InBev, a giant Belgian beer conglomerate, has made a bid to purchase Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of popular beers like Budweiser, Bud Light, and Michelob — not to mention lesser-known, though equally-delicious beverages such as Bud Dry, Busch Ice, Hurricane High Gravity, and King Cobra.
Anheuser-Busch is of course, headquartered in St. Louis. So it should come as no surprise that Missouri politicians have sprung into action to block the deal.
Senator Claire McCaskill is “nervous” and “upset” and plans on contacting the board of director’s at Anheuser-Busch to urge them to stop the deal. Governor Matt Blunt finds the deal “deeply troubling” and is frantically searching for a state law that would allow him to intervene.
Senator Kit Bond has honed in on a specific set of laws that he believes should be used to block the deal. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Mukasey and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Kovacic he claims:
The proposed foreign acquisition of Anheuser-Busch is troubling to me because it potentially raises antitrust issues under existing law by putting a significant market share of the U.S. in the hands of fewer competitors. I urge you to scrutinize closely InBev’s proposed acquisition of Anheuser-Busch to protect the interests of American consumers and the
U.S. economy.
This is yet another case of government officials trying to meddle in the free market to protect parochial interests. Thankfully, early indications suggest that despite the pleadings of Missouri’s elected officials, the federal government will not intervene in the possible deal.
The political uproar should serve as a reminder of why Congress should repeal antitrust laws altogether. As the Cato Handbook on Policy explains:
More than two centuries ago, in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith observed that ‘‘people of the same trade seldom meet together … but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices.’’ Coming from the father of laissez faire, that warning has been cited ad nauseam by antitrust proponents to justify all manner of interventionist mischief. Those same proponents, whether carelessly or deviously, rarely mention Smith’s next sentence: ‘‘It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.’’
Antitrust is bad law, bad economics, and bad public policy. It deserves an ignominious burial—sooner rather than later.
Cheers to that.
