Read here.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Do not read this book if you want to remain comfortable in the American consumer culture. As a matter of fact, I recommend that you NOT read Happy Are You Poor and this book together, because THEN it is double whammy that knocks you down and leaves with you with little to excuse yourself. These books are Lenten books. Time for change. Time for conversion. Time for the brutal, ugly, honest truth that leaves you gasping for air and yet convicting you in the deepest recesses of your heart.
I find it so interesting that Ecuador plays such an important role in Perkins’ life. Ecuador was absolutely instrumental in ripping my soul to the forefront and forcing me to ask difficult questions and re-read the Gospel with new eyes.
I am now left wondering how to make the change. If one owns a home you have to buy things for your home. I am the middle of a slllooowww remodel. Is this wrong? It is such a slippery slope. And that is what makes Perkin’s book absolutely brutal to read because he does NOT allow us to blame “the other.” Nope. He makes sure we all know WE are the problem.
I read parts out loud to my husband and now we are praying for wisdom in what to do with the information we now have.
Here is one tiny snippet of information from his book that really shores up all of Perkin’s arguments and personal story. It should be the first page in the book, but he hides it towards the back.
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, 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 (242-43).
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