Reactually
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Paul - English - US
Susan - English - US
Dave - English - US
Elizabeth - English - UK
Kenneth - English - US
Simon - English - UK
Zira - English - US
David - English - US
Allison - English - US
Kate - English - UK
Steven - English - US
Crystal - English - US
Kate - English - US
Mike - English - US
Heather - English - US
Elizabeth - English - UK
Amalia - Portuguese - Portugal
Annika - Swedish - Sweden
Artemis - Greek - Greece
Bernard - French - France
Diego - Spanish - Argentina
Esperanza - Spanish - Mexico
Francisca - Spanish - Chile
Gabriela - Portuguese - Brasil
Jordi - Catalan - Catalonia
Jorge - Spanish - Mexico
Juan - Spanish - Mexico
Juliette - French - France
LinLin - Chinese - China
Montserrat - Catalan - Catalonia
Paola - Italian - Italy
Roberto - Italian - Italy
Saskia - Dutch - Netherlands
Stefan - German - Germany
Ludoviko - Italian - Italy
Felipe - Portuguese - Brasil
Fernanda - Portuguese - Brasil
Afroditi - Greek - Greece
Olga - Russian - Russia
Carlos - Spanish - Mexico
Soledad - Spanish - Mexico
Ricardo - Portuguese - Brasil
Afroditi - Greek - Greece
Amalia - Portuguese - Brasil
Annika - Swedish - Sweden
Artemis - Greek - Greece
Bernard - French - France
Diego - Spanish - Argentina
Esperanza - Spanish - Mexico
Francisca - Spanish - Chile
Gabriela - Portuguese - Brasil
Jordi - Spanish - Spain
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Reactually
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Well Actually Jacob, let me lead you to the bratwurst chamber
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Well Errrrm Its Probably Blatent That Maybe I Dont Actually Just Quite Know...
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Maybe it's because I'm older but getting told about the 'Festival experience' being part of the package really doesn't mean much to me anymore. Getting pushed around by rude people wanting my spot because it's gotten harder and harder to actually see the stage unless you pay extra for a special pass is the only experience I've gotten in the last few years. I'll take an arena show with a fixed seat where I'm not competing with the whole crowd if I want to go take a piss, thank you!
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Yellow has been caught next to a body, Red calls a meeting and they all get teleported to the meeting table because of Red hitting the button. Yellow blames Sam for doing that, Red says that he wasn’t able to save her, but Sam points out that he still did save her. The characters don’t know what’s going on. It turns out that Red also needs to travel to another world to talk to Lion. Sam tells Red to bring Lady Red with him, which he agrees to. Red goes to meet with Lion, but there are others already there. The leader says he’s there to pay Lion back for what he did to him, but Red reveals that he’s actually there to speak with Lion’s younger
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Molly Oh my god im just so sick of hoelt. this is the 3rd friday in a row hes going to one of his weird stupid rallys. Friend just another reason to get fucked up tonight. ****laugh trCK*** Molly girl, im telling you. i cant. i have dance tomorrow morning. Otherwise id be there. I have to be up at like...wait i should probably check… ***cheesy text tone sound*** https://youtu.be/gHe_AjrOq84 Pause Molly ha. You know booger? He just sms text chat messaged me. He wants me to meet him in the computer lab. Friend molly...youre not actually gonna go right?... He creeps me out. he reminds me of a...like….weird…..lizard.. or something ****laugh track**** Molly i know right? pause Friend thats not a good thing molly! ****laugh track*** Molly well im not gonna just not reply. I havent talked to him in a while. Plus Hes nice and kinda interesting Friend ehk. Thats one way to describe him. ****Laugh track**** Molly im just gonna see why he wants me. Ill talk to you later. Friend good luck, i guess. Dont do anything drastic, molly. Molly i wont, i wont Open door to computer lab Booger molly!!!! Whattup!! Molly hi booger………..so..do you hang out in the computer lab a lot? Booger hell yeah. Im always working on music and surfing the web and shit in here. I found out how to get around the schools firewall. Molly oh...thats cool….. Booger it so is Awkward silence ***laugh track*** Molly is….that what you wanted to show me or?? ***Laugh track** Booger no no i wanted to get your ear on something. On a song im working on. I recorded it on cassette cause, yknow, im artsy like that ****laugh track***** its kinda hideous sounding but like pretty. can i play it and you tell me what you think? Molly yes! I would love to hear it Booger *deep breath* ok. Here it is. Remember its a rough draft… COMPUTER LAB SONG PLAYS Booger: so whadya think? Molly that was hideous...but also kind of pretty. ****laugh track***** Booger: right? thank you though im glad you at least kinda liked it….the lyrics in it..i actually..wrote it about you. ***studio awwwwwww***** Molly oh yeah? Hm. Booger ha ha yeah. Yeah……….. Hey listen i dont know if youre busy or something tonight um….but i rarely have an open house...but i do tonight..maybe we could...write another song?.. Or something?..................wouldyouwannadothatmaybe?
