Traders Are 'Scared As Hell' Of What's Happening In Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

76. Thought-provoking attempt to try to stretch "banana republic" to fit Maduro's administration! Wow.

Had to run off for a quick search grab to remind people just how this term came into use, for chrissakes.

Banana Republic

"Although the United States is, uh, a very rich country and San Marcos is a very poor one, there are a great many things we have to offer your country in return for aid. For instance, there, uh, there are locusts."
— Fielding Mellish, Bananas

Any backwards tropical country (almost always fictitious, more often than not Latin American), that is ruled by a small corrupt clique (often but not always presided over by a man with a chest full of medals and epic facial hair). Also known in Spanish as "República Bananera" or "República del Plátano". Usually a People's Republic of Tyranny or a Puppet State. Will probably contain Jailbirds of Panama.
The terms has its origins in the United Fruit Company, an honest-to-god Mega Corp. with a Corrupt Corporate Executive approach. With the help of their buddies in the CIA, and some "well-intentioned" and actually well intentioned American presidents, United Fruit created countless US-friendly military dictatorships throughout the tropics dedicated to growing bananas. In these countries, United Fruit paid extremely low wages and close to zero taxes. Marxist and Maoist guerrillas surfaced everywhere, and a cycle of civil wars and dictatorial overthrows ensued.
Since it was usually the Communists who opposed the dictatorships note , in Latin America, the term is associated with countries that have governments that are controlled by multinational corporations, and not with just any decadent dictatorship per se. In Europe and the U.S, the connotation tends to fall more closely with that of any dictatorship in any tropical country, capitalist, socialist, or what have you. Although, possible exceptions notwithstanding, there aren't really any left in Latin America these days, they can still be found in Africa and Southeast Asia.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BananaRepublic

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Wikipedia:

Original banana republic

The history of the first banana republic begins with the introduction of the banana to the US in 1870, by Lorenzo Dow Baker, captain of the schooner Telegraph. He initially bought bananas in Jamaica and sold them in Boston at a 1,000 percent profit.[7] The banana proved popular with Americans, as a nutritious tropical fruit that was less expensive than fruit grown locally in the U.S., such as apples. In 1913, for example, twenty-five cents bought a dozen bananas, but only two apples.[8] Its popularity among Americans was also spurred by the American railroad tycoons Henry Meiggs and his nephew, Minor C. Keith, who in 1873 began establishing banana plantations along the railroads they built in Costa Rica to produce food for their railroad workers. This experience led them to recognize the potential profitability of exporting bananas for sale, and they began exporting the fruit to the Southeastern United States.[9]

In the mid-1870s, to manage the new industrial-agriculture business enterprise in the countries of Central America, Keith founded the Tropical Trading and Transport Company: one-half of what would later become the United Fruit Company (Chiquita Brands International, created in 1899 by corporate merger with the Boston Fruit Company and owned by Andrew Preston). By the 1930s, the international political and economic tensions of the United Fruit Company had enabled it to gain control of 80 to 90 per cent of the U.S. banana trade.[10] Nonetheless, despite the UFC monopoly, in 1924, the Vaccaro Brothers established the Standard Fruit Company (Dole Food Company) to export Honduran bananas to the port of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico coast of the U.S. The fruit exporters were able to keep U.S. prices so low because the banana companies, through their manipulation of the producing countries' national land use laws, were able to cheaply buy large tracts of prime agricultural land for banana plantations in the countries of the Caribbean Basin, the Central American isthmus, and the tropical South American countries — and, having rendered the native peoples landless through a policy of legalistic dispossession, were therefore able to employ them as low-wage workers.[9]

Moreover, by the late 19th century, three American multinational corporations — the United Fruit Company, the Standard Fruit Company, and the Cuyamel Fruit Company — dominated the cultivation, harvesting, and exportation of bananas, and controlled the road, rail, and port infrastructure of Honduras. In the northern coastal areas near the Caribbean Sea, the Honduran government ceded to the banana companies 500 hectares (1,235.52 acres) for each kilometre of railroad laid, even though there was still no passenger or freight railroad to Tegucigalpa, the national capital city. Among the Honduran people, the United Fruit Company was known as El Pulpo ("The Octopus&quot , because its influence had come to pervade their society, controlled their country's transport infrastructure, and sometimes violently manipulated national politics.[11]

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The history of the first banana republic begins with the introduction of the banana to the US in 1870, by Lorenzo Dow Baker, captain of the schooner Telegraph. He initially bought bananas in Jamaica and sold them in Boston at a 1,000 percent profit.[7] The banana proved popular with Americans, as a nutritious tropical fruit that was less expensive than fruit grown locally in the U.S., such as apples. In 1913, for example, twenty-five cents bought a dozen bananas, but only two apples.[8] Its popularity among Americans was also spurred by the American railroad tycoons Henry Meiggs and his nephew, Minor C. Keith, who in 1873 began establishing banana plantations along the railroads they built in Costa Rica to produce food for their railroad workers. This experience led them to recognize the potential profitability of exporting bananas for sale, and they began exporting the fruit to the Southeastern United States.[9]

In the mid-1870s, to manage the new industrial-agriculture business enterprise in the countries of Central America, Keith founded the Tropical Trading and Transport Company: one-half of what would later become the United Fruit Company (Chiquita Brands International, created in 1899 by corporate merger with the Boston Fruit Company and owned by Andrew Preston). By the 1930s, the international political and economic tensions of the United Fruit Company had enabled it to gain control of 80 to 90 per cent of the U.S. banana trade.[10] Nonetheless, despite the UFC monopoly, in 1924, the Vaccaro Brothers established the Standard Fruit Company (Dole Food Company) to export Honduran bananas to the port of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico coast of the U.S. The fruit exporters were able to keep U.S. prices so low because the banana companies, through their manipulation of the producing countries' national land use laws, were able to cheaply buy large tracts of prime agricultural land for banana plantations in the countries of the Caribbean Basin, the Central American isthmus, and the tropical South American countries — and, having rendered the native peoples landless through a policy of legalistic dispossession, were therefore able to employ them as low-wage workers.[9]

Moreover, by the late 19th century, three American multinational corporations — the United Fruit Company, the Standard Fruit Company, and the Cuyamel Fruit Company — dominated the cultivation, harvesting, and exportation of bananas, and controlled the road, rail, and port infrastructure of Honduras. In the northern coastal areas near the Caribbean Sea, the Honduran government ceded to the banana companies 500 hectares (1,235.52 acres) for each kilometre of railroad laid, even though there was still no passenger or freight railroad to Tegucigalpa, the national capital city. Among the Honduran people, the United Fruit Company was known as El Pulpo ("The Octopus&quot , because its influence had come to pervade their society, controlled their country's transport infrastructure, and sometimes violently manipulated national politics.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

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