Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Most people have heard by now that one of America’s most iconic companies, Anheuser-Busch, has agreed to sell to a Belgian owned company, InBev. Employees of the St. Louis based company are none too happy about this symbol of Americana being sold to foreign investors. No word yet on how many jobs may be lost.
From the Washington Independent:
Sen. John McCain’s wife, Cindy, is the chairwoman of Hensley & Co., the nation’s third-largest Anheuser-Busch distributor, and the exclusive dealer in the Phoenix-area. Cindy and her family own two-thirds of Hensley, which, in turn, owns at least $1 million in Anheuser-Busch stock. After doing the math, Hensley would reap a $1 million to $2 million windfall from the InBev deal, and two-thirds of that would go to the McCain family. Not bad.
Common sense dictates that Cindy McCain will not cash out her Anheuser-Busch stock while her husband is on the campaign trail talking about capital gains, but the appearance of personal gain from McCain’s favored policies still remains. Later today, McCain is scheduled to visit St. Louis — home of Anheuser-Busch — where he plans to talk to local media and attend a fund-raiser. The InBev deal will surely be a topic of interest to reporters there.
Second, and perhaps more important, the enormous windfall is a stark reminder that the McCains are fantastically wealthy. This flies in the face of the image the McCains have been promoting on the stump — that they are an ordinary couple, in touch with the economic concerns of working-class families.
Mrs. McCain, who’s been known to zip around Phoenix in a car with “MS BUD” vanity plates, also owns $50,001 to $100,000 in A-B stock through her corporate retirement plan, and her dependent children own $15,001 to $50,000 of the stock, the disclosures show. They’ll of course enjoy much smaller gains from the InBev deal. Beer Money: The McCains and the InBev, Anheuser-Busch Deal – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog
Further evidence that the McCains are fantastically wealthy and have nothing in common with average Americans whom McCain economics adviser Phil Gramm and the right-wing punditocracy sneeringly dismiss as a bunch of "whiners" is Cindy McCain’s explanation to a CNN reporter why she got her pilot license:
"Oh gosh, my husband was running for the senate in Arizona and in Arizona the only way to get around the state is by small private plane."
Is that right. As Rachel Maddow sardonically noted on Countdown, "you can’t get around Arizona by car because of Senator McCain’s aversion to pork barrel spending in a country that only funds transportation by pork barrel spending, means that Arizona has no roads or bridges?" A topic for another time.
Stephen Colbert had a funny take on the sale last night on the Colbert Report. Have a Bud "before those waffle humpers change the formula."
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