There are no mass market American breweries left and that's a good thing.

[Dinner]

In the last five years all the old traditional macro brew beer makers in North America have pretty much been bought out by foreign companies. The only large scale North American native left is Canadian controlled MolsenCoors but now they're merging their American operations with SABMiller and this is likely a step towards an eventual take over by the South Africans. I can't help but think of this as a good thing as maybe the foreigners will remind the macro makers that taste matters besides they deserved to be neutered for the crap they put out.

So we have the Belgian-Brazilian InBev buying Anheuser Busch, South African Breweries bought Miller, Molsen bought Coors, Sleeman got bought by Sapporo, Labatt is owned by InBev, while the merged SABMiller is currently doing a mating dance with MolsenCoors. The only big brewer left still entirely American owned is Pabst who isn't really even a brewer any more since they outsourced all their actual brewing and bottling to SABMiller.

So I would say evolution has taken it's course and the market has punished the makers of bad beer. They're now all foreign owned or soon will be (abet with a large percentage of shares in the hands of Americans and Canadians). My hat is off to the micro brews because 30 years ago they started the revolution which eventually saw the downfall of the crappy macro beer which used to be our only choice.

[ZEE]

posting in a future troll thread

[Jon Miller]

posting in an AAHZ thread

JM

[ZEE]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
posting in an AAHZ thread

JM

there hasn't been a true AAHZ-Thread™ since last year i believe...

with ForumWarz I have another place to do all that stuff, so now im just sort of... here.

Oh and i prefer my beer from the Bahamas... Kalik

[Theben]

Keeping in mind, of course, that Prohibition destroyed thousands of microbreweries initially which left a vacuum to be filled by the big brewhouses.

And Sapporo isn't that good.

[SlowwHand]

Yeah, Oerdin. Let's celebrate yet another American company going ovverseas.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

WTF? The big beer companies aren't being punished for making bad beer; their being punished for operating on a business model that's decades out of date, as well as for dealing in a product with limited export potential (why? Because unlike hamburgers and over-roasted coffee, most countries already have achieved market saturation in bad beer, with homegrown products).

Moreover, consumption of bad beer isn't down; do you really think Bud drinkers are all going to start drinking microbrews just because the Belgians now control their swill of choice? It's just that now dollars earned from that consumption go to foreign conglomerates instead of American conglomerates. You can argue that that's not a bad thing (as free market types would), but it's hard to see how you can argue that it's a good thing, unless you have InBev stock.

Honestly, WTF are you thinking?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by AAHZ

Oh and i prefer my beer from the Bahamas... Kalik

Kalik is owned by Heineken and was custom designed for Bahamian tastes (what ever that means) in 1988.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
WTF? The big beer companies aren't being punished for making bad beer; their being punished for operating on a business model that's decades out of date, as well as for dealing in a product with limited export potential (why? Because unlike hamburgers and over-roasted coffee, most countries already have achieved market saturation in bad beer, with homegrown products).

Moreover, consumption of bad beer isn't down; do you really think Bud drinkers are all going to start drinking microbrews just because the Belgians now control their swill of choice? It's just that now dollars earned from that consumption go to foreign conglomerates instead of American conglomerates. You can argue that that's not a bad thing (as free market types would), but it's hard to see how you can argue that it's a good thing, unless you have InBev stock.

Honestly, WTF are you thinking?

Damn... that's exactly what I was going to say (well, more or less)

If someone really thinks that the macrobrews are being punished for making bad beer or that they are in a downfall, well that's just stupid. Bud, Coors, and Miller sell plenty of beer and were profitable before acquisition, even with the microbrew revolution.

[Dinner]

I'm sure they sell tons of bad beer; I'm hoping that the foreigners will start selling some good beer along with the traditional bad beer. Also these companies will continue brew locally as the US is a cheap manufacturing spot plus transport costs are high so I'm not seeing the downside to foreigners getting involved.

[Nostromo]

Oerdin, you masterful logician, you...

[DarkCloud]

Well... "Foreigners" investing in a country does not necessarily weaken said country- that's what Free Trade is about. Obviously, the American companies could not, as stated earlier, correctly manage/market their offerings. Therefore, they sold off to "foreigners" who theoretically can run the company better and create more domestic jobs and profit.

Admittedly, the "big bucks" will likely head overseas, but wouldn't Americans appreciate a stronger company? Such companies and foreign-lead takeovers are what they've been exporting for the past 50 years with their formerly high dollar.

If Americans want to hold onto their companies, they would do well to reign in their debt-fueled spending so that the Federal Reserve can raise interest rates, tighten the money supply and return the Dollar to the level of a worldwide reserve currency. Then, "foreigners" would be less likely to buy american companies "on the cheap."

The way things are going, it looks like oil might theoretically be depegged from the dollar... countries like the UAE are already considering depegging their currencies.

Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable... it is, however, a change, and if the US is not nimble enough to adjust- then these changes certainly will be bad. (For Americans).

[Dinner]

Let's face it if they made a better beer they'd be buying out the foreigners and not the other way around. Currency, of course, also plays a part as it makes foreigners in a stronger position to buy American instead of Americans to buy foreigners.

I also believe that in the future more and more companies will officially base themselves in countries with no corporate taxes while most of their operations will remain in their big markets. The profits will continue to flow to shareholders many of whom are Americans.

[DarkCloud]

I also believe that in the future more and more companies will officially base themselves in countries with no corporate taxes while most of their operations will remain in their big markets. The profits will continue to flow to shareholders many of whom are Americans.

Hm. Possible. But the country itself would be weakened in that case- no taxes= few city improvements

The US Corporate tax rate of 35%, second highest in the world (After Egypt)... let me repeat that SECOND HIGHTEST... is a terrible crime against business.

Even Sweden and Norway know to treat business better than the United States treats said thing.

Thankfully John McCain wants to lower the business tax to 20%. Obama, after being called out on raising capital gains taxes and restroing the estate tax, (by the WSJ), finally consented to maybe considering possibly lowering the corporate tax to 30% As though that would be likely to happen under a democratically controlled US congress- Who thinks Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will do anything "logical" that would hurt their standings as populist crusaders?

Personally, I'll give Obama this- he's right that lowering the Corporate taxes is a better idea than lowering Capital gains and dividends taxes in the sense that the government will gain more tax revenues (laffer curve) and ordinary people will probably be guaranteed more money....

But middle class americans made a lot on the stock market after bush lowered the dividends double taxing- the tax rebate (both the first one and the current) did little to help the economy. the SECOND round of bush tax cuts which repealed the estate tax and the double taxing of dividends helped strengthen US companies and the economy in general.

Sigh. I suppose that qualifies as a rant. I feel sad for going off track. *sigh*

[SlowwHand]

You're worse than Che. At least he recognizes what he's saying; and he didn't make it through basic training.