Educational Hitmen (EHM)
I am almost done reading The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman and it has completely reframed my understanding of the business deals and infrastructure programs I observed growing up in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. The author breaks down the empire-building strategy of American Corporatocracy and its devastating effects on the developing countries where they did their work. These Economic Hitmen (EHMs) were ivy-league economists dispatched to work with the governments of resource-rich developing countries with the mission of getting the countries to accept more debt than they could ever pay back to build their infrastructure by hiring American corporations. Then, when the infrastructure was built and the bill came due and the debt couldn't be paid, the World Bank and the CIA would take control in the name of financial guidance and pro-business leaders would be installed to ensure that the country continued to be a great trading partner for the West.
The first-hand accounts in the book are almost unbelievable. Almost. I can't believe it hasn't been made into a movie yet.
Well, actually I can. The powers at be definitely don't want the American people to know that this is what "promoting democracy abroad" has actually looked like over the past 60-70 years.
- Offer something that has never been attainable before
- Claim the upside is even better than expected
- Show examples of others who have attained this status
- Make getting debt to pay for it simple
- Assure the borrower that it will all be worth it in the end
- Show quick results and improvements while in progress
- Don't make anyone pay until the work is done
- Start collecting the debt
- Use the debt to force other decisions
- Add another debt-laden subservient pawn to your collection
In 10 easy steps, the powers-at-be go from being your partner in a future you so desperately want for yourself to becoming your new master until the debt that you can never pay off is paid off.
Wait, is this strategy about developing countries or a whole generation of students sold the promise of a college education?
At this writing, 46 million Americans owe an average of $39,772 in student debt. That totals $1.75T in money that went to finance education with the promise of a new future. That is $440B more than what Americans owe in car loans.
Before the pandemic hit, 11.1% of borrowers we at least 90 days behind on the payments of their student loans. (a whole lot more interesting stats here)
This morning I was reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and she was encouraging the reader to not feel like they needed to go get a degree in art or creative writing in order to live a creative life.
"If you are considering some kind of advanced schooling in the arts and you're not rolling in cash, I'm telling you - you can live without it. You can certainly live without the debt because debt will always be the abattoir of creative dreams."
That was when it hit me - has the industrial education complex actually been the long game on a form of control for an entire creative generation? Were we sold a bill of goods that most of us will never actually see the true benefit of but will absolutely be more likely to fall in line and take the jobs we hate to make sure we don't miss a payment on a loan from something we experienced a decade ago?
How many times have I heard someone say, "Once I get my student loans paid off, then I will go do the thing I always wanted to do or take the job I really wanted to have or move somewhere I've always wanted to live."
Are the salesmen of the idea that the American dream runs through six figures of schooling and tens of thousands of dollars of debt to finance it actually just Educational Hitmen?
