>> there's no reason why capitalism can't help the poorest of the poor. there's no reason why capitalism has to be part of an imperialistic system. there's no correlation there. and you know, how do people object to that? it's pretty hard for politicians, the corporatocracy, the head of corporations of this country to say rafael correa, you're a common is that he has a

phd in economics from the university of illinois. i think it's a very powerful thing that's going on in ecuador. and just in the last couple of years, he's pushed through a new constitution that was recently voted on by about 80 percent of the population. the first constitution in the history of the world that gives the inalienable rights to nature. incredible, an incredible move. and now he's working to create a new currency for his country that's based on real value, including the value of housewives taking care of children. what's the value of that? he's working on creating a new currency. pachamama alliance, i know several people in the audits were conducted with pachamama, is very much involved, was involved in the constitution and also involved in this new currency thing. it's fastening things going on right now in ecuador and throughout latin america. >> we should note that after the success of "confessions of an

economic hitman," i knows this week of the same week that sarah palin had a best seller, you also have an instant bestseller and you're in harangues, as it were. >> she and i are really good friends. [laughter] >> similar to sarah palin you have your critics. >> probably different once though. >> a few, a few. it's almost the effectiveness of the type of credit she has. but one of your critics, you will recognize his name, sebastian, "washington post" columnist. >> he's described you i believe as a conspiracy theorist, and what he says that these documents are emphasis on the corporatocracy, and he's essentially saying there is no grand scheme among corporations, government to kind of rule the world as you suggest. i know that national security agency has also come out with a

kind of warning, essentially the same morning, do not read john perkins. but of course, all these warnings cause more people to redo and make make you more successful. can you talk about the resistance you've met in any way, and what you do to kind of me that resistance? >> yeah, you know, i guess the first half would be to go back a bit and say after it's not been an economic hitman i started to write "confessions" several times and i contacted other economic hitman and jackals and get their story. and i received threats, sir's threats. my daughter was born in 82. it was during that time, and at the same time i was offered a huge bribe, half a million dollars, by big engineering firm in boston. the chairman of the board took board took me out to dinner and he said you've got a great resume, i was chief economist and had a staff of 40, 50 people. he said we want to use your

resume, and he won't do any work. but i'd like to give you a consultant retainer of half a million dollars. just don't write the book. i took it. because the alternate did to me was my daughter's life, possibly. and i have to say, i assuage my guilt by putting a lot of that money towards nonprofit worker you can look at dream change.org or pachamama.org. they grew out of that work eventually but i didn't use it frivolous. i didn't write the book. and then after 9/11, i was in the amazon with some of these people on 9/11. went up to ground zero, and as i was standing there looking down in that still smoldering pit, i knew i had to write the book. i knew people had to understand what we do in this country sometimes, what i've done. and this time i thought i

wouldn't tell anybody. i had five other books published on indigenous people, not on this subject at all. i didn't do that, but i knew the route, you submit a proposal to publish a. i didn't do any of that. i wrote the whole book sickly, didn't you tell my wife and daughter what i was writing about. put it in the hands of my very good agent, and he distributed it to publishing houses. at that point it became my best interest policy. and even like tonight, if what you comes up and shoot me, as i'm signing books out there, random house will probably be very happy. [laughter] >> "hoodwinked" will be that sarah palin. if you do that. so seriously, it became an insurance policy. and beyond that, i have a resistant big corporation across the pond you're on point sent us some very nasty letters and is setting us up for a lawsuit.

a missionary group i mentioned, did something similar. but we sent them all my backup information, the files i had. i have great backup information. and they went away because they knew they would lose the case and give me a lot of publicity in the process. the way i deal with criticism, a lot of it i just let it go, but if it's straight something like that i will send proof and evidence to let them know what i got back and is all a. it's all very solid. >> before "confessions of an economic hitman" came out, that term was not in use at all. now i was in a bookstore in los angeles earlier today, the person behind the counter said john perkins, who is he? sees the cover of your book which as you and sunglasses, right? and any sort of james bond like those? and says oh, the economic hitman. of course we know his work. but he put almost in the present is as it used to wear an economic hitman.

and i know that's not the case, but there are still economic hitman out there. james bond like figures, who are in this world, economics, files and also sex by the way. this you've written about not only in the first book but also "hoodwinked" you describe a woman named claudia? >> claudine. >> clogging, excuse me. so like the james bond figures, unit, your old life did involve a lot of traveling, parading and a lot of other things we don't have to talk about now. [laughter] >> but can you talk about, i mean, economic hitman tom and for that matter, women if there are any right now, who are doing, you know what you used to. >> yao. and quite a few of them, and jackals also. i know several jackals who are currently in afghanistan and/or iraq. who have contacted me.

