Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

In this shocking memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins tells of his own inner journey from willing servant of empire to impassioned advocate for the rights of oppressed people. Within a few weeks of its release , Confessions of an Economic Hit Man landed on The New York Times Bestseller List, then 19 other bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the IMF, World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development, and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

Mr. Perkins, a highly respected economist, had once worked as chief economist at Chas. T. Main, an international consulting firm in Boston. Even though he worked for a private corporation, he was sent abroad under government contracts to convince leaders of developing countries, places of strategic importance to the US, such as Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Ecuador, etc., to accept enormous "loans" from the United States. The money would then be used to pay American companies to build local infrastructure and other projects. So while American corporations were profiting from these "loans," the countries were sinking into overwhelming debt. The poorest people, who benefited least from these projects, were the ones stuck with the responsibility for payment. These countries usually became US puppet regimes, open to American corporate manipulation. If a leader refused to play the game, the consequences could be lethal. This is blatant economic blackmail - where your best buddy turns out to be the vindictive loan shark.

Jaime Roldós Aguilera, former president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos Herrera, former president of Panama had both been his clients. They both died in fiery plane crashes. According to Perkins, their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated, targets of the CIA, because they opposed the goals of corporate, government, and banking leaders, which were, and are, to build and maintain a global empire. The CIA has long assisted American corporations to remain dominant in foreign markets, by overthrowing governments hostile to unregulated capitalism.

In the early 1970s, 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 used the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to develop Saudi Arabian infrastructure, and the House of Saud agreed to maintain the price of oil at reasonable limits. In return, the US would use its resources to keep the House of Saud in power.

After attempting to implement something similar to the Saudi policy in Iraq, and failing, US industry, in concert with government, wanted to depose Saddam Hussein. Saddam did not play ball. When the "economic hit men" were not able to convince the infamous dictator to cooperate, CIA "jackals" went in to foment revolution or a coup. It was not so easy, however, to overthrow or kill Saddam. His bodyguards were too good and he used doubles. Perkins draws the conclusion, based on his experience, knowledge and hard facts, that the present Iraqi war was our next step. He cites the billions of dollars in US government contracts awarded to US corporations, like the Bechtel Group Inc., and Halliburton Company's subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root.

In the words of Perkins; “Admitting to a problem is the first step toward finding a solution. Confessing a sin is the beginning of redemption. Let this book, then, be the start of our salvation. Let it inspire us to new levels of dedication, and drive us to realize our dream for balanced and honorable societies.”

Books

Now Reading

“Einstein on Politics:His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb” by David E. Rowe & Robert Schulmann

"1984" by George Orwell

"The Penguine Book of Classical Urdu Stories"

"The Essential Chomsky"

In Pipeline
"Iqbal and Quranic Wisdom" by Md Munawwar
"The Road to Mecca" by M Asad

"Who Speaks for Islam?" by John Esposito & Dalia Moghed

"Hot Flat & Crowded" by Thomas Friedman

"Middle East Illusion" by Noam Chomsky

"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

"Its Not About Bike; My Journey back to Life" by Lance Armstrong

'Inside the Gender Jihad" by Amina Wadood

"A Better India; A Better World" by Narayan Murthy

Recently read

"The Alchemy of Desire" by Tarun Tejpal

"Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

"Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell

"The Story of My Assassins" by Tarun Tejpal

"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

"The Shape of the Beast" by Arundhati Roy

"Islamic Economics" by Sabahuddin Azmi

"The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria

"The Case of Exploding Mangoes" Muhammad Hanif

"Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business" by Muhammad Yunus

"Tell Me No Lies" by John Pilger

"Journey into Islam - Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid
"The 3 Mistakes of my Life" by Chetan Bhagat
"Islam the Straight Path" by John L Esposito
"The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs
"Confession of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins
"The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam", Speeches, Writings & Statements" by Allama Iqbal
"Identity and Violence", "The Argumentative India" by Amartya Sen:
"Muhammad", "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong:
Malcom X Autobiography
"Noam Chomsky "Understanding Power":
"Mavericks at Work":
"Banker to the Poor" by Mohammad Yusuf
"Standing Alone in Mecca" by Asra Naomani
"Al-Farooq The life of Umar the Great"
"Made in America"
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseni
"Fish" by Stephen Lundin
"How Starbucks saved my life" by Michael Gill

"Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coehlo
"Scoop" by Kuldip Nayyar
"Art of Seduction"
"How to Get What you want Out of Life"
"In Spite of Gods:Rise of Modern India" Edward Luce
"Winning" Jack Welch

Have Read
Arindam Chaudhuri, Shiv Khera, Robert Kiyosaki, Steven Covey, Mahatma Gandhi, Paulo Coelho, Sun Tzu, Zig Ziglar, M J Akbar, Ayn Rand and loads more apart from novels, which I hardly reads now

Lean Thinking by James Womack & Daniel Jones

Lean thinking is Lean because it provides a way to do more and more with less and less- less human effort, less equipment, less time, and less spaces while coming closer and closer to providing customers with exactly what they want.

