Book reviews - The Secret World of Economic Hit Men (and ECAs)

(Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, February 2007) In Chapter 10 of this book, Bruce Rich looks at the secretive world of ECAs and the damage they cause around the world. Export credit agencies have quietly become the world's largest financial institutions, backing $788 billion in trade in 2004. Secretive and largely unregulated, they pursue a single mission: boost overseas sales of their countries' multinational corporations. In doing so, they've become some of the dirtiest players in the EHM game, financing nuclear power plants in countries that can't manage them and massive arms sales to strife-torn regions - all lubricated by billions of dollars in bribes.