there's a number of other books that come up air eric kohler from the city here who put up confessions originally put out a book that tells a story of some of the others. and they're still a lot of economic hitman out there. in fact, in any country that has resources or markets that we covet, our corporations covet, they are there. and i think, you know, i do want to move on. i don't know what george did here, we didn't talk about this jonathan, before him, but to talk about some of the solutions to all those. and i think one of the things that we are seeing is more and more people coming out and admitting to things like this. the whole idea of confessing, the whole idea that we need to move beyond this into something else i think has become quite excepted. just last week i spoke at both the united nations last week and also at a conference where there

were 2400 mba students it was in kordell this year and goes around country to different places every. last year was at horton. this year was interesting to me that the ceo of general electric, jeff, was also a speaker there. it's kind of interesting we had the ceo of general electric sort of sharing the podium with a former economic hitman, which i took a certain perverse delight in. i thought that was kind of fun. because i criticized his predecessor in his book. i think jack welch as a robber baron, and i like to say in india programs, because mba students are often, he's held up as an icon. i got who made his company lean and mean. he certainly made it mean. he fired -- he fired a quarter of his ge's employees and gave himself huge raises and bonuses at the same time and refuse to clean up all the pollution of the hudson river that his company had caused and caused a lot of death as a result. lean and mean. it would certainly mean.

>> let's talk about some of the solution, and as we said earlier, the subtitle, parts of the subtitle is what we need to do to remake the financial markets. in "hoodwinked" you talk about what consumers can do, but you also, and i think this is a good point you were making, you talk about the guilt in a sense that people have and the contradictions they feel. and you mention your own daughter talking about a 200-dollar crib she can buy that apparently made in china, or a 600-dollar crib that uses sustainable wood and other things. that's a 400 are different and she asked you what do i do. >> she did and then she told her what she's going to do. but my daughter, jessica, work for nonprofits. she doesn't make a lot of money. she counts pennies. so this is not -- this is not a light decision for her. and she called me and she said, before her baby was born, my grandson, and she said i found a 200-dollar crib made in china,

probably sweatshops. or a 600 are what made in canada with a certified plantation trees. you know, which one do you think i should buy? and before i answered she said, of course i'm going to buy the $600.01. because its investment in mice and shoot your. i would pay $400 for a car seat to save his life. i would pay $400 for a better daycare where i knew he was going to get good -- be watched carefully and taken care of. so i'm certainly willing to pay $400 not to have slaves making his crib, who are future terrorist and starving people in the world. i want to create a better world for him. and i think that's a very, very important way for all of us to look at this world that we are in now. that we got to make these investments. we have to sometimes -- it cost a little bit more to make these investments, but they are investments. and all of this is an investment in the future. the time we put in to sitting

here together and discussing these things. the time we put into taking action to moving into the new economy. is an imperative, probably the most important investment, perhaps humanity has ever made. i think were at this time in history that's truly revolutionary, and truly, truly significant. you know, jonathan, i'm struck by the fact that for the first time in human history, everyone of us, every human being on this planet, every flight form is faced by the same crises. you always have earthquakes here, hurricanes in florida, tsunamis in indonesia. they don't really impact each other that much. but today, everyone of us is impacted by the crisis of global warming and overpopulation, resource is diminishing at accelerating rates, prices of food, fuel and other essentials increasing at accelerating rate. violence and starvation.

we're all confronting these things. for the first time in human history, just the last few years would all start communicating with each other we're all talking by cell phone. and the internet. just a few to go you can go deep in the amazon, high in the himalayas. they had no hope of ever having a telephone. you couldn't put wires in those places. but then suddenly, everybody today has cell phone. i was just deep in the amazon and high in the himalayas and the last figures, they've got cell phones, internet. we're all talking. this is revolution or. we are all facing the same crises and we're all talking about it. so we really are one community, even though to a certain degree we haven't really come to grips of that yet, but it's truly the case. we're terribly interrelated, and that's what i say, and jessica recognizes, that if people in china are in sweatshops making cribs for her child and she's buying them and supporting that, she's supporting a very dangerous future. on the other hand, if she

supports people that have paid well and trees on plantation, she's creating a better future. >> so faced with these choices, can you give us an example of a choice that you faced recently that you realize is related to the philosophy of your books? maybe it's not quite the 200-dollar or 600-dollar crib, but is there something that you are even realizing, even at this stage in your life, oh, wow, i didn't even realize that also relates to whatever. there may not be. maybe i'm putting on the spot here. >> well, i have to say i'm always a little bit in a struggle to have penguin and random house publish my books. because they're part of the corporatocracy. and eric gore here in san francisco published confessions for sennheiser happy about that but i have a very difficult time disturbing it. one of the first places i spoke was up in portland. we must about 500 people there

that night, the store was just overwhelmed and they only had 20 books. the bookstore was very upset because they couldn't get more books. and at one point, we almost had a riot. one guy stands up and says, have you considered that your publisher may be owned by the cia? [laughter] >> and eventually, baruch of course all the paperback rights to penguin and made a lot of money doing that which enabled him to move ahead and do wonderful. and they are great publisher and i have great admiration for the. by the fact of the matter is, you know, to be the most important thing is to get this message out as fast as i can him and into as many people as i can. but it is a dilemma. do you go with companies that are part of the corporatocracy? i asked them to you soy-based inks and use recycled paper as much as they could, and they have. they made some compromises. but things like that always a bit of a compromise. what we have to do is constantly push all of these companies.

