Great Throughts Treasury

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

"If the voters do not know the most important tools used their leader, the nation can claim to be a democratic nation?"

"If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money?and another country is added to our global empire."

"If you bomb a city, then rebuild it, the data shows a huge spike in economic activity."

"In countries such as Ecuador, Nigeria and Indonesia wearing clothes like those worn by local teachers and shopkeepers. In Washington and Paris it seems Kmozvi government, banks humble and ordinary, visit project sites and hanging out in the poor villages, pretend selfless and update the local newspapers about the great humanitarian work we perform."

"In my opinion, the difference between the crusaders and us was a matter of degree. Europe's medieval Catholics claimed their goal was to save Muslims from purgatory; we claimed that we wanted to help the Saudis modernize."

"In fact the poor suffer because the loans have to be repaid, and they are huge loans, and the repayment of them means that poor won?t get education, health, and other social services and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hitmen, to this country and say, ?Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can?t repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh?."

"In their drive to advance the global empire, corporations, banks, and governments (collectively the corporatocracy) use their financial and political muscle to ensure that our schools, businesses, and media, support both the fallacious concept and its corollary. They have brought us to a point where our global culture is a monstrous machine that requires exponentially increasing amounts of fuel and maintenance, so much so that in the end it will have consumed everything in sight and will be left with no choice but to devour itself."

"It is driven not by a small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation."

"It was exactly what we wanted: a tool that scientifically proved we were doing countries a favor by helping them incur debts they would never be able to pay off."

"In response to my question about how we might rein in the empire, he said, That's why I'm meeting with you. Only you in the United States can change it. Your government created this problem and your people must solve it. You've got to insist that Washington honor its commitment to democracy, even when democratically elected leaders nationalize your corrupting corporations. You must take control of your corporations and your government. The people of the United States have a great deal of power. You need to come to grips with this. Top All 's no alternative. We 're in Brazil have our hands tied. The So do the Venezuelans. And the Nigerians. It's up to you."

"It occurred to me that everything I was doing in Indonesia was more like a game than reality. It was as though we were playing a game of poker. We kept our cards hidden. We could not trust each other or count on the reliability of the information we shared. Yet, this game was deadly serious, and its outcome would impact millions of lives for decades to come."

"Is anyone in the U.S. innocent? Although those at the very pinnacle of the economic pyramid gain the most, millions of us depend?either directly or indirectly?on the exploitation of the LDCs for our livelihoods. The resources and cheap labor that feed nearly all our businesses come from places like Indonesia, and very little ever makes its way back. The loans of foreign aid ensure that today's children and their grandchildren will be held hostage. They will have to allow our corporations to ravage their natural resources and will have to forego education, health, and other social services merely to pay us back. The fact that our own companies already received most of this money to build the power plants, airports, and industrial parks does not factor into this formula. Does the excuse that most Americans are unaware of this constitute innocence? Uninformed and intentionally misinformed, yes?but innocent?"

"Is there a person acquitted in the United States? Although those accrued at the top of the economic pyramid are getting the most money, the millions of us depend for their livelihood - directly or indirectly - to exploit the peoples of the developing country 's natural. Cheap labor which supplies almost all of our activities and business of our projects come from places such as Indonesia and the people of Indonesia themselves not earn them only returning miserable extremely guarantee loans granted by foreign aid children 's survival today and grandchildren hostage to the needs and demands of the loans the owners and they will have to let our companies giant that subvert and destroy their natural wealth and make their way in the education, health and other social services just to be able to repay those loans. The truth is that our companies have already got most of the money to adopt the industrial parks, airports, power plants this equation has not changed much. Do not argue Americans know these things exonerate the same covenant? Are they misguided? Yes, but they are not innocent."

"It was not entirely clear in my mind that those people in the country , the other really want to live like us, She noted that statistics supported our violence, unemployment and physical abuse resulting from the drug abuse, divorce and crime , all of this suggests that despite the fact that our society of the wealthiest societies in history , though this is not never denies that it is less communities a sense of happiness , why we want others to Ahakona."

"I've been following Greece for a long time. I was on Greek television. A Greek film company did a documentary called "Apology of an Economic Hit Man.""

"I've never met anyone who wanted to be a terrorist. They are desperate people."

"Justice goes across racial and economic barriers - like the good Samaritan."

"Life is composed of a series of coincidences. How we react to these - how we exercise what some refer to as free will - is everything; choices we 've make the within the boundaries of the twists of fate we 've Determine WHO COMPLETE are On ."

"Officially, I was a chief economist. We called ourselves e.h.m.'s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know? And, so, we went to Saudi Arabia in the early seventies. We knew Saudi Arabia was the key to dropping our dependency, or to controlling the situation. And we worked out this deal whereby the Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia ? new cities, new infrastructure ? which we've done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they?ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we?ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn?t buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn?t work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren?t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had ? His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn?t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we?ve obviously done in Iraq."