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The Law of the Bureaucrat is simple: “The Bureaucrat is the smartest person in the room.” This Law has a huge impact on everyday life and, if fully understood, will make it clear that we must clean out all the Federal bureaucracies. Further, it demonstrates why Anthony Fauci felt free to pursue gain of function research in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And finally, it explains why he feels free to completely dismiss any criticism of his actions. Let’s break it down. Congress passes lots of laws. But Congress has no interest in actually dealing with the details. Congresspeople love to paint with a broad brush and say they’ve “helped you” by passing a multi-thousand-page act with a wonderful-sounding title. How to implement it is too much trouble for such important people. Instead, they hand it off to a bureaucratic agency. Or, if they are “faced with a problem, be it real or imagined, that stirs voters, politicians propose new programs to solve the problem.” Congress (and this applies at many lower levels as well) simply isn’t smart enough to give bureaucrats adequate direction. “Formulating rules now often requires bureaucrats specializing in finance, economics, statistics, and numerous fields of science.” Imagine Alexandria Airhead Cortez explaining to the CDC how it should “control” diseases. Of course, diseases cannot be “controlled.” Whatever doctors do simply helps your God-given mechanisms do the work.
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Oh sir please dont stare at me like that. This is my new office wear, how do you like this full rubber attire. Tits nice and firm and suckable am i right sir? My round long nails inside your cock slit sir? How would you feel me doing that sir? What do you mean by whats on my face? Its facials of a hundred fellas cumming right on top of each other serving my mouth with their cum. Oh how they breed my mouth. Their cum tanks full of cream, shooting it down my throath. They breed and feed me like theres no tomorrow Cum everywhere. Like. Oh. My God. Every fucking where. Oh my God sir that's quiet unexceptional how do you like to be treated sir oh my God that's quite exceptional sir that's beautiful sir oh my God oh please sir let me look closer sir oh my god could i clean it up a little bit sir Oh my good god thats a dick for sure Suck my cock first sir Oh i need to pee a bit first sir is your mouth available? And sip my pee look how it pours out of my rock hard giant cock. *** Oh. My Good. God. Like What was that? Like What did my eyes just see? Oh sir please Oh please sir may I see it please sir wow won't you let me see please sir I'll show you mine if you show me yours might as well showing anyway I need to pee please sir is your mouth available its pouring over please worship my balls first my cock it's getting hard please sir suck the tip oh please oh sir please taste my pre-cum on your lips. Oh sorry sir. Actually it was pee spurting out. So sorry sir, wow you lick it off the floor? Sir why do you keep sucking and licking my pee drops out of the floor Oh you need more? Let me fill your mouth with my pee then. Oh. My. God. You enjoy my fresh pee this much. Oh. My God. Your nasty sir. Oh wow. Just wow.
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Oh sir please dont stare at me like that. This is my new office wear, how do you like this full rubber attire. Tits nice and firm and suckable am i right sir? My round long nails inside your cock slit sir? How would you feel me doing that sir? What do you mean by whats on my face? Its facials of a hundred fellas cumming right on top of each other serving my mouth with their cum. Oh how they breed my mouth. Their cum tanks full of cream, shooting it down my throath. They breed and feed me like theres no tomorrow Cum everywhere. Like. Oh. My God. Every fucking where. Oh my God sir that's quiet unexceptional how do you like to be treated sir oh my God that's quite exceptional sir that's beautiful sir oh my God oh please sir let me look closer sir oh my god could i clean it up a little bit sir Oh my good god thats a dick for sure Suck my cock first sir Oh i need to pee a bit first sir is your mouth available? And sip my pee look how it pours out of my rock hard giant cock. *** Oh. My Good. God. Like What was that? Like What did my eyes just see? Oh sir please Oh please sir may I see it please sir wow won't you let me see please sir I'll show you mine if you show me yours might as well showing anyway I need to pee please sir is your mouth available its pouring over please worship my balls first my cock it's getting hard please sir suck the tip oh please oh sir please taste my pre-cum on your lips. Oh sorry sir. Actually it was pee spurting out. So sorry sir, wow you lick it off the floor? Sir why do you keep sucking and licking my pee drops out of the floor Oh you need more? Let me fill your mouth with my pee then. Oh. My. God. You enjoy my fresh pee this much. Oh. My God. Your nasty sir. Oh wow. Just wow. Oh my god sir my cock is going to explode soon sir. Oh. My. God. No one has never sucked me like this sir. Lick the tip just like that sir, nurture my shaft like a bitch in heat. You nasty greedy cock sucking street whore. Get Outlook for Android
