Don't waste your credits.

Excellent story and initial descriptions, the last four chapters were needless and nullified the author's credibility. He could have left off the section of the text where he slips into emotional pleas about activism. I probably shouldn't expect anymore out of a bourgeois boomer attempting to repent for crimes against humanity, conveniently well after his financial position is well secured for life, reminiscent of Al Gore and his more convenient timing. Substantive on the surface, nullified by the presenter.

4 people found this helpful

a must read for every free thinker!

have heard about this book before but was skeptic about some of the testimonies in the first version, this version answers alot of questions and creates even more, which is awesome!

2 people found this helpful

Must read

Opens eyes, surfaces truth, points reality, educates minds all in one book. It will change your projection and perception of globalization.

2 people found this helpful

Great start, poor finish

It was an interesting start, lot of great insight into American expansion using economic means. At the same time after he left his position I don’t think there was much substantial new information. It reads like that guy who can definitely tell a story to make it sound better than it actually happened. In the end what would have made this book good in the second half would be some actual insight into the Chinese EHM program in Asia and in Africa where this is happening right now. In the end his morality got the best of him and I had to sit through a few hours of endless talking points and broken misguided thoughts on how to reform world economics so we can live is this beautiful green economy where equality reigns supreme. To read into it a bit more he was just a mid level guy separated from a lot of the big decisions, probably could have got pretty high up then left before his time.

Original Was Better

The author almost had me convinced until he started citing people like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul as examples to be followed. We now know thet we’re two of the most corrupt people in history.

Lots of insight and history

Lots of insight about tons of events. Not really sure what he expects people to do individually against the military complex.

Ripped off the world and starting new

This author ripped of the world for decades and does a good job of explaining it. Towards the end of the book he takes a hard turn towards socialism and communism in a dressed up package to encourage the new form of economic hit men. The great reset is just another attempt to gather the western worlds resources this time around.

Good listen just up to his old tricks again in a new way. Could get rid of ch 47 and replace it with gather the evidence and hold people accountable, instead its just more pandering into another EHM system.

Events sort of accurate but author's involvement?

Started listening to the original version, which is much lower quality, without chapter titles, with a lower quality reading performance, Finished with the added chapters of the New version, which has chapter titles and a better audio performance. Don't bother with the original, jump straight to the New version, which includes all the original plus more recent events.

Early on in the book, all I could think of was 'this guy thinks he's the Zelig Gump of EHMs', present at every major economic hit of the 20th century. So I quickly assumed he'd pinned the key real events and wrote a somewhat interesting personal fantasy around them involving himself.

While the EHM pattern is established and oft repeated, there was precious little detail about the Hows, Whos and Whats of the events actually transpiring and described. A few more names, a few more swiss bank accounts, a few more maneuvers and hits might have made this more worthwhile, and more credible.

The last few chapters of 'regret' were nauseating frankly. "I made a ton of money ruining whole countries' futures and now I feel really terrible about it so please everybody get involved locally and make a difference yourselves". Ugh!

In 2021 this version is already obsolete

Loved the original Confessions of an Economic Hitman but listening to the updated version from 2015 isn't worth your time. Purchase the original book or audio book you can thank me later.

I expected more from this

I first heard of the original version of this book on a podcast many years ago but forgot to check it out. When I saw an updated version had been released, I figured this was a great time to jump in as I wanted to hear more about this concept of economic hitmen. The book isn't bad but it's not what I expected.

What I wanted was a deep dive into this corporate dystopian sounding concept, and a soup to nuts explanation of how these hitmen have accomplished what they have and the influence they've had on our world's geopolitics. This stuff coming from a man who was on the inside I thought could be very insightful, especially after hearing how the author has regularly received threats (some of which have been acted on) for speaking out against this. In reality, only about half of the book deals with his life as an economic hitman and doesn't go very deep into it. The top level concepts are certainly explained well and some examples of his own work are given but they don't go into substantial detail and don't cover anything beyond what the author himself experienced. I frankly expected a lot more stories and a lot more detail.

The second half of the book (which I think is mostly the new content in this revision) just talks about the author's life and work after he left the economic hitman profession and spend several chapters railing against modern corporate culture and values and giving people nebulous concepts about what they can do to improve things, concepts that clearly just assume everyone shares the same, fairly light burdens and challenges in life. These lectures border on being hippie-ish at times and read like someone who is still in a significant position of privilege, talking down to others and expecting those with far less flexibility and opportunities to make sometimes significant sacrifices to neuter a corporate supremecy that will just find another way to exploit them anyway. Don't get me wrong, I agree with all the core arguments made in these latter sections but the tone is rather pretentious and patronizing and the ideals rather naive. And it's not what I came to this book looking for.

This isn't a bad book and what it does deliver is interesting and compelling, there just should have been a lot more to the economic hitman part and a lot less of the TED talking.