The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Claudine, alluring yet coldly cynical, trained Perkins to be an economic hit man, teaching him to lure developing nations into accepting onerous development loans. From Claudine Perkins learned that he is “in for life” and must always seek to benefit America and its corporations at the expense of the poor.

General Torrijos wanted to help the poor of his country, Panama. He knew full well how the American corporatocracy worked in developing countries, but Perkins’s open admiration for Torrijos’s work generated trust between the two. Torrijos and Perkins agreed that, for Panama at least, Perkins’s economic forecasts would be accurate; in exchange, Torrijos gave Perkins’s company all the work it could handle. Torrijos also negotiated with American President Carter for the Canal Zone’s return to Panama. Torrijos remained a thorn in America’s side until he died in a suspicious plane crash in 1981.

A Colombian, Paula befriended Perkins and helped him deal with his conflicting feelings about being both an economic hit man and a sympathizer in the cause of the third-world poor. Perkins emerged from this relationship with the desire to work for indigenous peoples, and he quit his job as an economic hit man.

Correa became president of Ecuador in 2006. Like Torrijos in Panama, he resisted American influence, closing off its investments in Ecuador, shutting the major US base there, and working to improve the Amazonian environment. Correa barely escaped a coup attempt in 2010, whereupon he reversed course and reopened bidding on Amazonian oil fields to American drillers. He also expelled the local chapter of Perkins’s Pachamama Foundation, which supports indigenous Amazonians against the oil companies. He served as president until 2017.

Perkins befriended Farhad at Middlebury College. Farhad’s father was an Iranian general with connections to the US government. Farhad was expelled for defending Perkins in a bar fight; later, Perkins quit Middlebury and roomed with Farhad in Boston. Perkins’s connection to Farhad helped pave his way to the life of an economic hit man. Years later, while working in Iran, Perkins encountered Farhad, who was then an American agent. Farhad whisked Perkins out of Iran just before revolution overthrew its government.