, you know, he was poisoned and, you know, it, At the time, it just doesn't occur to you.
You're just trying to stay alive. I'm just trying to stay alive.
Marc: Yeah.
John Perkins: And so, but I talked to the gastroenterologist and he said, well, yeah, it's certainly possible, but we destroyed the evidence. As soon as we remove that part of your colon, we, we incinerate it. That's the law. So, and the guy who set this [00:28:00] up had done it by email with my publicist.
Disappeared. The email. Yeah. I
Marc: was gonna ask, did he go after that freelance journalist? Yeah. Right.
John Perkins: Well, yeah, he disappeared, but plus, I, I, you know, there's, he had no evidence. So what, what do you, what is it to go after? I mean, what? Am I gonna kill him? No. So, no, but I mean, but I did, I called I friend, but
Marc: he disappeared.
John Perkins: Yeah, he disappeared. And, you know, he didn't try very hard to find him because. What's the point at this point? And plus I, I called, I'm still in the hospital. I called a friend of mine who was a jackal and a good friend. He and I, I've been a martial artist all my life. He and I were both black belts. We, we'd sparred with each other.
He was the kind of guy you didn't want to hit, even if you could.
Marc: I get it. It
John Perkins: wasn't worth it, but we were friends and I called him and I said, you know, who do you think did this? And he said, well, I don't think it was one of the alphabet organizations, you know, CIA, NSA, FBI. He said, if it hadn't been them, you wouldn't be talking to me now.
Plus they don't, they don't, if you [00:29:00] die a strange death like this, it's going to sell a lot of books. That's irremarkable. Why
Marc: would, why would, why would it even cross his mind that perhaps it was a domestic organization like the CIA? Like, why would the CIA want to take you out?
John Perkins: Well, there'd been a lot of controversy at the point about the book and how was I being anti American and I consider myself just the opposite, but we have to, we have to, Criticized.
We have to be open to criticizing what we do in the world in order to change it. But, you know, there was a lot of speculation. And I said, well, who do you think did do it? And he said, well, I, I, my guess would be, it was a fanatic who either didn't like the work that you did or didn't like the fact that you exposed it.
And I said, well, do I need to. Do I need to worry? Will he come back? And my friend said, well, I doubt it, because most of these guys are basically cowards. What he did was extremely cowardly, and he's probably not going to show his face again anywhere where you could recognize him. Plus, he probably already feels that [00:30:00] he's scared you enough and has caused you enough problems that, uh, he's been successful.
I don't know, but
Marc: that
John Perkins: was a
Marc: It's interesting, John, because the truth is it's undeniable. Well, the stories are Totally fascinating and the business model is really interesting, but you evolved beyond all of that and and something that you start to break into or develop is this concept of the death economy.
And the life economy, and I, you know, personally, I think that the life economy is not just optimistic, but can really evolve the talk about your evolution, but you could evolve entire cultures and societies that way. Would you take a minute and describe first? I think what the death economy is, what you were looking at in historically, and maybe we're still in that a little bit right now.
I think certainly China is creating debt traps all over the world, and those could represent a type of. Death economy, um, and then, and then what the forward looking [00:31:00] life economy, this utopian vision that you have is.
John Perkins: Yeah, sure. Yeah, we're, we're deep in the death economy, which is an economic system that really is, is driven by the goal of maximizing short term profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs for, for, for corporations and maximizing.
Materialistic consumption for everybody, and you know, it is the cause of climate change and income inequality, species extinctions, environmental destruction, those are all problems, but they're not the problem. The problem is this economic system that we've all bought into incidentally. You know, we're all part of it.
We all have to take responsibility for it. And, you know, it's polluting and consuming itself towards self destruction. There's no question. You know, the great glaciers are melting, the oceans are rising, and so on and so forth. Where we need to go now is to a life economy. [00:32:00] And what economists refer to as that, and that's an economic system that's the premise, the driving goal is to maximize long term benefits for people in all life for that matter.
And it's, it's really about paying people. You can still make profits, but you have to maximize short term profits. You put some of those profits toward making the world a better place. And part of it is paying people to clean up pollution. You know, uh, corral all the plastic that's floating around the oceans and recycle it, uh, you know, replant devastated forests, rejuvenate destroyed environments, uh, create new technologies.
