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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
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Yep. $52 Billion (with a B) for Buddy Wiser! A 100% union company (teamsters). And I thought unions ruined companies, made companies worthless, made then unable to compete, ran off the jobs to China! I will always buy Bud as I always have!
InBev buying Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion - Food Inc. - MSNBC.com (broken link)
I suppose that as the economy worsens and people have to make cost their #1 priority (even in their booze), it makes sense to own a company like this as it produces a fairly inexpensive beer and can compete in a difficult economic time.
I suppose that as the economy worsens and people have to make cost their #1 priority (even in their booze), it makes sense to own a company like this as it produces a fairly inexpensive beer and can compete in a difficult economic time.
I think the demand for cheap beer is a boon for the "Busch" part even more than the "Anheuser" part.
Yep. $52 Billion (with a B) for Buddy Wiser! A 100% union company (teamsters). And I thought unions ruined companies, made companies worthless, made then unable to compete, ran off the jobs to China!
The sale headed off a hostile take-over. My understanding is that a company must be weak to be a good target for one. (A strong company's stock doesn't go low enough to make take-overs worthwhile, but when it does happen, a strong company is able to buy back stock and drive up the price to head off the take-over.)
The article says that Bud's distribution system was weak and that's where InBev will make it's biggest improvements. (A poor distribution system would cause a less than stellar asset to earnings ratio... and that could be attributable to the union, but I don't know any details.)
Unions don't necessarily directly ruin companies. They make companies less able to respond to problems... such as the threat of a hostile take-over. In that way unions ruin companies indirectly because when problems arise, the company fails rather than respond successfully... Or they get bought out, I guess...
Don't get too excited about this. InBev bought the distribution system and the name. I bet you a dollar that the cost cutters are coming... and it'll be American jobs that are cut.
The union issue has been a convenient scapegoat for the past decade or two.
Like a higher cost of capital, providing labor with a decent wage can be written into the business plan of a well-run company providing goods and services that fill a true need.
Good companies don't need 3% money and minimum wage labor to be competitive. Europe knows this. A good labor force can save you far more money in productivity gains as had been the case for the US work force since WWII.
Like a higher cost of capital, providing labor with a decent wage can be written into the business plan of a well-run company providing goods and services that fill a true need.
Is it better to have a job working for an inefficient company or having no job? The reality is that big businesses aren't necessarily run well... but I bet you'd rather have a job working there than no where.
Also, it's about competition. If an investor can buy overseas companies and get a 10% return, why in the world would they buy into a company here with 5% return?
The union issue is far reaching because it affects companies who compete for employees. The local culture begins to believe they deserve wages that violate the market's equilibrium. This hinders small businesses from entering the market place for want of labor... which forces consumers to accept the status quo for products and reduces the number of jobs.
Lastly, the reality is that the ideal of unions that most of us understand (protections for workers and fair treatment) isn't consistent with unions in action. Those of us who have worked in union shops and have been raised around union members are all too accustomed to phrases like "some people only have two gears: slow and reverse" and "that's not my job classification" and, when someone develops a five times per day bowel movement with no doctor's excuse "a guy has to go, he has to go."
Unions are bad... maybe at one time they were beneficial, but today they're helping kill our economy.
Is it better to have a job working for an inefficient company or having no job? The reality is that big businesses aren't necessarily run well... but I bet you'd rather have a job working there than no where.
Also, it's about competition. If an investor can buy overseas companies and get a 10% return, why in the world would they buy into a company here with 5% return?
The union issue is far reaching because it affects companies who compete for employees. The local culture begins to believe they deserve wages that violate the market's equilibrium. This hinders small businesses from entering the market place for want of labor... which forces consumers to accept the status quo for products and reduces the number of jobs.
Lastly, the reality is that the ideal of unions that most of us understand (protections for workers and fair treatment) isn't consistent with unions in action. Those of us who have worked in union shops and have been raised around union members are all too accustomed to phrases like "some people only have two gears: slow and reverse" and "that's not my job classification" and, when someone develops a five times per day bowel movement with no doctor's excuse "a guy has to go, he has to go."
Unions are bad... maybe at one time they were beneficial, but today they're helping kill our economy.
Exactly, they may have been beneficial way back when they first started but it's been a long time since they've been anything more than parasites. Most union workers are the laziest most unmotivated people who for some reason feel they are entitled to things they never earned.
Unions are bad... maybe at one time they were beneficial, but today they're helping kill our economy.
Nonsense, the union was very good for me. You and I evidently have different interests.
I've seen enough inefficiency, pig-headedness and laziness in non union companies and situations to conclude it's universal.
Also remember the market will see that talent chases money, that's true of blue collar life as well as white collar you know. So the most talented blue collar workers will naturally gravitate to union work. But if you can do your business with the less talented that's aces with me.
Union workers do not destroy companies; poor managment and greedy investors unwilling to capitalize productivity increasing improvments do.
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