Introduction :

Author traveled across North America , then to Japan and Korea, and on through Europe where every where concept of mass production was too deep cemented in the minds of mangers. Till this book had been published Toyota was the company which emulated this concept very well. At that time managers could not think of converting mass production to for lean process.

After meeting many audiences and considerable reflection, it was concluded that lean thinking can be summarized in five principles.

1. Specify value by specify product

2. Identify value stream.

3. Make value flow without interruptions.

4. Let the customers pull value from the products.

5. Pursue perfection.

I. Specify Value

What is value? It can only be defined by the ultimate customer and its only meaningful when expressed in terms of a specific product which meets the customer’s needs at a specific prize at a specific time. All along the way where ever author has traveled the definition of value is skewed every where by the power of pre-existing organization, technologies and underpreciated assets, along with outdated thinking about economies of scale.

Managers around the world tend to say, "This product is what we know how to produce using assets we have already bought, so if customers don’t respect we will adjust the price or add bells and whistles.” What they should be doing instead is fundamentally rethinking value from the perspective of customer.

Lean thinking therefore must start with a conscious attempt to precisely define value in terms of specific products with specific capabilities offered at specific prices through a dialogue with specific customers, specifying value accurately is the critical first step in lean thinking providing the wrong good or service the right way is Muda. Here to define value the author has proposed following steps:

1. Challenge Tradition Definitions of Value:

Here author stressed on formation of teen for each product to stick with that product during his entire production life. This team consisting of a marketer, a product engineer and a tooling process engineer – proceeded to enter into a dialogue with leading customers in which all of the old products and solutions were ignored. Instead customer and producer focused on the value the customer really needed.

2. Define value in terms of whole product:

Another reason firms find it hard to get value right is that which value creation often flows through many firms, each one tends to define value in a different way to suit its own needs when these differing definitions are added up they often don’t add up.

3. Firms to rethink value:

According to this the author propagated the idea that it is vital that producers accept the challenge of redefinition, because this often leads to finding more customers, and the ability to find more customers and sales very quickly is critical to the success of a lean thinking.

4. Target Cost :-

Here the lean enterprises look at the current bundles of pricing and features being offered to customers by conventional firms and then ask how much cost they can take out by full application of lean methods.

II. Value Stream ( Identification)

Here the author defines value stream as the set of all the specific actions required to bring a specific product through three critical management tasks of any business:

(1) Problem solving task

(2) Information Management task

(3) Physical Transformation task

Identifying the entire value stream for each product is the next step in lean thinking, a step which forms have rarely attempted but which almost always exposes enormous, indeed staggering amounts of muda. Here the author stressed at looking at entire set of activities entailed in creating and producing a specific product, from concept through detailed design to actual availability, from the initial sale through order entry and production scheduling to delivery and from raw materials reduced faraway and out of sight right into the hands of customer. The organizational mechanism for doing this is what we call the ‘lean enterprises’. Here to author advise to lean forms today is simple: to hell with your competitors; compete against perfection by identifying all activities that are muda and eliminating them .

III. Flow:

Once the value has been precisely specified, the value stream far a specific product fully mapped by the lean enterprise and obviously wasteful steps eliminated, its time for the next step in lean thinking and which is make the value creating steps flow. Here the author has out rightly rejected the functional and departmentalization concept of the companies. In departmentalization, activities are performed in batches and batches as it turns out, always mean long waits as the product sits patiently awaiting the department’s changeover to the type of activity the product needs next. Here the author believes that things work better when we focus on the product and ifs needs rather than the organization or the equipment, so that all the activities needed to design, order, and provide a product occur in continuous flow. The lean alternative is to redefine the work of functions, departments, and firms so they can make a positive contribution to value creation and to speak to the real needs of employees at every point along the stream so it is actually in their interest to make value flow.

IV. Pull:

Pull in simplest terms means that no one upstream should produce a good service until the customer downstream as per for it, but actually fallowing this rule in practice is a bit more complicated. The best way to understand the logic and challenge of pull thinking is to start with a real customer expressing a demand for a real product and to work backwards through all the steps required to bring the desired product to the customer.