"My reaction was that "Greece is being hit." There's no question about it. Sure, Greece made mistakes, your leaders made some mistakes, but the people didn't really make the mistakes, and now the people are being asked to pay for the mistakes made by their leaders, often in cahoots with the big banks. So, people make tremendous amounts of money off of these so-called "mistakes," and now, the people who didn't make the mistakes are being asked to pay the price. That's consistent around the world: We've seen it in Latin America. We've seen it in Asia. We've seen it in so many places around the world."

"No matter how many toys we amass we leave them behind when we die, just as we leave a broken environment, an economy that only benefits the richest, and a legacy of empowering greed over goodness. It is now time to commit to following a new path."

"On December 20, 1989, the United States attacked Panama with what was reported to be the largest airborne assault on a city since World War II.6 It was an unprovoked attack on a civilian population. Panama and her people posed absolutely no threat to the United States or to any other country. Politicians, governments, and press around the world denounced the unilateral U.S. action as a clear violation of international law."

"Our country really needs to understand, if people in this nation understood what our foreign policy is really about, what foreign aid is about, how our corporations work, where our tax money goes, I know we will demand change."

"Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama. Omar Torrijos had signed the Canal Treaty with Carter much ? and, you know, it passed our congress by only one vote. It was a highly contended issue. And Torrijos then also went ahead and negotiated with the Japanese to build a sea-level canal. The Japanese wanted to finance and construct a sea-level canal in Panama. Torrijos talked to them about this which very much upset Bechtel Corporation, whose president was George Schultz and senior council was Casper Weinberger. When Carter was thrown out (and that?s an interesting story ? how that actually happened), when he lost the election, and Reagan came in and Schultz came in as Secretary of State from Bechtel, and Weinberger came from Bechtel to be Secretary of Defense, they were extremely angry at Torrijos ? tried to get him to renegotiate the Canal Treaty and not to talk to the Japanese. He adamantly refused. He was a very principled man. He had his problem, but he was a very principled man. He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which ? I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There?s no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most ? many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country."

"Outside the window of my Outback, great clouds of mist rolled in from the forests and up the Pastaza's canyons. Sweat soaked my shirt, and my stomach began to churn, but not just from the intense tropical heat and the serpentine twists in the road. Knowing the part I had played in destroying this beautiful country was once again taking its toll. Because of my fellow EHMs and me, Ecuador is in far worse shape today than she was before we introduced her to the miracles of modern economics, banking, and engineering. Since 1970, during this period known euphemistically as the Oil Boom, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, under- or unemployment increased from 15 to 70 percent, and public debt increased from $240 million to $16 billion. Meanwhile, the share of national resources allocated to the poorest segments of the population declined from 20 to 6 percent."

"Our own statistics about violence, depression, drug abuse, divorce, and crime indicated that although ours was one of the wealthiest societies in history, it may also be one of the least happy societies. Why would we want others to emulate us?"

"Points 1 and 2. The United States represents less than 5 percent of the world?s population; it consumes more than 25 percent of the world?s resources. This is accomplished to a large degree through the exploitation of other countries, primarily in the developing world. Point 3. The United States maintains the largest and most sophisticated military in the world. Although this empire has been built primarily through economics?by EHMs?world leaders understand that whenever other measures fail, the military will step in, as it did in Iraq. Point 4. The English language and American culture dominate the world. Points 5 and 6. Although the United States does not tax countries directly, and the dollar has not replaced other currencies in local markets, the corporatocracy does impose a subtle global tax and the dollar is in fact the standard currency for world commerce. This process began at the end of World War II when the gold standard was modified; dollars could no longer be converted by individuals, only by governments. During the 1950s and 1960s, credit purchases were made abroad to finance America?s growing consumerism, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Lyndon B. Johnson?s Great Society. When foreign businessmen tried to buy goods and ser vices back from the United States, they found that inflation had reduced the value of their dollars?in effect, they paid an indirect tax. Their governments demanded debt settlements in gold."

"Pointed out that the corporation enjoys the same rights as a living person under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This concept was upheld in 1886 by the Supreme Court in 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 'and has been a fact of law ever since. I emphasized to those executives that the corporation should also be required to accept the same responsibilities as those expected of a person; it too should be a good citizen, an honorable, ethical member of the community. Of the case with In international corporations, That community has to be defined color : as the world."

"Sazkirk what he said to me members of the tribe Shuar in 1990 that the world can be as dreamed of and that we can replace the nightmare polluting industries, highways closed and excessive urban congestion -helma new based on the preservation of the environment and the principles of social responsibility of the Equal Asttaantna have to change ourselves and change our Muslim raised."

"Some prefer to blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were that simple. The conspirators were you can capture and bring to justice. But this our system propels something much more dangerous than a conspiracy. Impels, not a small group of men, but a concept that has been admitted as sacred truth: that all economic growth is always beneficial to humanity and that the greater growth, its benefits are widespread. This belief also has a corollary: that the ablest subjects stoke the fire of economic growth deserve praise and rewards, while those born outside are available to be exploited."

"Some would blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were so simple. Members of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to justice. This system, however, is fueled by something far more dangerous than conspiracy. It is driven not by a small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation."

