More About the Author
James S. Henry is a leading economist, attorney, and investigative journalist who has written extensively about global banking, debt crises, tax havens and economic development.
In the corporate world, Mr. Henry served as Chief Economist, McKinsey & Co. (NYC global h.q.); VP Strategy, IBM/Lotus Development Corporation (Cambridge), Manager, Business Development, the Chairman's Office (Jack Welch), GE (Fairfield), and senior consultant Monitor Group,the international consulting firm.
As Managing Director of Sag Harbor Group, a strategy consulting firm, his clients have included such outstanding enterprises as ABB, Allen & Co., AT&T, AT Kearney, Calvert Fund, Ce-mex, ChinaTrust, the Scotland Yard/FBI Task Force on Caribbean Havens, IBM/Lotus, Intel, Interwise, Lucent, Merrill Lynch, South Africa Telecom, Rockefeller Foundation, the Swedish Power Board, TransAlta, UBS Warburg, Volvo, and Monitor Company.
Mr. Henry has served as a founder and partner of a private equity firm based in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Board Member, Catgen.com, a technology company that provides e-commerce services for artisans in developing countries; Board Member, Flooz.Com; advisor to Ashoka, the "reverse Peace Corps;" Board Member, Long Island University's Global College; Project Director, Transnational Corruption, The New School's World Policy Institute (NYC); Board Member, Tax Justice Network - US and Tax Justice International; and Senior Advisor, Oxfam GB (impact of tax havens on development).In 2008 he tried his hand at electoral politics, running for Town Supervisor of Southampton, New York, on the Democratic Party and Working Family Party tickets, losing by 53 votes in an overwhelmingly-Republican district. With a strong commitment to mentoring young people in the emerging field of investigative economics, in 2009 he served as an INSPIRE fellow at The Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University (2008-09), and as the "Edward R. Murrow Fellow" at the Fletcher School, leading a graduate-level seminar on the global economic crisis.
A member of the NY Bar, he has served as a pro bono cooperating attorney for the NYCLU on First Amendment issues, and as Vice President, New York Civil Liberties Union - Suffolk County.
Mr. Henry's articles and citations have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Nation, The Conference Board, The Washington Post, US News, Manhattan Inc., Harpers, The Washington Monthly, Fortune, Business Week, Newsweek, Time, The Tax Lawyer, Jornal do Brasil, The Manila Chronicle, La Nacion, El Financiero, and Slate.
Several recent examples of Mr. Henry's articles are (1) Assault of the Pirate Bank-ers," The Nation, July 22, 2008 (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080804/henry); "Make Fannie and Freddie Go Green," The Nation, July 24, 2008 (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080804/blackwelder_henry.); (3)"Socialism for Bankers, Savage Capitalism for Everyone Else?," The Nation, September 22, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/henry; (4) "Invest in Innovation," (with Jim Manzi), The Nation, October 30, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/henry_manzi; and (5) "The Pseudo-Stimulus," The Nation, February 3, 2009, and "Too Big Not to Fail," The Nation, February 23, 2009.
Mr. Henry's books include, with Paul Starr and Ray Bonner, The Discarded Army - A Study of the Veterans Administration and Vietnam Veterans. (NY: Charterhouse, 1976); Banqueros y Lavadolares. (Bogota: Tercer Mundo, 1996); The Internet's Impact on Financial Services. (NY: AT Kearney, 1999); Prof. Richard Caves, ed., The Economics of Competition (Boston: Prentice Hall,1988); The Blood Bankers (NY: Avalon/ Nation's Books, 2003, 2005), the first comprehensive history of the Third World debt crisis; and Pirate Bankers. (NY: forthcoming), a book about the origins of the current financial crisis.
His path-breaking essay on Third World debt relief is featured in Steve Hiatt, ed., A Game As Old as Empire. (SF: Barrett-Koehler, March 2007), Chapter V: "The Mythology of Debt Relief," the first attempt to add how much debt relief First World governments and banks have actually provided to developing countries since the 1970s. Mr. Henry also edits SubmergingMarkets.Com(tm), an "occasional blog" devoted to first-hand investigations and political economy.
Mr. Henry's unique, first-person approach to investigative economics, and his exper-tise in global and "offshore" banking, have taken him to more than 50 developing countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, the Sudan, Taiwan, Tanzania, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
Mr. Henry's on-the-ground investigations produced documentary evidence of inter-national drug deals that was instrumental in the 1992 conviction of Panama's Manuel Noriega. He assisted the Government of Paraguay to recover hundreds of $millions of assets stolen by General Alfredo Stroessner and his cronies. Mr. Henry was in Tiananmen Square in May 1989, helping to produce an English-language newspaper. He has pursued investigations of the Mexican drug cartel, corruption in the Russian privatization program, the Central American wood mafia, drug trafficking in Brazil, R. Allen Stanford's Bank of Antigua, "Angola-gate," and the use of offshore ha-vens like the Isle of Man to shelter big-ticket US tax evaders. Mr. Henry also succeeded in exposing the crucial role of the Philippines Central Bank and First World banks in enriching former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family; and in breaking up a major Brazilian cocaine smuggling ring that had bribed a Brazilian President, leading to the first Brazilian Parliamentary Commission (CPI) on drug trafficking. Mr. Henry has testified many times before the US Congress on economic policy issues, and is a frequent speaker at forums on taxation and development.
He has also appeared frequently as an on-air commentator on economic and legal issues for Al Jazeera/ English, and as a reporter and "investigative producer" for several documentary films, including "Land Famine in Honduras" (1984),"Noriega" (ABC News, 1991); "UnBoliviable" (2007), a documentary about Evo Morales by Donald Ranvaud, producer of "City of God" and "Constant Gardener;" and "Cuba Libre (2009)," a film by Alessandra Silvestri about the Cuban embargo.
Mr. Henry is an honors graduate of Harvard College (Magna Cum Laude, Social Studies '72; Detur Prize; Phi Beta Kappa, National Merit Scholar, Chairman, Institute of Politics, Student Advisory Committee); Harvard Law School (J.D., Honors, 1976); Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (MS, Economics, 1978; ABD - dissertation); a Danforth Fellow; a "Nader Raider;" and a member of the New York Bar '78. He has a working knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French. He is an "Adirondack 46R," and a avid tennis player, biker, sailor, oarsman, and photographer. Born and raised in Minnesota, he and his two children make their homes in New York City and Sag Harbor.
