Blog.MrHacks.com

The Tale of the Robber Baron Businesses

It doesn’t seem like it was so long ago that the St. Louis was the headquarters of many companies. McDonnell Douglas, Anheuser-Busch, May Company, A.G. Edwards, Trans World Airlines, Ralston-Purina. Major corporations that were headquartered here in St. Louis, Missouri, that were swallowed up by large out of town corporations who snatched up the assets of these companies only to be exported, outsourced, sold off, and eventually shut down.

The majority shareholders of these companies did not care about the importance of these businesses were to the area, so as long as they were being paid for letting the outsiders take over.

Now we have Boeing owning McDonnell Douglas, Macy’s owning May, American Airlines owning TWA, Nestle owning Purina, Wells Fargo owning Wachovia owned A.G. Edwards. And the biggest, most disasterous aquesition to our area, InBev owning Anheuser-Busch.

We are no longer the headquarters of various major corporations but the home of very expendable branches of corporations who do not understand, nor want to understand, the true value of the actual worth of the native companies.

The most recent of acquesition by out of town conglomorates was made by a company called InBev, who last year purchased a very profitable and successful Anheuser-Busch. AB was a financially sound corporation during this troubling time. Yet despite the fact that the InBev company from Europe had amassed a large amount of debt by taking out loans to purchase AB, the shareholders approved of the merger.

Imagine if you took out several credit cards or large loans from the bank and then showed off the money you took out to show that you were wealthy when in fact you are in so much debt that you put other people in a financial pinch. It would be alot like this commercial.

So now InBev is shedding off all of the many assest that AB had in St. Louis. The Bevo Mill, owned by AB, was sold by InBev for $1 to the City of St. Louis. To which the people the City put in charge of keeping the Mill open, defaulted on Payments, and now the Mill is closed indefinitely. Grant’s Farm, formerly owned by United States President Ulysses S. Grant and home of the Budweiser Clydesdales, has it’s hours reduced and there is no more free beer in the beer garden. Busch Entertainment Corporation, parent company of Sea World and Busch Gardens, is being auctioned off by InBev, but BEC may just break off before that happens.

Another takeover company, Macy’s, has yet to close the Macy’s (nee Famous-Barr) location at Jamestown Mall in North St. Louis County. The mall, like so many others has fallen from grace. Yet, when Macy’s finds out they are losing money, and didn’t bother to take the advice of closing down the Jamestown Macy’s, they will shut down the Downtown Macy’s which was the headquarters of May Department Stores, and is doing moderately well in these tough times.

Then there is this outrageous incident where steel used to build an oil pipeline from Canada to Wood River, Illinois is being imported from India. The pipeline that is being constructed runs along the Granite City Steel mill, where workers are being laid off. There are things in the “global free trade” system that do not make sense. And this is just one of them.

The other is the Pentagon buying Chinese-made computer parts for their computers then wondering why the Chinese are breaking into the Pentagon. It is because the Pentagon buy’s the same parts that we buy them from. Places like Best Buy, who sell many electronic items that are made in China. The logic behind items that are shipped from overseas are cheaper is flawed.

Yet when the United States Govermment as well as several state governments are sending jobs for various agencies overseas and permitting foreign access to American data systems, then wonder why service is poor and there is virtually no security from the outside, it just makes you want to find the person who decided to permit all of these terrible and irresponsible ideas and kick some sense into his head.

Another example of broken systems is the St. Louis Metro Bus system. When the Obama Adminstration gave money to mass transit authorities, Metro had recieved money. Just not the Metro we though was getting the money. Through some weaselly business practice where a slight name change can break a company into separate entities, Metro’s adminstration (which had been slashing routes due to the fact that their route planning skills are medicore and non-aggressive) got money, but Metro’s transit system recieved NOTHING. This is a perfect example of what is wrong.

We entrusted the transit system to take people to work, to take people to companies and events, in an affordable and efficent system. Instead, everything that could go wong has gone wrong.

I took the bus to an event the other day and because the busses were so spread out, the bus I was on was ahead of schedule. So I sat on a bus for five minutes as it when nowhere. The bus had also been driving far below the speed limit, much slower than it would have even if passengers were getting on or off the bus.

Yet the adminstration which had overspent money on a Metrolink route that should have followed Interstate 64, a major highway that is under construction, went south through the congressional district of one of the local politicians. Meanwhile there are still no routes to West St. Louis County or to St. Charles County where a budding technology district is forming. So now that the transit part of Metro has no money to take people to work, local businesses lose workers and revenue, and eventually close down.

The automobile industry gets what it deserves right now. As much as wishful thinking will not make S.U.V.s, crossovers, or trucks popular in an economy when the oil barrons can’t live with just one home, the automotive needs to wake up and face reality. They had well over two decades to fend off the impending bankruptcy that awaites them.

Through out the 20th Century, General Motors has been responsible for the purchase and closure of many mass transit systems. They have also purchased many technologies for vehicles that run on alternative energy, as have the coal, nuclear, and oil based energy corporations, only to lock them up or to destroy those ideas before they have the chance to catch on.

When the city of Hazelwood, Missouri along with various representatives from the Missouri and federal goverment went to Detroit to keep the Hazelwood Ford Plant operational, Ford took whatever money that was offered to them but closed down the factory anyway citing that it would be too much work to train employees to equip vehicles that run on alternative energy.

Oh yes, the complicated workings of a dynamo. Certainly not as complex as a internal combustion engine. Can’t…solder…two…small…wires…to…a…power…converter. Must…retrain…the…entire…assembly…line.

The lazy execuses to put off saving the company with cars that are efficent and affordable then got the UAW to go along with the belief that installing an electrical generator, which would really be built in another factory much like engines or any other car parts, would not only be very complex but also un-American. Which is why the Japanese are so successful selling hybrid vehicles.