"So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It's a huge empire. It's been extremely successful."

"Stop being so greedy, and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion pages for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowing in poverty, but your people do not even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There's not much time left. You do not the if change, you're doomed."

"Stop being so greedy, she said, and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people do not even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There's not much time left. You do not the if change, you're doomed."

"Summarized Robert Baer (an operations management at the CIA for twenty years and specializes in the Middle Affairs Alausk) it by saying , At the beginning of the seventies of the twentieth century when he started the flow of oil money began entrepreneurs Lebanese smuggling prostitutes Kingdom for the princes ... and because members the royal family does not know how to monitor incoming and outgoing from their bank account numbers has led to the richness of the Lebanese richer obscene"

"That hideous, incongruous wall is a dam that blocks the rushing Pastaza River, diverts its waters through huge tunnels bored into the mountain, and converts the energy to electricity. This is the 156- megawatt Agoyan hydroelectric project. It fuels the industries that make a handful of Ecuadorian families wealthy, and it has been the source of untold suffering for the farmers and indigenous people who live along the river. This hydroelectric plant is just one of many projects developed through my efforts and those of other EHMs. Such projects are the reason Ecuador is now a member of the global empire, and the reason why the Shuars and Kichwas and their neighbors threaten war against our oil companies."

"That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure?electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco."

"That's part of the game: convince people that they're wrong, that they're inferior. The corporatocracy is incredibly good at that, whether it is back during the Vietnam War, convincing the world that the North Vietnamese were evil; today it's the Muslims. It's a policy of them versus us: We are good. We are right. We do everything right. You're wrong. And in this case, all of this energy has been directed at the Greek people to say "you're lazy; you didn't do the right thing; you didn't follow the right policies," when in actuality, an awful lot of the blame needs to be laid on the financial community that encouraged Greece to go down this route. And I would say that we have something very similar going on in the United States, where people here are being led to believe that because their house is being foreclosed that they were stupid, that they bought the wrong houses; they overspent themselves. The fact of the matter is their bankers told them to do this, and around the world, we've come to trust bankers - or we used to. In the United States, we never believed that a banker would tell us to buy a $500,000 house if in fact we could really only afford a $300,000 house. We thought it was in the bank's interest not to foreclose. But that changed a few years ago, and bankers told people who they knew could only afford a $300,000 house to buy a $500,000 house. "Tighten your belt, in a few years that house will be worth a million dollars; you'll make a lot of money" . . . in fact, the value of the house went down; the market dropped out; the banks foreclosed on these houses, repackaged them, and sold them again. Double whammy. The people were told, "you were stupid; you were greedy; why did you buy such an expensive house?" But in actuality, the bankers told them to do this, and we've grown up to believe that we can trust our bankers. Something very similar on a larger scale happened in so many countries around the world, including Greece."

"The big deal is we think the power is in us individually the power is in us collectively. It is in the church."

"The choices we 've make within the boundaries of the twists of fate we 've Determines WHO COMPLETE are On"

"The evidence of corruption and scandal gets less flak than the suspicion of freedom and morality."

"The company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan ? let?s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador ? and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure ? a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn?t possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can?t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, "Look, you?re not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil." And today we?re going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they?ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It?s an empire. There?s no two ways about it. It?s a huge empire. It?s been extremely successful."

"The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995.3 The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet."

"The choices we make within the boundaries of the twists of fate determines who we are"

"The first question we must address deals with optimism, the possibility of achieving our goal. Are we in a position where we can actually hope to effect change? Assuming we become convinced that there are reasons for optimism, we move to the next question. Are we certain that we want change? The stories about EHMs, jackals, and suffering around the globe strike raw nerves, but now we demand absolute proof that our grievances justify the efforts change will demand. Third: Is there a unifying principle that will validate our efforts? We look to ascertain that we are not merely seeking to impose our moral, religious, or philosophical values ??on others but instead are intent on creating something of true and lasting universal benefit. And finally: What can we each do ? You and I personally need to evaluate our talents and passions. What are our individual options and desires? Do they 're fit How into the bigger picture?"

"The poor have been poor long enough. I don?t need to spend the rest of my life exploiting the poor, but coming together with others to build the kind of world we want to see."

"The only way that we?re going to feel secure in this country again and that we?re going to feel good about ourselves is if we use these systems we?ve put into place to create positive change around the world. I really believe we can do that."

"The real story of contemporary empire story Alcorpuqratih untapped humans desperate and who practiced the worst in history of brutal and selfish and the destruction of human beings and resources -laalaqh her ??so much as revealed by the newspapers that morning and that he could shake the constants us Perhaps that is what explains the difficulty of hearing the real story as we prefer to believe those myths that Akhaddonna out of that after thousands of years of experience of human social evolution have succeeded in the perfect economic system the application , rather than face the fact that they sold us a false concept , and we have accepted as fact a Muslim"

"The poor need the motivation, the incentives, the skills, the education so they can help themselves."