America's Road to Wealth

Abel stayed in Alexander's office for about more than an hour.

During this period, he had a working meal at the County Hall of Tarrant County.

Perhaps because of Abel, today’s work meal seemed richer.

There are fried chicken steaks, braised pork chops, biscuits and gravy, tacos and fruit cobblers, all of which are synonymous with home-cooked meals that Texans dream about.

Abel, who was accustomed to fine dining in New York, occasionally ate like this after returning to his hometown.

It made him feel physically and mentally comfortable, as if the Texan genes in his body had been reawakened.

After eating, he did not leave immediately.

Accompanied by Alexander.

The father and son appeared near a square at 33-39 Southern Avenue in Fort Worth.

This square was originally named South Plaza, but was later acquired by a consortium and renamed Pacific Plaza.

The consortium that acquired this square, as well as many commercial buildings in the square, was the Pacific Supermarket Company under Abel's name.

Pacific Supermarket Company currently has only one subsidiary, Pacific Mall.

The plaza on Southern Avenue in Fort Worth is the first Pacific Mall store in the United States.

The first Pacific Mall has two floors, each with an area of ​​66,453 square feet.

That is a total of a little over 130,000 square feet. When converted into square meters, it is already more than 12,000 square meters.

It is undoubtedly a large supermarket and the largest supermarket in the entire city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

If a large supermarket with an area of ​​more than 12,000 square meters were located in China, it would probably rank first in the country.

For example, Carrefour Supermarket in Zhongguancun, the imperial capital, once known as Asia's largest supermarket, has a business area of ​​only 11,600 square meters.

But here in the United States, a 12,000-square-meter supermarket is indeed considered a large supermarket, but there is nothing new about it.

Because there are many supermarkets larger than it in area.

The supermarket industry in the United States can be said to be a miracle composed of modern food, daily chemical industry, and light industry.

In the larger supermarkets, you'll find everything from home-grown goods, canned goods, meat and poultry, seafood, dairy products, baked goods, frozen foods, beverages (including alcoholic beverages in some states), household staples, ready-to-eat meals ( It ranges from everything from sushi to pastrami sandwiches to grilled chicken and other deli options.

Some supermarkets even sell cars, small speedboats, and motorboats.

Some also have pet markets and plant breeding markets inside.

According to data from the Food Marketing Institute, which is relatively authoritative in the United States, each supermarket in the United States sells an average of more than 33,000 products.

Therefore, supermarkets in the United States are very large, with the median area being 41,561 square feet.

The median supermarket area is more than 4,000 square meters.

It can be seen from this that large supermarkets with a large area and a wide variety of products, like a small city, are very common in the United States.

Among them, the more famous ones, such as the Woodman's chain store in Kenosha, Wisconsin, occupy an area of ​​almost 245,469 square feet.

A supermarket with an area of ​​about 23,000 square meters.

But that's not the biggest thing.

Florida's Popular Supermarket Company has a supermarket with a business area of ​​45,000 square meters in Miami.

This supermarket is the largest in the United States, and probably the largest in the world.

Supermarkets in China can only be said to be shopping malls.

Supermarkets in most places in the United States, they really are "super" markets.

A super big market with a huge variety of goods.

Just imagine a supermarket with such a large area.

Even with the help of some mechanical tools, the number of workers it requires will undoubtedly be many.

This is why Abel wants to invest in this industry that is not very profitable.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2000, almost 4.8 million people worked in tens of thousands of large and small supermarkets across the United States.

Abel's Smith Intelligence Group has data showing that it is undoubtedly the world's No. 1 retail hegemon.

In the United States alone, 1.6 million people work for Walmart.

The second place is Kroger, a century-old American supermarket store with about 350,000 employees.

These statistics are so terrible. They are equivalent to almost 0.5% of Americans working at Walmart and 0.13% working at Kroger.

The American Volkswagen Supermarket Company, which tried to enter Texas before but did not develop very smoothly here, also has about 100,000 employees.

Excluding Wal-Mart, a listed outlier, half of the top ten retail groups in the United States are private companies that are not listed.

The controllers behind these guys are one of the masters of this country.

They control people's livelihood, spread across every state in the United States, and influence local politics and economy. They can be described as princes.

In contrast, Wal-Mart, which has more employees, is not a concern.

Although Wal-Mart is a listed company, its control is no longer in the hands of the Wal-Mart family.

It is precisely because power has been infinitely dispersed that Wal-Mart can spread throughout the United States and then go out of the United States to the world.

But these private retail giants cannot do it.

The reason is that the controlling families behind them are unwilling to hand over control.

This makes giants like American mass supermarkets often limited to regional development in one or two states, or at most three or four states.

It is not like a listed company like Wal-Mart, which can open stores all over the United States.

Since they are princes, they will have territory.

It doesn't matter how you open a store in your own territory. You have to open a store in other "princes" places.

Either you accept the other party's investment, or you launch a "war" and survive the battles on all fronts.