Sure, the UAW got with the program and started making hybrids at various American factories, but the hybrids they were making were going to be shipped to markets outside the United States where they would be very unpopular. Again, the who illogical “cheaper to buy it imported” philosophy damed the automobile industry to bust-up the auto unions who can’t be a union if there is no car company to save. It’s like buring the house down to evict the old occupents to build a new one on top of it in hopes that the new occupants will put up with a leaking roof and no heat.

Then there is Ameren Electric, nee Union Electric, Illinois Power, and a couple of co-ops. When big storms came into the St. Louis Area in 2006, the requests to trim trees prior to the events which prompted Ameren to launch their Power On campaign fell on deaf ears. When they finally got around to trimming the trees, many trees were cut in such a way that they could now cause property damage if they fell over because all the limbs on one side of a tree would be cut off.

But that doesn’t matter. The linesmen at Ameren are heros! There is just one teeny-tiny thing they want in return for saving the day from the catastrophie they created from their prior irresponsibly. They want to build a second nuclear reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant near Fulton, Missouri.

If you are saying “no” to this, good.

Let us not forget that it was irresponsiblity that caused an overflow of water that caused the Taum Sauk disaster that destroyed Johnson Shut-Ins State Park in December 2005. Having former KSDK anchor Karen Foss as spokenwoman for Ameren to paint the portrait of a “benevolent corporation” does not cover up the fact that Ameren still wants to spend $6 BILLION on a nuclear power plant that is worth more than the entire company.

Then there is the promotional disinformation of former Greenpeace member Patrick Moore who has been advertising that nuclear energy is an alternative to fossil fuels, when it really is not. Even the people at Greenpeace have asked the media to disavow anything he says on behalf of Greenpeace that supports nuclear energy since Greenpeace does not, has not, and never will support the usage of nuclear energy. So when Ameren says “Relax! Greenpeace supports it”, that is totally false! Nuclear Power is NOT Green Energy!

Being that Callaway County is in rural Missouri, where KWWR broadcasts the farm report like traffic on KMOX, I am disappointed that such a farming area hasn’t taken the opporitunity to get into alternative energy. Sure, farming doesn’t pay much, and alternative energy systems are expensive thanks to Big Oil companies snatching up them up. But I can’t believe that very few farmers are catching on to using Wind Energy products produced by John Deere. Yet it will be a challenge to fight against the nuclear supporters in Jefferson City since the state capital is powered by the Callaway plant. On the other hand, north of Jefferson City along U.S. 54, there is a small community using wind turbines. Possibly related to Missouri Renewable Energy.

St. Louis will not be using ANY power that is produced by the second Callaway reactor as it is also not using any power by the first reactor. But if a major nuclear disaster were to occur at the plant, the St. Louis Area would be affected by it.

If Ameren is permitted to build this project with funds they don’t have, that will ulitmately be part of our electric bills, what does that say about being honest and hardworking? That is means nothing? That the injuries that you’ve sustained from laboring those many hours, days, months, or even years, means nothing because your sustainiable retirement can be bought by an unsustainable buy out worth far less? You’ve done the right thing. You pay your bills. You pay your taxes. You obey the law. And yet when someone who makes more money than you or some company that makes more money than you will every seen in your life time comes along and breaks the law, is it right to procrastinate or give a slap on the wrist to someone who has everything they want and now they want your piece of pie?

We have been abiding to every rule stating what we should do to preserve ourselves, yet somehow, the rules have been rewritten so that we are weakened and that outsiders can assert there strength by breaking the rules.

I read in the news lately that an American ship that was taken over by Somali pirates. When the crew overpowered the invaders looking to hijack the ship, they were condemed more for breaking the rules when pirates commandere a ship, rather than for their bravery of overpowering the pirates who left with nothing but the ships captain as a hostage who still attempted to escape from his captors.

We are living in a world where there are business pirates. People who make up rules that say “when someone breaks into your house to take your property and to harm you and your family, crawl into a fetal position and let the criminals take what they want” rather than “when someone breaks into your house to take your property and to harm you and your family, defend yourself and attack the invaders”.

The pirates are already here. To take control of businesses they can not afford to run. To sell off the profitable assest they do not feel are of any value. To export products and outsource or layoff employment, and to import goods and services from outside companies because the rules say that it is less expensive and “supports a global economy that promotes free trade”. To purchase your competitors to shut them down within the time span of a few years, because “it’s just how business work” in their opinion.

But we are not allowed to learn their techniques. For legal reasons, many companies, and educational institutions, do not want people to learn how to blatenly break the rules for fear that teaching these techiques would cause mischief and crime. When you are trying to apprehend cat burglars, wouldn’t it be wise know how they go about picking locks and deciding whose stuff they should steal? When you are trying to stop the spread of computer viruses, wouldn’t it be wise to know how to write them so you can create an antivirus? When you are trying stop people who con people out of their life savings (like what has been going on recently), wouldn’t it be good to know what conartist look for in a person to make them a target for financial schemes?

We live in an age where criminals plan their crimes like a family plans a vacation. Some criminals do not need to break the law in order to steal things. They just take out many loans that will take forever for them to pay back, buy whatever it is that they want, sell off the stuff about the thing they don’t believe is in their best interest, take whatever resources they think is valuable, then dispose of the rest of it, leaving just a skeleton behind.

We shouldn’t allow criminals, pirates, parasites, or even robber barons to take away our strength by abiding by the laws they create and break so they permit them to steal from us while we are punished for preserving and defending what is ours. In order for us to do the right thing, we must hold those with greater influence to be accountable for their actions and expect them to do the right thing too.

Laws are written to be upheld by everyone, especially by those who have exceptional qualities.

Tags: Ameren, Callaway County, Taum Sauk