so when i'm on book tours with them i asked them to get me cars better hybrid, hotels that are as, that have a reputation, that are trying hard. i think what's important is that we all buy from companies that have changed this -- instead of the school of maximizing profit regardless of the social and environmental costs, which is the gold that's really driven the corporatocracy. this hole mutant form of capitalism comes from the milton friedman school of economics, which was embraced by reagan and has been by every president since then. has three kids, one is that the source possibly of business is to make profits. regardless of the social environmental costs. too, should be no rules or regulations on business because that interferes with making profits. and three, position on everything. privatize the army, which were doing.

privatize -- i think those three things we must turn around and one of the most important ones is for all of us only to buy from businesses that are committed -- go ahead and make profit, but only within the context of creating a sustainable just and peaceful world. we've got to change that goal, and that's not a radical thought. >> one of the things your book does, and you being a trained economist, this helps, is that it brings before maybe laypeople economic terms they may not have thought about. for example, in "hoodwinked" you talk about the long-standing debate between keynes and friedman and other disciples have continued this debate and that friedman essentially one through ronald reagan, but also surprise me, it's a good thing you reminded us, through bill clinton. and that really george bush called himself a compassionate conservative and sometimes that label could apply to bill clinton. in fact, you criticize clinton, during his presidency, his africa overtures, his economic

overtures. and i wonder if you could just talk about that a little bit? >> you know, clinton had what he called the african renaissance, which was a support of one approved dictator after another, as long as they did favors to big american corporations. and i think we've seen this over and over in our system. this embracing of friedman economics. you know, i was brought up in keynesian, even nixon, nixon said we're all keynesians, but that change very quickly. and under keynes, the belief was that corporations were there not just to make profit, but two good things. and to serve the people. and this goes back in the united states, for the first 100 years of this country, no corporation could get a charter unless it could prove it serve the public interest. charters only ran on average 14 years and then you had to go back and prove you it serve the public interest to get another

charter. that all changed in the late 1800s when the supreme court decided that corporations had all the legal rights of individuals. and without any of the responsibilities. since then we've kind of been going downhill a lot with the few times we've gone up, but then keynes came into picture and he said government has to play an important role here. there is a very important role for government and part of it is to rein in businesses and make them compassionate. and didn't milton friedman on chicago school said no. should be no compassionate business is not about compassion. its only responsibility is making profits. that's it. and reagan embraced that, big time. and every president has said, including clinton and it appears obama is or at least his advisors. i think it's really, really time we understood that that is a sick philosophy. and is creating a very, very

dangerous world, and it's not capitalism. it's a new viral form of caplets and. it is extremely now minded, and i think entrée to human nature. specs or do you count yourself in as an obama critic? >> you know, i like obama. i like his eloquence and i like a lot of what he says and what he does, and i think what we must understand is that presidents, countries are no longer very powerful. we're at a time in history that's like when nations -- when city became nationstates, except today that nations are losing their relevance. so used to be you had a planet with roughly 200 countries, of which a few had a lot of power. the united states being the most recent. soviet union before that. but now i think we look at this globe with 200 countries and huge clouds drifting around it, the big corporations, and they know no national borders. they don't listen to any

specific sets of laws. they call the shots. and they are calling the shots in our congress. and they have huge armies of lobbyists. they finance campaigns, they own the mainstream press. and obama walks into a situation where that's very, very prevalent, and he happens to take in a lot of money for big corporations which he owes a lot of deaths do not. so it counts back to us. we, the people. you know, i'm often think about how slavery did and in this country because abraham lincoln found himself in the white house. abraham lincoln got in the white house because we wanted to end slavery. and women didn't get the right to vote here because woodrow wilson was pro-suffrage. he wasn't. women got the right to vote because once he had been given string for a long time, but once he was elected president, wilson went around the country trying to convince this nation to get involved in world war i to defend democracy in europe.

