There's no such thing as a free lunch

"There's no such thing as a free lunch"

That is probably the first thing I have ever learnt in my first economics class in college, and probably the most important thing I should always remember when I get out of college. Why is that? The answer is simple. No one wants to give out something free for you. If they are giving you a "free lunch", they are expecting you to pay back at some points. Just think about whenever you bump into some ads online that said "congratulations, you have been selected to win a free iPhone!", sorry but life aint that simple. You, very excited, clicked on the link to fill in some info so that they can send you an iPhone. In contrary, what appears were list of non-stop and non-related questions or surveys that you are required to answer. The next thing you know, you're too tired and gave up, "Fck this, I dont want an iPhone anymore!". See, nothing is ever free for you.

Anyway, such a long introduction brough to this main point I want to say. I have been having a lot of questions regarding the World Bank, the IMF or similar international organizations which are very willing to give out loans for developing or under-developed countries in order to help those countries alleviate poverty, boost the economic condition, build up necessary infrastructure and so forth. I have always wondered "why are they doing that?", "what's in it for them".... until recently I got a chance to pore over "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". The book was an autobiography of a man who claimed himself an economic hit man, aka EHM. They are actually groups of people who cheat on small, less developed countries making them believing in great prosperity if those countries were to take the US loans and invest in their countries; however, those countries will never be able to develop as much and foster as predicted, so they ended up being shackled with debts with the U.S. and then become dependant on the U.S. These EHMs are very cunning in their works. They dressed up and talked about how concerned they are with your economies (LDCs), but they in fact were luring your countries into deals which you will never ever be able to get out. The closer the people who worked with them to fool the public, the more those people with benefits greater money, leaving others people in poverty and even in deeper poverty.

For example, the U.S. spotted the economic potential of Indonesia in productin oil. Of course, Indonesia was still one of the very under-developed countries in the world. The U.S. wanted the oil (obviously). However, invading Indonesia to occupy those oil pipe lines will just make them look bad and of course that takes a lot of resources such as troops, building camps and military base and so forth. There came the job of EHMs. They were ones who worked for big government and international organization. So eloquent and charismatic that the Indonesian officials can thought that they were trick into this no-turning-back kind of deal. An EHM would propose the U.S. building an electrification infrastructure in Indonesia, helping to bring electricity to Indonesia. So the question is how would they cheat, you may ask. What this EHM did was that he made wrong forecast about this eletricity plantation plan. Based on the current conditions, Indonesia would take about 10 years or more to build a good infrastructure; however, the crafty EHM will ignore the current country's condition, making forecast that the country can build and have electricity served in 5 years. Of course the Indonesia would say yes to such plan. However, such a perfect plan could NEVER turn out that way. Therefore, after 5 years, Indonesia still had not finished building the plant, and even ending up in more debt. The only way they can pay back to the US was to dig and sell oil to the US for the rest of their lives. Do you see how this thing work?

I was floored. I was disturbed. How could I've never thought about it before? This is such a brutal truth that I found out, very shocking but I'm glad I had known about this. There are just a lot more to read from this book, and I strongly recommend it. I will post some more comments and reflections as I finish. Here is some info on the book: "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" - John Perkins (2004)