Like American Mass Market Company, it is mainly rooted in several places near Florida and Alabama.

In the past two years, I wanted to come to Texas to develop, but I was trapped by the local snakes in Texas.

This piece of land on Southern Avenue was negotiated and built by the Volkswagen Supermarket Company at that time.

But after the construction was completed, they were given a backstab here.

Forced by desperation, Volkswagen Supermarkets had to choose to withdraw from the city of Fort Worth.

And development in other Texas areas is not going very smoothly either.

From these things, we can see the terrifying and low-key influence of these private retail giants on various states in the United States.

Put it this way.

In the U.S,

Wall Street and the financial oligarchs control finance.

The military-industrial complex has mastery of force.

The energy complex has mastery of energy.

These retail giants, as well as the agricultural companies that are inextricably related to them, control the people's livelihood in the United States.

In addition to these, there are some industrial giants who control American industry.

Finance, military force, people's livelihood, energy, industry.

From these behemoths, countless political sects, large and small, were born.

They hang like a shadow over all Americans.

Too often, the elephant and the donkey are the “farce” in the White House and on Parliament Hill.

Even the commander-in-chief.

They are all just tricks played by these beings for the American people to see after fighting, contending, and compromising with each other.

It’s not that the United States doesn’t have a leader who can’t see this shortcoming.

Yes, the last Commander Voslo saw it.

And determined to change.

He started "eating" a capitalist every day.

Want to carry out a series of social reforms and change the national attributes of the United States.

The results of it?

The result was that he was about to lead the United States to win World War II. On the eve of victory, he died of an inexplicable cerebral hemorrhage in the white room.

Since then, the United States has never had a leader at the level of a statesman.

Even if such a strong man does appear, it is impossible for him to ascend to that position.

The capitalists were frightened by Forthro.

From then on, the only ones who could go up were the capitalists' own people.

If something really happens, you can play an imaginative show.

In this way, retail groups that can directly affect the livelihood of the people at the bottom of the class have entered Abel's field of vision.

It is for this reason that Abel decided to enter this industry that seemed unprofitable and did not look noble at all.

Just like when he invested in Tesla, he wanted to create a new track for new energy sources for electric vehicles.

In these areas, what he wants is not profit.

What he wants is the huge influence that is often invisible in the local area, just like the uncrowned king in the United States.

This led to the emergence of American Pacific Mall, or to be precise, the emergence of American Pacific Supermarkets.

After walking around the outside of the first Pacific Mall, Abel did not go in.

It was noon now, and the business in the mall was very good.

You can see that outside the mall, the square that serves as a parking lot is filled with a large number of cars, most of which are pickup trucks.

This is also a major feature of the United States and Texas.

That is, when Americans go shopping in supermarkets, they usually buy enough food for a week.

If you buy a lot, you will need to drive home.

Therefore, these large supermarkets in the United States all have a very large parking lot.

In supermarket parking lots elsewhere, there are cars of everything parked.

In Texas, most of them are pickup trucks or SUVs.

In summary, it is because of the vast land, sparsely populated areas, abundant material resources, and the fact that we can use the tide of US dollars to harvest the world.

This allows ordinary people in this country to get a little bit of the juice leaked by the capitalists.

Let the people here live better off in terms of food than people in most parts of the world.

World robbers, all Americans can benefit from the dollar tidal harvest.

The difference is that the capitalists take the vast majority and ordinary Americans enjoy a small part.

After wandering around the perimeter, Abel didn't want to go in.

In the carriage, the father and son talked softly.

"The other one is a little bit smaller than this one," Alexander said. "There are two in Fort Worth. There's one in Arlington. There's one in Lincoln City and there's one in Bluemund."

This is Abel's five Pacific malls in Texas. In fact, they are mainly in Tarrant County.

These five Pacific Malls were actually opened after Alexander came to power.

A chain of supermarkets was established through the help of some government officials and direct investment of money.

As the second most populous continent in the United States, the largest state in area, and one of the top five states in terms of economy.

The retail industry in Texas is very developed, and Wal-Mart is very strong here, with more than 11% of its stores located here.

Fortunately, there are no local giants like Florida's Mass Market Company.

The retail industry in Texas has always been in the "Warring States Era".

External retail giants, such as listed companies like Wal-Mart, giants such as Volkswagen Supermarket and Kroger Supermarket, as well as some local medium-sized retail companies, are all competing fiercely in Texas.

Abel knew that he wanted Pacific Mall to develop throughout Texas and even the entire southern United States.

And not just in Tarrant County.

Then there is a high probability that the power of the Bush family will be needed.

Otherwise it will be difficult to get out and it will take a lot of time.

Thinking of this, Abel nodded and said, "I won't go see those things for now. I'll go back to Smith Farm to see Emily and Charlize. I'll go to Houston to see Alex in two days."

"Alex is not in Houston."

Alexander said: "My mother and father went to Austin, and Herbert invited them to be guests. They have been there for more than a month."