women followed him everywhere he went, and they chanted and they carried placards and a shout and they said, why should we send our men off to europe to defend democracy there would have of us in the nine states, we women, can't vote? we want a democracy here first. and wilson got it. we didn't get out of vietnam because nixon was antiwar. he wasn't. we were losing pretty badly, and we, the people demand it. we must demand at this point. we've got to put the pressure on obama. franklin roosevelt, the famous saying after he had a meeting with union leaders in the '30s, he left them at the white house door. he said i think you understand that i am with you and i agree with you. now you've got to go out and forced me to do the right thing. we have to force obama. we have to force workers in the white house. we have to force the heads of corporations to do the right thing. we've been sending this message, you and i come up with all been sent this message that we want cheap t-shirts. and if that means slaves and

sweatshops in indonesia, we will just look the other way. and we want cheaper toy for our cars. and if that means destroying the amazon rain forest, we will just look the other way. and we want high rates of return on our stocks. so that corporations have gone along with this, and it's also the milton friedman policy, you know? so we need to turn that around and we've got to send the message, what we want is a good world for our selves, our children, grandchildren and realized that for every child in the world. we want homeland homeland security. but we understand we will never have homeland security until we know we recognize that the whole planet is our entire planet. it isn't bordered by the rio grande and the canadian border. it is the entire planet. and the only way my grandson is going to have security is if every child on this planet has security, and we've got to get that. we've got to get it and we've got to force our leaders to understand that too and it's got

to be like a change of consciousness here. >> let's imagine that somebody forces, like rahm emanuel, forces your book on president obama's has. and obama ridge a book and realized like he's read other books, realizes wait a minute, what i've been doing is maybe not good enough. are you hoping something like that happens? that sonesta? sure, that would be wonderful to see that happen. but i still think we have to keep coming back to the reality that we've got to make it happen. we've got to create a new economy. we've got to stop making missiles and make equipment that makes equipment that cleans up the polluted lakes in nicaragua and the force and polluted lands all over the world. let's use of a percentage of our national budget, of our military budget, to pay the same companies that are currently making missiles or gm owes who instead make equipment that will

not only produce the same electricity and energy, but also would clean up the terrible pollution in the world. and let's pay cubbies like monsanto and dole to create new ways for the starving people of africa to feed themselves, and to distribute food and story. you know, i think we are at a stage where we need to really create an economy that's not based on the military or trinkets. let's create an economy that makes things that people all over this planet really need and to make it a better plan for all of us and our children. i really think we can do that, and i think it's exciting that i think it's an amazing time to be a human being. and for us and unite states, which still is the leader country. people are watching us, for us to really take the initiative and go out there and get our country back, get the world back to. >> to our audience here, we're going to be taking your questions and so you can start lining up at the microphone now. if you would like, the

microphone is to your left. one final question before we begin taking questions from the audience. i know you hear a year ago or so and at that point i kind of jokingly asked about the movie version of the life and your book. and i think you joked that harrison ford was actually interested in that. that was a year ago. any updates on the cinematic versions of all your books? >> harrison ford and his company, he apparently was tied into, paid a lot of money to my publishing companies, and some to me, to have the rights. and they held those right for five years. that harrison got distracted by indiana jones. [laughter] >> that's the way i had heard it. anyway, just november 1, a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago i got the rights back which i'm very, very grateful for, because although they were paying money all along, i think they center

scriptwriters dented metal. i think they spent close to $1 million on this thing, and then lost the rights. i got them back so we are negotiating with some of the country's. if any of you would like the rights. incidentally, i'm not interested in getting any more money for these rights. i just want to see the film made. and the film that they had written, it's crazy, because harrison ford was playing a guy who was 33 years old. [laughter] >> makeup can do so much, but they totally, they rewrote my life for this movie. they made it about a guy who was in his late 60s instead of a guy who was in his 30s, which totally change everything so i was really, really glad i got back the rights. i would like to see the movie made, but needed a little more truthful. >> as a reminder to our audience, tonight we're hosting john perkins, how to remake the global economy that i'm jonathan, moderator for the

evening and i'm in discussion with john who is the author of "confessions of an economic hitman" and the just released "hoodwinked." now let's go to the audience for questions. >> thank you, john. i love your work and you've been very kind to my father, and you talk about women's rights to vote and civil rights. and it did come from the people. it didn't come from the government. the whole issue of make them do it. we don't really have a mechanism for voting on the budget. and i think we, the people are smart enough to vote on the budget. i don't know if you've seen ben cohen of ben & jerry's, work where he does the federal budget in oreo cookies? have you seen that when? the stack of oreo cookies for the pentagon is gigantic. it's like this. then the stack for education, like his. green energy, that. health care, that. i think we american people could understand, you take some orders off of his pentagon stack and if

you want to cut the budget and you read this tribute that through education green energy job, the things that we need it just seems to me that we, the people can make those decisions and the initiative process, although it's very flawed and california because the money game is to california, but organ has got better initiative process. and seems like democracy 2.0, we are ready for a. we, the people make better decisions on go to war are not going to war. we, the people make better decisions on single-payer. what are your thoughts regarding bring the people as the fourth check in our system of checks and balances? >> well, i totally agree but i would love to see it happen. the question is how do we make it happen? you and your family, involved in this for a long time and you've seen all the difficulties of really moving forward with things that my hats off to you and your dad. you know, but i think the time