You know, we've got a good start with solar and wind, but they're just in their infancy now. Where do we go from here? How do we create energy out of air? Or water. There's just so many things we can do to pay people, uh, and at the same time, get rid of this [00:33:00] horrible, horrible inequality of income. I mean, you know, I just heard that Elon Musk broke the 400 billion ceiling.
Why does anybody want 400 billion? I, you know, it's, it's, it's absurd that this, you know, uh, three people in the United States have as much wealth as the, as half the country. And that's a fact. Three, three individuals have as much wealth as the, as the poorest half of the United States. It's a horrible situation and the life economy levelizes that through taxes, through putting money into doing really good things like the things that I,
Marc: I described.
So it's interesting because there are a couple of concepts I want to see if I could break it down with you a little bit further with regards to death economy and life economies. First is, you talk about doing good for the environment. Renewable energy, for example, it seems like such a no brainer for me.
I often talk about the fact that it shouldn't even be a [00:34:00] political issue. Why wouldn't we, as people, want the world to be a better place for the next generation? Renewable energy seems like a no brainer. and an apolitical topic. It just doesn't make sense. You lean on privatization, the private sector developing those concepts, but then you talk a little bit about, um, equality and, you know, hints of communism or socialism seep in.
Do you think the government would be able to And I think you mentioned even like tax incentives, like, do you think the government is the appropriate, the appropriate vehicle to get us towards this better, um, utopian theory of a life economy or should the private sector really lead the way?
John Perkins: Well, I think if the private sector of corporations don't get deeply involved, it's not going to happen.
Uh, because they are certainly the driving force behind the global economy, that they are the driving force behind the death economy. But there's no reason why they can't be the driving force behind the life [00:35:00] economy. I think most of the people who run these corporations are driven by a goal of being successful at uh, satisfying what they You know, the current, call it morals, the current value system.
And so even if the sociopaths there and narcissists and whatever, but they're not driven by profit except from the standpoint that profit has become the driving goal. It's your measure of success. You know, how much profit did your company make last year or the last quarter? Well, what's the stock price doing today?
That's how they measure themselves. But it doesn't have to be that way. When, when I was in business school, I was taught that a good CEO makes a decent rate of return for investors, decent, and, but also doesn't maximize them then decent and also invest in his employees, pays health insurance and retirement funds and, uh, [00:36:00] And, and invest in, in the local communities, you know, whereas, whereas businesses work, he'll, he'll help to build, uh, recreational centers or libraries or whatever the community needs.
That's what I was taught, but that was in the late sixties. And then Martin Milton Friedman comes along and wins the Nobel prize in 1976. And he says, the only responsibility of business is to maximize short term profits. Regardless of the social and environmental costs. In fact, he went so far as to say, when you maximize profits, you ultimately take care of doing good for the environment and society.
Which isn't true. But, Friedman, and Friedman wasn't the first person to express that. It had been a growing tendency to look at that. that. But he had the ear of President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and leaders around the world. He traveled extensively. He kept selling this concept and it was very appealing to, uh, some of the corporations.
And, and, you know, it put executives in [00:37:00] this position of, well, really all we got to measure is short term profits.
Marc: Well, I mean, let's face it, though. It goes beyond Milton Friedman. I mean, corporations today have a fiduciary duty to drive profit for their shareholders.
John Perkins: Well, only if their bylaws say so.
There's no, there's no U. S. law that says that. That's contrary, you know, people think that, but no, they're not, they are not obligated. If they were obligated to maximize profits, Mark, they wouldn't pay their CEOs around three or four hundred times what their, you know, what the average worker makes, which is what they do.
Uh, but the bylaws often state that they need to maximize short term loss. Almost all of
Marc: the publicly traded corporations bylaws do state
John Perkins: that. Yes, yes, and especially if they're publicly traded, they watch in the stock market.
Marc: Right.
John Perkins: But that's a, that's a perception. And perceptions drive reality, you know, there is, there's no corporation, there's no United States, there's no [00:38:00] religion, there's no culture except as people perceive them.
