31 Dec 2021 3:55 am
What is clear is the interests in the railroad exchanged in the transaction turned out to be worthless. The operating costs well exceeded the revenues received from passengers and freight by a long shot. Huge losses!!! Not surprising in a nation were wealth is quite limited and there is little available to pay for tickets. Looks like UF bankrupted out the enterprise set up for the railroad. So the railroad went belly up and it was a total loss but they had separated out the banana interests as a separate company. Not unusual and not illegal even in the US. It's actually quite a common practice to reduce risk. The bananas ended up being the saving grace for him. That enterprise was successful. I can't find any indications the workers were mistreated during this time. No riots or strikes or protests. All indications are the workers at this time were content through 1900. Steady rise in standard of living.
Well, here is some evil. Minor Keith lost everything in a scandal to someone in a early version of Bernie Madoff. More interesting is this same family has repeated the scandal in 3 out of 4 successive generations! What are they... Gypsies? Talk about con-artists! No SEC back then and no government backed insurance in the financial industry. The dude lost EVERYTHING after all that to a scammer? Jeez!! Got taken over and had nothing.
Doesn't appear as if there is any indication he was in any way evil. Kind of a visionary which is exactly what was needed throughout the region. Not for the feint of heart to attempt what he did. Actually succeeded to a certain extent. At least the people of the nation had a railroad and a major industry. Visionary, risk taker, foolish for getting scammed. But not evil. Up until he got scammed he apparently built up quite a market in Guatemala and elsewhere.
Well, here is some evil. Minor Keith lost everything in a scandal to someone in a early version of Bernie Madoff. More interesting is this same family has repeated the scandal in 3 out of 4 successive generations! What are they... Gypsies? Talk about con-artists! No SEC back then and no government backed insurance in the financial industry. The dude lost EVERYTHING after all that to a scammer? Jeez!! Got taken over and had nothing.
Doesn't appear as if there is any indication he was in any way evil. Kind of a visionary which is exactly what was needed throughout the region. Not for the feint of heart to attempt what he did. Actually succeeded to a certain extent. At least the people of the nation had a railroad and a major industry. Visionary, risk taker, foolish for getting scammed. But not evil. Up until he got scammed he apparently built up quite a market in Guatemala and elsewhere.