is right now. i think there is a revolutionary spirit around the world. is happening. and so i think you probably know better than i do have to do that. my background is incorporation and i'm not much of politics. i totally agree with you in theory. we need to have a much stronger voice. there's no question about it. how do we get there, i can't really answer that question. i think that for your passion, and one of the things passionate one of the things i like you say to people is, you know, what do we each do? what do you do? and i think one of the most important things is that we all must follow our passions. each of you has passion. i don't know what your passion is that i know what your passion is. and my passion is, i have a passion for writing, and i hope i have some talent in a. you have a passion in politics that you have a lot of passion in. whatever your passion is and your account is, follow and join

organizations. that are in line with that passion. that will take us down the road. we must all follow our passions, and the other night, i want my television set, monday night football was on. and i see all these people standing up and shouting and cheering. and i'm thinking, there's passion. what they were directing their passions to bringing the people to write the budget? let's channel those passions. there's so much passion. let's use it to make this a better world. and i really appreciate you saying that. and again, politics is not my field. it's yours. you make it happen. and colony to help you in any way i can. thanks. and all of us here. thanks. >> our next question. >> thank you. thank you so much for what you are doing. my question to you is, if you could invert everything that you have learned in terms of the skill set for destabilizing

governments to the advantage of a particular nationstate or multinational corporation, and turn that training into its opposite, which would be to teach a generation of mba students how to do sustainable development, what sort of tips, procedures, ideas, creative thoughts would you have around creating a cobol of the good guys? >> well, i think that's basically what i'm trying to do here? here. and when i talk to mba students, i think one of the most important things is to look at our self interest, because basically when i would go into corrupt government officials, i was trying to appeal to their self-interest. you and your family, your friends will make a lot of money if you accept these loans from the world bank. the country may not do so well but you're going to do really well. and to appeal to that self-interest. and what i'm trying to do now is a. to all of our self interest,

that the only way for us to have a world that any of us would want to experience or have our children, our grandchildren experience, is that we have got to change it. that's our self-interest. so how do we promote that self-interest. how do we truly get people to understand that we are on a course of terrible distraction? that we are on a spaceship and the navigators and pilots are incompetent. and they are heading in the wrong direction. there's nothing to take us off. there's no shuttle. we got to do it. we've got to mutiny. we've got to take a spaceship over again, and our self-interest. so i think that's the way. we have to promote it as being part of our self-interest. and also, to realize that it's totally possible. people get overwhelmed by the problems and they think of george and martha washington and

tom paine and jefferson could look what they were up against. the most powerful empire in the history of the world. and they all put their necks in news is, all of those people that we now look back as the founding fathers, they were traitors. washington was an officer in the british army. he was a terrorist. he was a traitor. he was also the wealthiest man in the colonies and he put everything at stake that he had lost the revolution but he and his wife would have hung. and so it all the others but i think we need to remember that. you know what? this is fun. [laughter] >> making a better world, what more would you want to do with your life? you know, i mean, that's not. i haight-ashbury when i look back i hated me and economic event that i lived on valium and a call. travel first class and as you said i hung out with gorgeous women and dine with presidents, and what sounded like a great life, but i was miserable. and i went through a terrible divorce, and i saw a -- would do

a lot of debbie and i drank a lot, took a lot of filter now unhappy. i'm not doing any of that, and now we are changing the world. this is fun. thanks. [applause] >> i appreciate what you have done so far, but i seem to be concerned by bit about what's going on in the middle east. for instance, i just wanted what in heavens name is halliburton doing to iraq, or wonder what iraq's future will be. like what with halliburton, that's one thing during the other thing is the thing that really is screwing up palestinian-israeli peace process is water. there's a very serious water problem. israel controls the water. on a per capita basis,

palestinian has allotted one quarter of the water. so your comments on that? >> well, i don't have much more -- there was a question i don't think. >> i was just wondering, have you done anything on the middle east? >> i write a lot about it, especially in secret history of the american empire and also in "hoodwinked." i agree with you. it's a huge concern. we must solve that problem in the middle east. i do take hope from the fact that what's happening in latin america, this revolution we have seen there, very diverse factions. people who have been a war for 500 years, the indigenous people and the military people, suddenly came together in the last two years and said it's to our self-interest to work together, to rein in these corporations. so you have very diverse groups. and i've been in meetings in new york, board meetings and meetings at artistic institutions where there are palestinians and israelis, or

jewish people and islamic people sitting in the same room getting along beautifully. and sunnis and shiites getting along beautifully. that easily can happen, but part of what's going on in the middle east we are constantly trying to divide and create problems that you can divide people, you can steal the resources. and so we really need to push for that. i think the lesson of latin america is that those kinds of people can come together. i was also recently lecturing at the university last week, two weeks ago, at howard university which is primarily african and african-american. their local. i spent a lot of time talking with an african student and what's fascinating is the wealthiest continent in the world is africa. think about that. poorest people in the world, wealthiest continent. there's more resources there than anywhere else it but we divided and conquered them that way. and now is for them to come together. people in the middle east must do that, too, to recognize that they have a common goal. they have incredible resources.