And when enough people buy into a perception or codify it into law, it has a huge impact on reality. And so the perception we have today and that drives corporations is maximizing short term profits. That needs to change because it's, it's just not working, but it will take all of us buying into that. So who do we put on the cover?
Who do we make as Time Magazine's man of the year? It was Trump this year, but next year it's going to be Mark Beckman. You know, next year we're going to put people on the cover of our magazines that are making the world a better place, not the ones necessarily that are maximizing short term profits.
And Fortune, the Fortune magazine, we've got to stop, uh, Making the icons be, be these people that are basically destroying life for future generations.
Marc: Yeah, it's interesting because we do live, America loves fame. We live in this culture of embracing the celebrity. We could slap it on a [00:39:00] pair of jeans and people are more quick to buy that than a better built, a better constructed, uh, pair of jeans that might have had a, Uh, more gentle imprint on the earth, um, and on the planet.
So, but look at, let's, let's look at the government interaction here with regards to life economies. I mean, Biden administration arguably did put a big carrot out with the green new deal, wanted to incentivize as it relates to like renewables and related topics, incentivize businesses to go in that direction, entrepreneurship and beyond, but I don't think they were very effective, but I'm not sure.
I'm asking you, do you think the. Uh, Biden administration took, you know, the right step, uh, took, took steps in the correct direction, but did, did America, the American private sector deliver ultimately as it relates to leaning deeper into a life economy?
John Perkins: Well, it takes, it takes, it takes a few years. To deliver, you can't, you know, like, for example, [00:40:00] fossil fuels, if we got off oil within the next three years, we'd all probably die.
I'd freeze to death, right? For sure. You're freezed to death. But. You can't do it, but what you got to do is start passing laws that incentivize that to happen. So I don't, I don't really like telling people that they can't produce, they can't use fossil fuels. Like you gotta buy an electric car or whatever.
It's impractical right now, sure.
Marc: But we should be transitioning over. There's no reason to not head in the better direction of renewables. It makes no sense. No,
John Perkins: makes no sense. Uh, unless you happen to be the executive of a, of a fossil fuel company and you know you're only going to have that, an oil company, let's say, and you're probably going to have that job for the next two years, maybe four, you know, possibly five.
But what you're interested in is long, is short term profits and getting that big bonus and that big retirement package. And that'll come only if you get short term profits. You don't give a shit about the [00:41:00] longterm, you know? Um, so, uh, so I think, you know, Biden's ideas is that some of the programs he implemented were a step in the right direction, but it, it, it takes time for these things to happen and we'll see what Trump does with all of this.
We, we really don't know what Trump, we know, we don't know what Trump will do. We can only, we can only hope, but these things take time. And I, and I think. That, you know, it is incredibly important for us to get the private sector involved. I'm not a big fan of, of, of huge government, but there's a role for government to play.
But, uh, I think we've, we've got to understand that it is the big corporations that are controlling the world right now. And it's, it's now Chinese corporations, even more than American than us corporations.
Marc: I just can't help but think when you talk about, um, that the individual leading these big oil companies, these big energy companies, I mean, the, the greenwashing, even at cop for the past two years [00:42:00] is ridiculous.
You might remember two years ago, a cop was in the Middle East and the individual that was running it was out there waving the flag, uh, for, for electric and, and, uh, pulling down coal and, and all. But at the same time, it was just all greenwashing because they have some of the biggest oil supply coming out of, it was, I believe that individual was actually running an oil company in the Middle East.
I mean, it's, there's just a ton of greenwashing regardless. I mean, that's just the reality of where we are. Um, I'm sure
John Perkins: you
Marc: agree.
John Perkins: There are a lot of economic hitmen out there working for private corporations right now. They're all con the good con artists, you know, good. I mean, I mean, efficient.
Marc: I see it, though.
I see it when you mentioned the Trump administration. It's interesting as it relates to this intersection of electric vehicles and and, um, building profit. Uh, here you are. You mentioned Elon Musk. Elon is obviously very close with President [00:43:00] elect Trump, and he's done a pretty impressive job with regards to getting electric vehicles out throughout the world, including manufacturing in the U.
