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Yet another American Institution owned by a foreign interest. Gee, tell me again why our economy is in the crapper? Doesn't an arab country own the Indiana Turnpike? We sure are headed in an interesting direction.
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Trying to stop the economic forces behind globalization is kind of like trying to hold back Lake Delton with a few dozen yards of sand berm...
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I'm not trying to hold back the global economy...but...can Americans own anything? We've set up such a convulted tax structure and so many barrier to American industry and business that it is no wonder foreign companies are moving it. It is like shooting ducks in a barrel for them.
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I think our trade imbalance, and the recent cliff-diving dollar have a lot more to do with it than any particular tax structure.
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Yup. Our companies are cheap now with the dollar the way it is. In fact, our diving dollar is helping with our exports right now. Anyway, I'm curious about how China's corporate taxes work. They are still a communist country the last time I checked. Do they have higher taxes? If so, they don't seem to have stiffled their economy (not that I'm a pinko). 
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Here's another way to get at the same question: Proposition: The US will be to the 21st century as the UK was to the 20th---a dying world power. Discuss.
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The UK wasn't as big (resources). It drew power from its colonies. Unless there is another civil war, we'll continue to be a world power. I just think that other economies will catch up.
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The thing is, other countries are going to go through the same cycles as we have in terms of wealth building and development. India is already seeing other countries do stuff cheaper, and they've only become a player (in certain markets) for a couple of decades. China will see the same thing. We've become a country of retail consumers who don't produce anything new, novel or inexpensive. We have an unprecedented opportunity to have enormous impact on the Internet (we already have) and energy technologies. Do you think we'll seize it?
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We'd better if we value the kind of lives we live now.
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Part of the foundational problem is that the American standard of living is miles above what it is in China, India, etc. If we're going to earn our standard of living, we can't be doing it on things that Chinese and Indians can do at a fraction of the cost. Even entertainment is beginning to get outsourced overseas. As Jeff said, we'll have to earn our keep in technology.
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With rising fuel costs, we might actually see an increase in domestic manufacturing. If anything this news indicates, it's that we still make products (beer) that somebody is buying. Anyway, to add to Jeff's short list, I'd add biotech. It's pretty big here in San Diego...and from a recent interview I heard, the professionals who come here, tend to stay because it is a nice place to live.
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Education may be one of those. The US is remarkably good at attracting incredible talent from overseas for graduate school, and keeping that talent in the states after obtaining degrees. Increasingly, other countries are starting to siphon off the international students who would for decades just assume that the US was the place to be for earning a Ph.D. We've been spending a lot of time thinking about how better to compete for that talent.
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There is a huge, HUGE market in alternative energy. The US could do well embrace it.
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It's interesting how you hear an uproar too among tech workers protesting the off-shoring of jobs, but the truth is that for as long as I've been a professional programmer, there has been a lack of qualified native "white boys" to do the work. I've worked with a virtual United Nations of internationals because they're the bulk of the qualified work force (particularly from India, China and Russia). That says to me that there aren't enough American born workers training for the available jobs, and by extension I'm assuming there's an educational problem.
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This story made NBC Nightly News last night and they talked about some big companies/buildings that already have been owned by foreign companies, sometimes for a decade or more. By the way, under the related parks should have been Sesame Place in Philly.
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I certainly agree that there are far too few US kids getting adequate training for white collar jobs in the technology sector. I can't say exactly why, though, because I get a very biased sample of kids. I do think that we simply have our standards set too low in terms of what we expect our kids to learn about math and science. Michigan's high school graduation requirements wre recently raised, and there's been a lot of talk that they are "too harsh." I couldn't disagree more. When someone buying a house can't understand the impact of a particular loan agreement, that's just criminal. There is no way that someone should be able to get a high school diploma without understanding interest rate computations, yet I continue to meet people that I consider to be well-educated who can't understand that, for example, you don't divide your up-front lease payment by the years of your lease to figure out true costs.
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wahoo, I don't think the problem is that foreign companies are buying or investing in American ones. It's that the American ones have been moving their operations out of the country. Here's a list of foreign companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (as of 2003). Bet you'll recognize a lot of names and probably regularly purchase and use their products or services. http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/internatl/geographic.htm
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Globalization is not the enemy... not participating in a meaningful way in the global economy is.
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^...and the key to participation in the win-win global is having definable competitive advantages in SOME arena(s). A few of those markets, like biotech and IT, have been discussed already. Unfortunately for our economy, these fields require education that's hard to prepare for in most US high schools. Also, too many Americans (including most of the members of my immediate family) treat technology like it's the spawn of the devil.
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In 1995, right out of college, I worked at CompUSA for awhile because broadcast jobs sucked. No joke, this guy came in and asked me, "Do you have one a dem Pentenium comprooders?" All of the promise of the commercial Internet before us and that was who would use it.
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My God! Does this mean Bud and Bug Light will be considered import beers???
Thank god for Great Lakes brewery!
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To second Brian Noble, I was apalled to hear on NPR the other day that something like 80% of people surveyed thought that going from 30mpg to 50 mpg would save more gas than going from 10 mpg to 20 mpg. <sigh>
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And as of last summer, 41% of Americans still think Saddam had something to do with 9/11. How sad is that?
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^Not as sad as the people who put our current president in office for a second term. We know he didn't win the first term.
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Wait! What was this thread about?? Oh right AB and the potential sale to InBev.. Probably part of our problem in this country. We cant focus on any one particular topic, and ultimately the main point becomes a fading memory.
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Two posts made in two years and that's your contribution?
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I tend to keep my useless comments to a minimum. I know.. Unusual trait for most. Lots of comments does make one more superior.. I digress.
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It's the silent bob factor.
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