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Oh sir please dont stare at me like that. This is my new office wear, how do you like this full rubber attire. Tits nice and firm and suckable am i right sir? My round long nails inside your cock slit sir? How would you feel me doing that sir? What do you mean by whats on my face? White drops of thick gooey? Running down my cheeks? Oh well sir, you most definitely know. Like what's that sir? Like oh my god your acting like a dumb doll sir? Well Its facials of a hundred fellas cumming right on top of each other serving my dick loving mouth with their cum. Oh how they breed my mouth. Their cum tanks full of cream, shooting it down my throath. They breed oh my good god sir how they breed and feed me like theres no tomorrow Cum everywhere. Like. Oh. My. God. Cum. Every fucking where. Oh my God sir that's quiet unexceptional how do you like to be treated sir oh my God that's quite exceptional sir that's beautiful sir oh my God oh please sir let me look closer sir oh my god could i clean it up a little bit sir Oh my good god thats a dick for sure Suck my cock first sir Oh i need to pee a bit first sir is your mouth available? And sip my pee look how it pours out of my rock hard giant cock. *** Oh. My Good. God. Like What was that? Like What did my eyes just see? Oh sir please Oh please sir may I see it please sir wow won't you let me see please sir I'll show you mine if you show me yours might as well showing anyway I need to pee please sir is your mouth available its pouring over please worship my balls first my cock it's getting hard please sir suck the tip oh please oh sir please taste my pre-cum on your lips. Oh sorry sir. Actually it was pee spurting out. So sorry sir, wow you lick it off the floor? Sir why do you keep sucking and licking my pee drops out of the floor Oh you need more? Let me fill your mouth with my pee then. Oh. My. God. You enjoy my fresh pee this much. Oh. My God. Your nasty sir. Oh wow. Just wow. Oh my god sir my cock is going to explode soon sir. Oh. My. God. No one has never sucked me like this sir. Lick the tip just like that sir, nurture my shaft like a bitch in heat. You nasty greedy cock sucking street whore. Get Outlook for Android
How to Pronounce
Oh sir please dont stare at me like that. This is my new office wear, how do you like this full rubber attire. Tits nice and firm and suckable am i right sir? My round long nails inside your cock slit sir? How would you feel me doing that sir? What do you mean by whats on my face? White drops of thick gooey? Running down my cheeks? Oh well sir, you most definitely know. Like what's that sir? Like oh my god your acting like a dumb doll sir? Well Its facials of a hundred fellas cumming right on top of each other serving my dick loving mouth with their cum. Oh how they breed my mouth. Their cum tanks full of cream, shooting it down my throath. They breed oh my good god sir how they breed and feed me like theres no tomorrow Cum everywhere. Like. Oh. My. God. Cum. Every fucking where. Oh my God sir that's quiet unexceptional how do you like to be treated sir oh my God that's quite exceptional sir that's beautiful sir oh my God oh please sir let me look closer sir oh my god could i clean it up a little bit sir Oh my good god thats a dick for sure Suck my cock first sir Oh i need to pee a bit first sir is your mouth available? And sip my pee look how it pours out of my rock hard giant cock. *** Oh. My Good. God. Like What was that? Like What did my eyes just see? Oh sir please Oh please sir may I see it please sir wow won't you let me see please sir I'll show you mine if you show me yours might as well showing anyway I need to pee please sir is your mouth available its pouring over please worship my balls first my cock it's getting hard please sir suck the tip oh please oh sir please taste my pre-cum on your lips. Oh sorry sir. Actually it was pee spurting out. So sorry sir, wow you lick it off the floor? Sir why do you keep sucking and licking my pee drops out of the floor Oh you need more? Let me fill your mouth with my pee then. Oh. My. God. You enjoy my fresh pee this much. Oh. My God. Your nasty sir. Oh wow. Just wow. Lets train. Can you say C sir? O sir? Oh my o my sir? C. Sir. K. Sir. What do we have sir? A cock. Oh no sir. Oh my god sir my cock is going to explode soon sir. Oh. My. God. No one has never sucked me like this sir. Lick the tip just like that sir, nurture my shaft like a bitch in heat. You nasty greedy cock sucking street whore. Get Outlook for Android
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First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less
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First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less
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