V. Perfection:

As organizations begin to accurately specify value, identify the entire value stream, make the value creating steps for specific products flow continuously, and let customers pull value from the enterprise, something very old begins to happen. It dawns on those involved that there is no end to the process of reducing effort, time, space, cast and mistakes while offering a product which is ever more nearly what the customer actually wants. Suddenly perfection, the fifth and final principle of loan thinking, doesn’t seem like a crazy idea.

ADVANTAGES OF USING THIS SYSTEM:

1. Based on years of benchmarking and observation in organizations around the world, author has developed the following simple rules of thumb: Converting a classic batch - and- queue production system to continuous flow with effective pull by the customer will double labor productivity all the way through the system while at the same time cutting production.
Throughput time by 90% and reducing inventories in the system by 90 percent as well

2 Errors reaching to customer will cut to half

3. Wide variety of products, within the product families, can be offered at very modest
additional cost.

4. Capital investments required will be very modest, even negative, if facilities and equipment can be freed up and sold.

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Who Moved My Cheese is masterful at helping people deal with a substantial, psychological roadblock-change. The book tells the story of two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two "little people" (Hem and Haw) trapped in a maze. Cheese is a metaphor for whatever you want in your life. For the mice, it's cheese. For the "little people," it could be success, happiness, or financial security.

One day, the foursome finds cheese in Cheese Station C. It's probably one of those researchers putting it there, but we don't know. Maybe fate or an accident has placed it there. Anyway, they all like it. They return day-after-day to eat cheese.

The mice always explore their surroundings and are looking for change. They weren't completely surprised when one day the cheese disappeared. They noticed the supply had been dwindling.

Or, even if they were surprised, when it was gone, it was gone. Sniff lifted his nose and decided upon a direction. Scurry took off in the same direction. The mice went looking for new cheese in the maze. They didn't try to hold on to a past that no longer existed.

The mice didn't analyze things too much. Change happens. They knew they had to deal with it.

The little people were different. They had come to view Cheese Station C as their home. They bragged about it. They felt it was theirs. They were outraged, shocked, scared, and befuddled when the cheese disappeared. In their comfort, they didn't notice the cheese supply had been dwindling, nor that it had become old and smelly. They had become complacent.

Hem and Haw felt the situation was unfair. It was their cheese, and now it was gone. Hem and Haw remained in Cheese Station C hoping the cheese would return and wondering where it had gone.

One day, Haw decided that waiting for the cheese to return wasn't working. He was getting weaker the longer he remained, and so, he moved into the maze looking for new cheese. He felt too old and tired to seek new cheese, and he was afraid. Afraid of the unknown and afraid he wouldn't find new cheese, but he pressed on.

As fate would have it, Haw did find new . On his cheese-seeking quest, Haw kept writing life lessons on the wall of the maze like:

• "Change Happens. They keep moving the Cheese."
• "Anticipate Change. Get ready for the cheese to move."
• "Enjoy Change. Savor the adventure and enjoy the taste of the new cheese!"

Hem was hemmed in by his old ideas. We don't know if he ever left Cheese Station C. He may have starved, as the longer he stayed in the cheese less station, the weaker he would become.

Anyway, learn to think more like a mouse. Don't depend upon the status quo. Realize change happens and circumstances, which may have favored you, change. Yet, you can't control change and are not entitled to things remaining the same.

Who Moved My Cheese provides inspirational guidance to those suffering job loss, downsizing, divorce, or altered life situations. It's message, to seek out new opportunities, makes the reader, faced with change, want to quit the "It's-not-fair" hand-wringing and seek opportunity.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People begins with the astute observation that people perceive the world differently, and because we view the world with our own unique "lens," it is difficult to separate the observation from the observer.

Covey says that we all have our own paradigm, which is our own map of how we perceive the world and how we think the world should be in our ideal view. Covey writes, "The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act."

Covey goes on to explain: "These paradigms are the source of our attitudes and behaviors. We cannot act with integrity outside of them. We simply cannot maintain wholeness if we talk and walk differently than we see. To try to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow."

So, part of achieving insight involves making a "paradigm shift" which causes us to perceive things differently. Covey notes that life threatening experiences or a major role change in a person's life can change a person's paradigm. Sometimes, just a little more knowledge might help us examine our paradigms.

Covey says that although many people want to be effective in their lives and achieve certain goals or dreams, they are unwilling to honestly examine their own paradigms. They are unwilling to look at the way they look at things.

Among his many examples, Covey tells the story of a manager who has taken management training classes and seminars and who is friendly to his employees. Yet, he doesn't feel that his employees have any loyalty toward him. He feels they lack independence and responsibility. If he took a day off, he believes his employees would goof off and stand around the water cooler talking all day.