S. Both China and the United States. Do you think that Trump might embrace the concept of a life economy?
John Perkins: I would not speculate on what Trump is going to do or not going to do. I, I just don't have any idea. I always have hopes and I think, I think things need to be shaken up. I think this, this country needs to be shaken up.
Is he going to do it? I don't know, but you know, it's happened. He's been elected. So how do we work with that? And, and, and the other side of the coin is China has taken over. How do we work with that? So back in the year 2000, uh, the United States was the number one trading partner with 80 percent of the countries in the world.
Today it's China. China has taken over, especially Africa, Latin America, parts of the Middle East and Asia. So we're at this time in history where we're seeing [00:44:00] things really getting shaken up. And where's it gonna go from here? You know, it's, it's, it's, it's impossible to predict as someone who used to forecast economic growth.
I can tell you, I couldn't, I couldn't possibly conceive of how to forecast what's going to happen in this country or in the world over the next 10, 10 years. 5, 10, 15 years, it's, it's gonna, it's a very, very exciting time mark to, to be here and to watch what's happening, to be part of it.
Marc: I'm curious, like, for a minute, take your chief economist hat off and go back in with the economic hitman, uh, shotgun.
Um, If you look, for example, China is obviously creating these debt traps. I think you can correct me if I'm wrong, they're now taking our model and creating debt traps all over the globe. Um, do you think there's a, and then we, we talked about the concept of the, the evolution of the Jackal and using artificial intelligence and drones.
Do you think there's [00:45:00] some kind of an evolution of that business model and setting up debt traps or something similar that the Trump administration can implement to, to push back against China?
John Perkins: Well, I don't know about the pushing back against China as much as working with, uh, around, I'm not sure, you know, I've been a martial artist most of my life, and I, and I know that if I'm up against a guy who's bigger and stronger than me, I don't try to overpower him, can't do it, gotta use his energy against him, or, You know, and figure out how to do that.
And so, I think that we have to take the same approach with China to recognize that it, it has done a bang up, its economic hitmen have done an incredibly efficient job at winning over the countries. They have a great story to tell. You know, they can tell, they can go into an African country or a Latin American country and say, hey, listen, you know, we in China, we had 10 percent economic growth for 30 years.
Nobody else has ever done that. We brought [00:46:00] 900 million people out of dire poverty. No one else has done that. The United, that's twice the, more than twice the United States population. It's a great story. And, and there's a, there's a dark side to both of those stories. I don't get into it, but it's a great story.
If you want to be an economic hitman and sell the president of of Ecuador or Nigeria, uh, on your system, you, you, you say things like that in the meantime, you know, the United States is the middle class has gone from 60 percent to 50 percent the opposite. So yeah, China has this great story. I taught at an MBA program in Shanghai a few years back, and I realized that these students wanted to learn from me what I had, the mistakes I had made, as well as the successes I had.
So they could, they could learn from that and not repeat their failures and capitalize on the successes. And they've done that. China's done a very, very effective job. And incidentally, we've, we've played into their hands to a certain degree because [00:47:00] we've Uh, China hasn't done any of that. They've put those resources into, into economic hitmen going to Latin America and Africa and other parts of the Middle East and Asia.
So we're at this point in time where I think, you know, if I were advising Trump and if I would say, you know, you've got to, you look at China as a competitor, but not as an enemy. And we both, these two countries together create almost half the world's economy. And almost half the world's pollution, and we can disagree on everything else, but let's agree that we somehow have to move into a system that no longer pollutes the way it does and no longer destroys the resources of the future.
There's opportunities here for both of our countries to work toward creating a life economy, and we can still disagree on, on, [00:48:00] on many other issues, but let's agree on that. And, you know, that's not going to happen overnight.
Marc: That's for sure.
John Perkins: Yeah, but we need to, we really need to get started.
Marc: I can't help but think like a lot of what you're talking about is like trust, hope, honesty, integrity.
And I think about the evolution of, of politicians here in the United States, what were they, what they were like back in the fifties, sixties, there were a lot of inspirational individuals I know. My father, for example, he was very inspired by John F. Kennedy. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. He would wake up and say, this politician, a local state or even a federal politician inspired him to be better and do better for his family, for the community and beyond.