so to come together. thanks. we all have to come together. it's something we all must do in this country. alliance is coming together, realizing that we've got to mutiny, we got to take back our country and the world. >> my name is david thomson. i was just curious if you've heard of b-corporations, and if you had any thoughts? >> great idea. these are corporations that of a hybrid between nonprofit and for-profit. state of vermont, which is where i'm supposed to be deported but my mother got cross river and had to board in new answer. this idea that you can have this hybrid, and in fact, i'm very involved in a project in panama that's doing that, that's bringing private capital and

connecting the private sector, the for-profit sector with the nonprofit sector in order to purchase huge amounts of rain forest and say them and rehabilitate them. one of the investors is here, and one of the very strong people behind that program, b-corporations is a great idea. i would love to see more that happened to. >> hello. mr. perkins, thank you so much. thank you for sharing your passion with his. i wonder if you would have any advise on people who may have passions of their own and perhaps to go along with it. very little in the way of opportunity. i mean, in some ways we have been hoodwinked of our own future in this country. our educational systems have been corporatized, and many of

us are out of jobs and struggling to pay rent. it's difficult to reshape the world when we can't work the day-to-day processes. >> thank you. yes, i feel, i feel for you. it's a tough time to be going through, getting into the workforce and finding employment and jobs. one of the things talking about, as i've gone around to business schools is that if you can't find a job, this is the time to create one. entrepreneurship. i mean, we need it to go out there, whatever your passion is, follow your passion but again, we need people coming up with systems for cleaning up the terribly polluted lands. nicaragua, i was just there, farmers getting involved in organic farming to call food is going to buy the product or the land has been destroyed by chiquita, dole, craft. but there's machines that can clean it up.

legit businesses to do that. for businesses to help starving people in africa and he did so businesses to get sustainable energy. there's so much that we can do. i was just recently, here in san francisco at the green festival this past weekend. you go out there and this amazing marketplace that's full of people are coming up with brilliant ideas, on to produce are doing amazing things. i would really encourage you, if you can't find a job, create one. you know, create a business. this is the time for innovation, for autoproducer. that's a lot of fun, too. and i know i don't mean to be frivolous. there's a lot of risk and a lot of fear involved in doing that. overcome your fear and do it. >> we have about five minutes left. >> my question is more about the international financial crisis and accountability and what we've learned. i wanted to see if you had

comments about i guess there was a special report that came out, the audit from the special investigator general about aig. is there going to be a core like commission? it doesn't seem like anyone has gotten in trouble for having the economy be in such a tailspin for the last year, people have benefited greatly. >> yeah, there's been -- it's a travesty. it's criminal what's been going on and away the people that got us in trouble have been rewarded and are now running the organization to get us out of trouble, including geithner and summers and the people that obama has hired, unfortunate that he has had the same people who got us in the problem to try to get us out that it doesn't work that i think you need to throw the jerks out. get new ones. from my perspective, my main focus is getting the cancer beneath the system. we got to do all that, i totally agree with you. somebody's got to do it.

and it's your passion. logic in pain, go after these guys that go after obama, make him do it. make local citizens do it. do it. this is your passion. you have a talent doing it. for me, it's also about going deep down into the system. the cancer, that's his new form of capitals and, this idea that the only goal of business is to make profits, privatize every thing and no regulations. we got to turn out around. and that's why i focus more, but i'd really like to see you focusing on getting those jerks out of their and maybe punishing the ones that caused so many other problems. if you have been. we have a few in jail now, but more should probably be there. thanks. >> it's good seeing you again. we appreciate very much what you're doing, and we feel like you are doing our part. but how in the world can we get our voice above money and a lobbyist in washington?

>> well, what is your voice? you know, that's the first question. do you sing, write, dance, juggle? what do you do? so there's no general answer to that question, i don't think. but do it. whatever your voice is, you know. if you juggle, four ball, learn to do by the. if you sing, sing louder. and we just got to do it. we've got to force it. i wrote five books on indigenous people, and they were hyper and small group of people, and then i wrote "confessions of an economic hitman" that was rejected by 29 publishers before it was finally published that i think they post because they're on the brink of bankruptcy. shocking. but i think we just keep going. you know, you've got to do it, you've got to push. and i was just in panama a few

weeks ago, a month ago i guess. there's this cathedral and i think it took about one energy. you see these cathedrals in europe it took 400. and to think about that person that laid the first foundation stone. no idea what's going to happen after that. but that mason had faith. that if he or she lay dead zone, something would happen. and i think we're at that stage now where we got to lay the stones. you let your so that i play my stone. i'm often struck by how lucky we are that george washington didn't try to write pamphlets. [laughter] >> tone painted and try to lead armies. each of them follow their own passion and talent. and martha washington organized women to make those for the men. but they all use their own individual passions and talents headed for the same destination. and they got the. we need to do that now. so whatever your passion, your talent is, follow it.