Covey suggests the manager ask himself, “But is it possible that under that apparent disloyal behavior, these employees question whether I really act in their best interest? Do they feel like I'm treating them as mechanical objects?”

Our paradigms will affect how we interact with others, which in turn will affect how they interact with us. So, Covey argues, any effective self-help program must begin with an "inside-out" approach, rather than looking at our problems as "being out there". We must start by examining our own character, paradigms, and motives.

Covey writes that the inside-out approach says "If you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character."

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People points out: "Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. One way to quickly grasp the self-evident nature of principles is to simply consider the absurdity of attempting to live an effective life based on their opposites. I doubt that anyone would seriously consider unfairness, deceit, baseness, uselessness, mediocrity, or degeneration to be a solid foundation for lasting happiness and success."

After discussing the importance of character, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People jumps into the habits you should work toward creating as a part of your life. The first three habits, Covey says, are habits of independence. They will help you achieve a private victory of being more personally effective and independent.

Stephen Covey's Habits of Independence:

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Covey says you must use your resourcefulness and your initiative to work toward your personal goals. In particular, each person has both a circle of influence and a circle of concern. Worrying endlessly about things outside of your circle of influence isn't particularly productive. Working within your circle of influence is productive. Further, the more effective you become, the more your circle of influence will expand.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Covey starts with the extreme example of considering your death. What do you want people to say about you at your funeral? How will you be remembered?

Covey says that many people climb the ladder of success only to find the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. He writes, "We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind."

To succeed, Covey suggests visualization. He points out many peak, athletic performers are visualizers. Covey writes: "You can do it [visualization] in any area of your life. Before a performance, a sales presentation, a difficult confrontation, or the daily challenge of meeting a goal, see it clearly, vividly, relentlessly, and over and over again. Create an internal "comfort zone." Then, when you get into the situation, it isn't foreign. It doesn't scare you."

Habit 3: Put First Things First

The key to putting first things first is to understand that you have many things you can do which will have a significant, positive impact on your life. But, you probably don't do them, because they aren't urgent. They can be delayed. Of course, so will your success.

Covey stresses that you must balance Production (P) with Productive Capability (PC). You must keep the engine producing, but also maintain the engine. You must allocate time to improve your Productive Capability.

Covey says that all time management can be summed up by one short line: "Organize and execute around priorities."

The remaining habits in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are habits of interdependence. Rather than being dependent upon other people, or trying to be totally independent, we learn how to be more effective by effectively working with others.

Covey writes: "Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players. They're not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality."

Stephen Covey's Habits of Interdependence:

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

Thinking Win/Win means seeking mutual benefit in your human interactions. Covey points out that many people think Win/Lose. They internally believe, "If I win, you lose." Such people focus upon power and credentials, but have trouble building meaningful relationships. Such people drive other people away and are seldom extremely effective. Such Win/Lose thinking is encouraged and programmed into us by society.

Covey writes: "A powerful programming agent is athletics, particularly for young men in their high school or college years. Often they develop the basic paradigm that life is a big game, a zero sum game where some win and some lose. 'Winning' is 'beating'"

To be successful you should learn to leverage the strengths of others. To do this effectively involves being able to find Win/Win deals. No deal is better than any non-Win/Win deal.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

Covey observes that few people have training in listening. Most people don't listen. They wait to talk. But, how can you discover Win/Win deals, if you aren't even listening to the other party? Covey also suggests that you don't read your own personal autobiography into the lives of other people. Listening shouldn't be selective listening. Nor should we only pretend to listen to others.

Covey writes: "Communication experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our communication by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds [tone? Or, does he mean "sounds" like chortle, chortle, grunt, grunt?], and 60 percent by our body language. In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel."

Habit 6: Synergize

Covey writes: "What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Covey goes on to discuss synergy in the classroom and synergy in business.

To be effective, Covey emphasizes that we must value the differences between people and how they view the world. That difference can be used as a source of insight.

Covey says: "Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy-the mental, the emotional, and the psychological differences between people. And the key to valuing those differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are."

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

The final habit discussed in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is "Sharpen the Saw," which focuses upon self-renewal. There is an analogy with Habit 3: Put First Things First, where we learned that we must balance Productivity (P) with future Productive Capability (PC). Just as a machine will wear out quickly if not properly maintained, the same is true for your own personal productivity. You must take care of yourself.

Covey breaks personal renewal into four dimensions:

Physical Renewal covers topics such as exercise and stress management.

Mental Renewal discusses the need to read, visualize, and plan.

Social/Emotional Renewal involves interacting with others to build our own sense of well-being.

Spiritual Renewal involves possible religion, study, and meditation.