John Perkins's Blog, page 5

My success as chief economist at a major international consulting firm was not due to the lessons I learned in business school. It was not due to the competence of my staff of brilliant econometricians and financial wizards.

Those things may have helped at times. But there was something else that made it all happen. That something else was the same something else that elevated George Washington, Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs, and other successf...

Last night I slept on the slopes to Tungurahua, a highly active volcano in Ecuador. I felt the earth shiver, heard her rumble, and smelled her smoke. I was very conscious that this earth of ours, our home – what the local Quichua people refer to as Pachamama – is truly a Living Earth.

A few days earlier I had travelled down the Avenue of Volcanoes, also in Ecuador, and had passed by another mountain, one that is barren, scarred with gullies, and ravaged by erosion. I remembered the time whe...

Attorney General Loretta Lynch on July 8, 2016 said about the shooting of police officers in Dallas: “The answer is never violence.”

I totally agree with the Attorney General.

I have to wonder why President Obama and just about every other politician – Democrat and Republican alike – and just about every US government official does not agree with her. Why can they not see that violence only begets violence?

Why do more than 50 cents of every tax dollar you and I pay on April 15 go to suppor...

Note: Join me for my Julyworkshopat the Omega Institute. Details at the bottom of this newsletter.

“What can I do to fix a broken global economy? Me personally.” It’s a question I’ve heard a lot these past few months as I’ve crisscrossed the US speaking at TED venues, music concerts, the World Affairs Council, bookstores, on radio and TV shows, and at a variety of other forums.

During this election year it is important to recognize that corporations pretty much run the world. Despite the out...

NOTE: I will be teaching at the Omega Institute this summer.

I’ve been interviewed by lots of journalists in the past month in response to the Panama Papers disclosures. A question I often get asked: “How do modern day economic hit men (EHMs) work?”

One answer comes directly from recent reports in media outlets as diverse as the Washington Post, Forbes, Esquire, MSNBC, Media Matters, NPR, and PRWatch. These reports disclose the “secret” activities of EHMs who serve today’s wealthy and powerf...

NOTE: John will be teaching workshops on the Shift Network and on campus at the Omega Institute

Rather than adding to the frenetic election discussion, I think it a good time to look at the resource that is replacing oil as the most important one for future economies—as well as the survival of just about all species.

The effort to protect U.S. water celebrated victories last month when two natural gas pipelines were scrapped and Congress voted down an amendment to defund the Clean Water Act....

NOTE: I will be teaching workshops on the Shift Network& at the Omega Institute!

About 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike last month, making it the largest strike in the U.S. since the last Verizon strike in 2011. Their chief complaints include the outsourcing of jobs, job relocations, healthcare coverage and pay. Why should we care about this strike?

As U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes said, “the whole fabric of society rests upon labor.” Although Verizon’s landline business has decline...

NOTE: John will be teaching workshops on the Shift Network and on campus at the Omega Institute!

Should you trust corporations with your personal information? Who poses a bigger threat, corporations or the government?Last month a 15-year cover-up of government surveillance was revealed in the U.K. Intelligence agencies were accessing private medical records, financial data and more under the Telecommunications Act, even when it wasn’t directly related to a national security interest. Nation...

In the wake of all-too-common school shootings, President Barack Obama issued an executive order earlier this year to increase funding for mental health care, firearm licensing and background checks; encourage research into smart gun technology; and require dealers who ship firearms to notify the ATF if those firearms are stolen or lost. Wherever you stand on the issue, the amount of political power that weapons manufacturers have is shocking and far-reaching.

The National Shooting Sports Fou...

U.S. consumers celebrated a couple of victories over multinational food industry economic hit men (EHMs) last month:

Under pressure from various consumer groups, the U.S. Senate rejected HR Bill 1599 that would have made labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs) voluntary. Referred to as the Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act by opponents, the bill would have favored corporations over consumers; A small group of activists and bloggers in a state with less the 0.2% of the U.S. p...