use it. go for it, with all the gusto you possibly have got. you don't want to be -- you want to be burned at the end. and all of our passions and then we'll all be pains in washington's and move, but let's all move in the same direction of creating a sustainable just an peace world. let's all move in the direction of creating a world for my grandson. thanks. [applause] >> and we will get there. there. we will get there. >> next question. >> i enjoy your work. it seems like you are driven to reconcile a lot of misdeeds from your previous life, and how are you balancing that after you read this book with your public life that you now braced? how are you taking that balance between your personal life and kind of reconciling those misdeeds with much larger

message that you're trying to sense because i don't try to reconcile. i did what i did in the past. nothing i did was illegal. and many people would even consider it immoral, certainly build friedman would love what i did. and i don't try to reconcile it and i'm not looking for forgiveness. in any way. i did what i did, and i have to live with it. what i want to do now is make a better world. i want to focus on that. i'm not going to beat myself over the head. i confessed. people can accept that or not, but now the important thing is to move beyond this, to use what i've learned in the process, and move beyond and devote myself if this is what i do, devote myself to creating a sustainable, just and peaceful world. a journalist asked my daughter went on, so what you think about all the stuff for dead in the past and now he's doing what he's doing now? you said well, she said i know he has to live with himself, but i'm really glad he did that

because now he can understand the system better and go out and try to make a better world for me and my son. and i feel that way. you know, i did what i did, and i'm not proud of it. but i want to use everything that i learned from that to try to do something different now. thanks. >> next question. >> good evening. i came here this evening because i heard some of your ideas before, and i really love the idea of shifting with the entrenched corporations to instead of building military weapons that will help clean up the, etc. i devote all of my time, of of my waking hours right now two independent solar energy. and i'm smalltime,. >> so was thomas edison once. now there cge. >> exactly. this goes to the point of my question is what makes you think that the large corporations that

are entrenched and arguing record profits from oil will ever ever step aside and let people like me or others change their business model? >> yeah, i don't think there's any guarantee. there never is a guarantee. there's no guarantee that george washington was going to win the revolution. there's a risk here, and we got to take that risk. i so often have people come up to me who are inventors and out of the news and say, you know, i don't really take my idea out there because i'm afraid somebody will steal it or i will get killed, or something like that will happen. well, g., you know. my ancestors were farmers in new hampshire, and they took guns and to hunters and they took guns and thought and religion. they went down to concord and lexington. they did know they're going to win the war. they knew they might die.

i think were at a time like that today whether something bigger in our lives. take those ideas out. take the risk and really push it. i had an alternative energy company that ultimately was successful. i went through hell to get there, and as i look back it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. and people to try to steal my ideas. but in the end it turned out pretty good. and i think we've got to stick our necks out, you know. again, there's nothing more fun than that. and so, once again, encourage all of you for bringing this to an end up, is to really, really look into your hearts, find your passion, and look at your talent and bring the two together. and let's all marched down the road together, or let's march down different road, different path, but heading for the same destination. let's get out there and create a sustainable, just and peaceful

world. and i think we'll have a lot fun doing it. were going to feel real good about ourselves as we go down those paths. >> thank you, and does it feel to good to know, let's give a big hand for john perkins for his daughter tonight. [applause] >> among other titles, tina brown is the cofounder of "the daily beast.com" website. you have a book section on the website, tell us about it. >> we lost about six months ago is coming a very striving channel on "the daily beast" website that everyday we cover a new book. each day we have highlights of what to read, why you should

read it. we do wonderful little cheat sheet, pieces about reviews, more over the place we had the editor from the times littered, does kind of a written list, what ever is reading in the u.k. he's a very lively channel. and lucas whitman is the editor. he came and joined us just recently. we are developing what we feel overly great one spot for writers, because there are so few places to where they can get their books reviewed. we do video. we had a wonderful interview with philip recently who gives a very few interviews about his new book, the humbling. so i think a combination of video and pictures and reviews and interviews and extracts which were not doing. it's really developing quite a following that and i think hopefully we will stand into the reach. >> have you ever reviewed harold evans book?