Abel really didn't know about this. He was stunned after hearing what his father said.

I was invited to be a guest and stayed as a guest for more than a month.

Abel couldn't help but have some conspiracy theories again.

If you count the time, your grandparents were invited by Herbert just two days before that big event happened.

This was either a coincidence, or Herbert knew that Abel was in Europe, so he called his old friend to his side to avoid running around.

"call"

Abel smiled: "Okay. Then I will go to Austin later."

Austin is the capital of Texas and the education center of Texas.

But as the capital of a state, it is magically neither an economic center nor a political center.

It is understandable that it is not an economic center. After all, the capitals of many places are not economic centers.

The status of an economic center is generally related to geographical location and industrial development.

But the capital of Texas is not a political center. There is only one place like Austin in the United States.

And most Texans don't like Austinites.

Austinites, on the other hand, don't like other Texans very much.

The reason is that the entire state of Texas is basically conservative, or deep red in electoral terms.

But as the capital city, Austin, like New York City, is a blue to purple place.

The capital of the reddest state is dark blue, which is very strange.

But in reality it happened.

This makes most Texans reluctant to recognize Austin's status.

Most Texans prefer Houston to Dallas, or even Fort Worth to Austin.

In the end, it basically has no status as a political center and can only play its own game, which is very magical.

After chatting with his father for a few more words, Abel's motorcade slowly left the Southern Avenue.

The convoy returned to the county seat of Tarrant County and dropped Alexander off the car.

The convoy resumed its journey and left downtown Fort Worth.

Soon after, the convoy drove out of Fort Worth and headed northwest of the city.

At this time, the car Abel was riding in was no longer the Cadillac monster.

He put the Cadillac monster at his father's place.

Who knows that on the way back to Smith Farm, more than 70% of the journey is unpaved.

On such a road with extremely poor road conditions, no matter how good the Cadillac Monster's suspension and comfort are, it's still uncomfortable to sit in the back.

Instead of damaging the vehicle, it is better to just go back in the SUV.

Abel took a modified Cadillac Escalade instead.

At around four o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun began to set, the team returned to the Smith Farm after a long absence.

On the Smith Farm side, whether it is to protect Emily or for Charlize.

Rock security is here and a large number of staff are deployed.

The arrival of Abel and others naturally notified this part of the company's employees in advance.

People from Rock Security came all the way to greet us.

Abel was escorted to the spacious square and parking lot in front of the main entrance of Smith Farm.

Emily, who knew her son was back, and Charlize, who was very excited, had already been waiting there.

Emily laughed happily as Abel jumped out of the car.

Charlize's eyes turned slightly red.

He walked over and gave his happy mother a hug.

After hugging his mother, Abel came to Charlize and saw that the whole body was round, but instead looked plumper and sexier, full of the beauty of a pregnant mother.

"I'm back."

Abel smiled and opened his hands to her, and Charlize rushed forward without hesitation and hugged him tightly.

Abel carefully protected her belly, hugged her with one hand, and gently comforted her back with the other.

Although Abel was very angry at her behavior at the time, and he had no feelings for her at that time.

It's more about the possessiveness of her beauty and the man's desire to conquer.

But Abel really couldn't do it.

In addition, she became the carrier of her own genetic reproduction, that is, the child's mother.

There was still more than half a year, which diluted a lot of his unhappiness and dissatisfaction at that time.

Coupled with little Laura's tolerance and calmness about this, Abel is no longer angry with Charlize.

After I stopped being angry with her, I felt a little guilty.

He held her and coaxed her softly for a while, making Emily next to her smile.

As the mother of her son's first child, she spends all day and night together.

Charlize naturally has some status with Emily.

Soon Abel was holding Charlize with one hand and his mother with the other, walking towards Smith Manor.

That night, he had another meal with real hometown flavor, cooked by Emily herself.

Texas is known as the melting pot of North American history and culture and is also recognized as an emerging food destination in the United States.

There are world-renowned German/Mexican cuisine, gold-medal barbecue, everyone's favorite hand-cut steaks, and freshly caught seafood from the Gulf coast. It can satisfy the diverse taste buds here.

But traditional farm families or cowboy families generally still eat the same food——

Fried chicken chops, braised pork chops, roast beef ribs, biscuits with lamb gravy, corn tortillas and fruit tarts.

No matter how delicious it was, Abel had already had a meal at his father's place for noon.

Another meal in the evening. If it weren't for the expectant look in his mother's eyes, he wouldn't be able to eat anymore.

After the meal, the farm worker's wife came over as a maid to help clean up the kitchen.

Emily accompanied her son and the mother of her son's child to the living room to watch TV and chat about family matters.

Abel also thought it was nice to have this kind of family warmth once in a while.

Emily's motherly love and Charlize's dependent tenderness.

It also allowed him to relax a little from his tense spirit in New York.

At this time, the TV channel was Abel's own AMC TV station.

What is playing inside is a replay of the Times Square concert last night.