In my generation, I see things kind of, um, turning a little bit for the worse and worse. And, um, I just wonder, in your opinion, do you think that the economic hitman concept, it's, it's easy to [00:49:00] turn inward where congressmen, for example, are, are easier to bribe in this generation than perhaps in the mid century, where.
For less money, a congressman or a congressperson would be willing to lean closer towards the death economy than perhaps he or she would have, you know, 50, 60 years ago.
John Perkins: Yeah, I do. And I think a lot of it has to do with some of the laws and Supreme Court decisions that have been made that allow corporations to spend so much money on supporting candidates.
It's, it's, that's right for, for, uh, Uh, for, uh, uh, bribery, basically, you know, for corruption, you know, like you and I have one vote. Well, so does the president of one of the big corporations, theoretically, but in fact, that president has a lot more influence because he can pay a lot of money to, to, to candidates and offer them jobs if they don't win or if they decide to get out.
So yeah, I, I think we're at a time where it's, it's become much more [00:50:00] attractive, uh, to be corrupted. Legally, it's not really corruption because it's what I'm describing is legal, but that's, that's, that's been a new thing, relatively new, where corporations have this incredible power. And, you know, uh, one of the definitions of capitalism is a system where, uh, private people own the means of production and marketing distribution, not the government.
Well, we, we have that here, but we, we also in the United States, it's turned on its head that, that it's the private corporations and their, their leaders that own the government to a very large degree. And that's a bit of hyperbole, but it's, that's very close. But I wanted to point out something that I think is very interesting.
And I just received this a couple of days ago, and it's the, uh, Confessions of a Third, of a Economic Hitman, 3rd edition, China's Economic Hitman, published in China by a major, huge publishing company in China. [00:51:00] Never expected that to happen, because it's very critical of China. And, um, we think in the United States that China doesn't Self criticized.
Well, this book is very critical. The same company published the other two, which was not surprising. I don't even mention China, but we are published. My publisher and editors never expected this book to be published in China. It is big, big house. And I think, you know, that kind of sums up. So much of where we stand today, we're at this critical, critical time in human history where we're truly, uh, evolving as a species and trying to understand what it really means to be human beings being human on this planet.
And I, I think it's, IM, you know, for you and me and all of your listeners to understand that we're really blessed to be alive right now. There's turmoil, there's chaos, there's, you know, there's huge challenges, but also huge opportunities for transformation.
Marc: I appreciate your [00:52:00] thoughtful words and wisdom today.
I realize that you've given us a ton of time. Every single guest I have ends the show with me in a special way. The title of the show, Some Future Day, was inspired by James Joyce, who I would imagine you appreciate, and, uh, what I do is I kind of create a leading sentence. I incorporate the words, Some Future Day, into a sentence, and I let my guest finish, um, based on some of the topic of our conversation.
Would you be game for ending the show with me this episode? Uh, with, with that, I'll give it a try. Great. So, in some future day, life economies will flourish when? When,
John Perkins: uh, a critical mass of people understand that the future is not about maximizing Short term materialism, short term extreme materialism, when the [00:53:00] future is about recognizing that we all need clean air, good water, good food, good shelter, and we all need the environment around us.
And so, it depends upon us really buying into a new perception of what it means to be human beings. Being human on this amazing planet where we all live
Marc: beautiful John Perkins, the original one and only economic hit man. Thank you so much for joining me on some future day, John. I really do appreciate it.
John Perkins: look forward to it, Mark. Thank you for what you do. You're really, you have an amazing program and amazing books that you're getting the information out. So I very much appreciate you and look forward to more.
Marc: Thank you for the kind words. I know your time is very important. So thank you so much for joining me today for ongoing insights surrounding these important topics You can join the conversation on my social media [00:54:00] channels including Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn at Mark Beckman and to sign up for my newsletter on Substack you can find me at mark Beckman dot substack dot com To make sure you don't miss a show.
Be sure to subscribe To some future day across all major platforms worldwide, including YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Special thanks to New York university for producing some future day and a big shout out to my producer extraordinaire, John Boomhoffer for being patient and always encouraging me to push through.
Thanks a lot, John. Have a great day.