>> we extracted harold evans. and i drove them down. i negotiated him down. >> so much of your professional life has been involved with the written word, and with books, why? >> i'm a passionate reader myself. our house is just wall-to-wall books. i mean, wall-to-wall. you won't believe how about a house that we have to keep shipping out and do a purge. but my husband is a passionate reader and writer. i'm a passionate reader and writer. we're just a family of bookworms. >> have you gotten a kindle or a sony player or any kind of electronic? >> i have a kindle. i'm still a kind of tentative user. that's only because i am actually a slow adopter. i mean, it was a long time before i took my blackberry to our. now i live -- can't live without my blackberry. i do like the feel, touch, smell, physicality of a book. and always have.

and in fact, we are with the database started our own little electronic book company which will start online and published as paperback. so actually becoming a bit of a minister publisher now. a short, 40000 were theses that would be extended into books. >> when you say 40000 words, how many pages would that be and how quickly are you turning the surround? >> is going to to be some 80 page book because my view is anybody like him books are almost a new magazine. so many magazines are going out of business. so little room, it takes for the contemplative kind of writing and scene setting and all things that make a great book are really kind of a little bit and identical to the hot medium of just online. at the same time people are having less and less time to sit with a long leisurely magazine. it's almost the ideal kind of in between thing, it's this

tremendously intense, powerful, smart book that you can read on a long train journey or a long flight. but it's satisfying. is only one. the humbling is a very good example. is only 80 pages but in one terrific and tends, very sort of engage read. you get the full experience. it's exciting and i think that's kind of an interesting medium and i'm very excited to be working at right now. >> you are well known also as a magazine editor, now you are on the web. >> and i'm loving it. absolutely loving it as much as i do love print, and they do, the whole online expressed as an editor is really exciting. i feel it's a new frontier. it's breaking out. we already have 4 million monthly unique visitors on "the daily beast," and 41 million pages a month that it's a huge audience in a very short time, like a year. at vanity fair where i was editor for ages, it took almost all of that time to build an

audience of 1.2 meg in a month. for "the new yorker" it took her such a tremendous full on effort to get 250,000 extra sales that here we are online after only like 30 months and we have like 4 million very devoted readers. it's exciting to do that you can connect like that. and also, i think there is a real audience for more intellectually engaged subject matter. that these kind of range as high and low, and it has very smart brainy pieces and also some frothy piece of. it is attracting a big audience. i find it very exciting. >> to buy the question. where did you come up with a name, "the daily beast" smack "the daily beast" is a very bookish title but it's actually the name of a newspaper in the famous comic, scuba. i've always loved that knowledge him and i was love that name and i decide i was going to call our

new site "the daily beast" because if you didn't get the joke, which very few but people would, and has a kind of raw energy which unlike. >> finally, what are you reading right now, what book? >> i'm actually reading right now a book in fact about the original family called mad world. it's a biography of the famine on which bright henry was based. so i seem to have a bit of a possession now for war in every shape and form the. >> tina brown, cofounder, editor, "the daily beast.com." >> that you. >> do you know you can do booktv programs online? go to booktv.org. type the name of the author, bogor subject into the search area in the upper left hand corner of the page. now you can view the entire program. you might also explore the

recently on booktv box, or the featured programs box to find and view recent and future programs. >> patrick k. o'donnell is a author of five previous books. his new book is "they dared return." my first question, who is frederick? >> he is right here. he is probably the greatest living americans by from world war ii. and he is part of operation cleanup. he was a german refugee that dared return. that went back behind enemy lines and not determine and he was disguised as a german officer and change the course of world war ii. got tens of thousands of german soldiers to surrender, found the plant in hitler's bunker as was destroyed twice as trade with an airstrike. >> what type it is to place the? this took place in 1945. and it's one of the great untold

stories of world war ii. fred was put in for the medal of honor and a medal that has not been -- nothings ever been -- nothings ever happen to. it for the untold question that we are trying to find out as far as his recommendation. >> how did you get involved with the story? you said is an underreported story. how did you find out about it? >> about six years ago, i was researching a book which is an oral history of the oss. i've interviewed about 300 veterans, and fred was one of my first veterans that ever interviewed. and from there, i became close friends with his band, and i just got involved in his story, which is really one of the great untold stories of world war ii. >> you led operation green up. can you tell us a bit about it? >> we were there shooters in austria, and did what we had to do.

>> what did that entail? >> well, first, my original job was to find out how the germans got referenced back to italy through the path. and it turns out our photographs showed that the bridges were all destroyed, but the germans had built portable bridges, and pull them out only when the train was to be going through. so are aerial photograph, null and void. >> the title of the book is "they dared return," from the title of these gentlemen started in europe and became to the niceties and went back, right? >> they were all german refugees that barely escaped not to germany, and they became -- they were american citizens and did the unbelievable, which is parachute back into not see lines. and fred was a german officer,

impersonate a german officer behind not see lines. and gathered actionable intelligence that literally changed the course of the war. >> so you must have moments where you fear for your life. is there a particular story? there must've been moments that you fear for your life and person a german officer. with her moments are stored to join him in particular? >> at the agent on one, you know no fear. >> that sort of the understatement of the year. i mean, fred is very self defacing, but this man was captured by the gestapo, and literally water board and tortured for three days. and survived it didn't break. and then literally turn the tables on his captors and got tens of thousands of german soldiers to surrender. >> the author is patrick k. o'donnell, the book is "they dared return." he was joined with the subject of his book. thanks so much. >> thank