Going Underground Hosted by Afshin Rattansi
Oct 18, 2026 · 28 min · 10 segments
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to John Perkins, former economic hitman and Author of The Art of the Steal: Trump & The Economic Hit Man Presidency. He discusses the US’ move to…
John PerkinsGuest
Afshin RattansiHost
I want to go into those more concretely in a second, but because the IMF and World Bank meetings are on this week, you say early on in the book, you talk about GDP.
And all over the mass media has been these amazing IMF, World Bank forecasts of GDP growth.
People consulting it and quoting it as if it is the words of God, as it assumes oil at $96 a barrel.
Well, GDP really measures how well the wealthy are doing in their corporations.
It doesn't measure, or it doesn't significantly measure the majority of people in most countries.
And so, you know, for many years, I believed that the policies that I was implementing were... increasing prosperity for everyone because the statistics show that building these huge infrastructure projects like power plants and industrial parks, highways, ports, airports, increased GDP per capita.
And per capita, now doesn't that mean for everyone, per person? But what it turns out is that, of course, GDP per capita is just the amount of GDP divided by the number of people.
And GDP is a measure of how well the big industries are doing, the corporations, the banks, the insurance companies, and now the media mongols, how well the rich are doing.
At the same time, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and deeper, and the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer.
You know, here these people are all meeting these bankers in their fancy ties and coats and coming in on their private planes.
And they're talking about economic stability and economic growth and financial stability and how do we get rid of poverty.
But the very policies that they're implementing are tending to do exactly the opposite of that.
Now, interestingly, in the book, you talk about how Trump, before he became a politician, inverted the IMF World Bank economic hitman strategy to make the debtor captive to the creditor.
I mean, maybe developing world countries should take note and borrow so much money.
I want to go into those more concretely in a second, but because the IMF and World Bank meetings are on this week, you say early on in the book, you talk about GDP.
And all over the mass media has been these amazing IMF, World Bank forecasts of GDP growth.
People consulting it and quoting it as if it is the words of God, as it assumes oil at $96 a barrel.
Well, GDP really measures how well the wealthy are doing in their corporations.
It doesn't measure, or it doesn't significantly measure the majority of people in most countries.
And so, you know, for many years, I believed that the policies that I was implementing were... increasing prosperity for everyone because the statistics show that building these huge infrastructure projects like power plants and industrial parks, highways, ports, airports, increased GDP per capita.
And per capita, now doesn't that mean for everyone, per person? But what it turns out is that, of course, GDP per capita is just the amount of GDP divided by the number of people.
And GDP is a measure of how well the big industries are doing, the corporations, the banks, the insurance companies, and now the media mongols, how well the rich are doing.
At the same time, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and deeper, and the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer.
You know, here these people are all meeting these bankers in their fancy ties and coats and coming in on their private planes.
And they're talking about economic stability and economic growth and financial stability and how do we get rid of poverty.
But the very policies that they're implementing are tending to do exactly the opposite of that.
Now, interestingly, in the book, you talk about how Trump, before he became a politician, inverted the IMF World Bank economic hitman strategy to make the debtor captive to the creditor.
I mean, maybe developing world countries should take note and borrow so much money.
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