I bought a prison in the United States.

Mr. Danforth watched everything without saying a word.

After Morrison and Pascal changed the subject, he turned his head and whispered to Ringo.

"Frank Cao is a very good man. His valve factory has been running steadily for twelve years."

"When he moved from Chicago to Tulsa, he was the only Chinese-American business owner in the entire industrial area, and he still is now the only one."

Lin Ge asked curiously, "How do you know him?"

"I supplied him with stamped parts, but later General Motors' orders filled up my production capacity, so we stopped cooperating."

"But he sends me a handwritten card every Christmas. It's a small thing, but it shows that he values ​​his business partners."

As Mr. Danforth spoke, a barely perceptible softening appeared in his voice.

"Fewer and fewer people are writing Christmas cards by hand in this city."

Lin Ge thought of the list of chamber of commerce members in his pocket.

Hundreds of names, each representing someone who has done or is doing business in Tulsa.

How many of them will write Christmas cards by hand?

How many of these people will remember another person for ten years because of a handwritten card?

The ultimate goal of capitalism is not to maximize efficiency, but to find a balance between efficiency and human relationships.

Human relationships and social connections are assets beyond the accounting books; they cannot be quantified, but at crucial moments, they can determine a person's fate more effectively than the numbers on the books.

……

At 4:30 p.m., the forum's free discussion session was also drawing to a close.

The waiters began clearing away coffee cups and pastry plates from the table in preparation for the cocktail party at five o'clock.

The crowd began to slowly move toward the banquet hall on the third floor.

Lin Ge walked on the edge of the crowd.

He had four business cards in his suit pocket and four potential business opportunities in his mind.

For someone who only had one invitation in their pocket before coming to the Chamber of Commerce, this was already an unexpected bonus.

But he also knew that the real social interaction had not yet begun.

Cocktail parties are a game on another level.

The forum participants discussed industry trends and macroeconomic data, using only publicly available language.

But at cocktail parties, people inevitably discuss specific people and deals, using coded language and hints that only insiders can fully understand.

In other words, this is a truly high-level game!

The banquet hall on the third floor is smaller than the conference hall on the second floor, but it is more ornately decorated.

The walls were covered with deep red silk wallpaper, the gold patterns shimmering faintly under the light.

Lin Ge's gaze immediately fell on the three crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The original crystal chandeliers from the Mayo Hotel's heyday were sold off to pay off debts during its decline in the 1970s; these were all replicas made during the renovation.

Although the imitation is very similar, the facet angles of the crystal are still slightly different from the original, and the refracted light is sharper and colder.

This is a replica of prosperity.

It is not prosperity itself.

Just like the city of Tulsa, which belongs to the Rust Belt of the whole of America.

They are trying to replicate their past glory, but a copy is always just a copy.

There were already about a hundred people gathered in the banquet hall.

Most of the men were wearing dark suits.

The women wore brightly colored suits or dresses popular in the 1980s, with thick shoulder pads and skirts that went past the knees. The colors were mainly fuchsia, royal blue, and dark green.

This was the era when professional women in America began to enter the workforce on a large scale.

Their dressing style is shifting from imitating men to finding their own expression.

Shoulder pads are a symbol of power, and bright colors preserve femininity.

The tension between these two factors reflects the true situation of professional women in this era.

The waiter gracefully walked through the crowd carrying a tray.

The tray is set with stemmed glasses filled with champagne, gin and tonic, or martini.

Ringo took a glass of gin and tonic, even though he didn't like it, but in a business setting in Tulsa, not holding a glass would be considered strange.

Alcohol is a social lubricant, an unspoken fact in American business culture.

You don't have to drink it, but you have to take it.

If you behave in a way that makes others want to play games with you, then everyone will play games with you. Lin Ge is already an expert in this area.

He stopped at the edge of the crowd and began to observe.

The crowd distribution at cocktail parties differs from that at forums.

During the forum, people gathered according to their industry; oil companies were grouped together, and banks were grouped together.

At the cocktail party, people gathered according to their power hierarchy.

The truly powerful figures are surrounded by layers of people, forming a loose circle where people constantly join and leave.

In the center of those circles stood several elderly white men with gray hair or who were completely bald.

They spoke softly, but everyone around them was laughing.

They didn't say anything funny; laughter is a signal that "we're on the same wavelength."

The initiator of this chamber of commerce, Hollis Underwood, the chamber's president, stood at the very center of the circle.

Like many others, Lingo focused his attention on the other person as soon as he entered.

He was a white male around sixty-five years old, at least 1.85 meters tall, wearing a charcoal gray tailored suit, a white shirt, and a dark blue tie with very fine dark red diagonal stripes.

His hair was silver-white, neatly parted to the side, and his sideburns were meticulously trimmed. There was no sign of aging; on the contrary, he looked very fashionable.

The old man had a calm demeanor that suggested he had long been at the center of power. He didn't appear arrogant, but his presence was enough to make those around him lower their heads slightly.

The Underwood family has been based in Tulsa for three generations.

The first generation started by manufacturing oil equipment, while the second generation expanded their business into banking and real estate.

By the third generation, Hollis, the family business had expanded further into the media and political donations sectors.

He is also a board member of the Tulsa World newspaper and serves as the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce.

On the Oklahoma political spectrum, he belongs to the moderate Republican establishment, supporting tax cuts and deregulation, but reserved about Reagan-style sweeping reforms.

These are the people who don't make headlines, but they are the ones who truly determine the direction of a city.

Ringo had read about Underwood's background from the materials Ray Carson gave him.

His name was also in Parker's investigation report, which told him that this person was:

"People you should know before making any big moves in Tulsa."

He and Judge Hammond were members of the same golf club, and he had a few public interactions with Bayless of Bayless Building Materials, but their personal relationship did not seem to be very close.

Everyone wanted to curry favor with him, but Underwood wasn't interested in the building materials business; he was interested in things with a greater leverage effect.

For example, media, politics, and large-scale real estate projects that can influence the direction of urban development.