A
DOJ aims to block JBS-Swift's purchase of National Beef
By Tom Johnston on 10/20/2008
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago to block JBS-Swift & Co.'s proposed acquisition of National Beef Packing Co., contending the deal would cause financial hardship on consumers and producers and harm industry competition.
The Attorneys General of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming are joining in the lawsuit.
The DOJ concluded that combining JBS-Swift and National Beef, the third- and fourth-largest U.S. beef packers, respectively, would result in lower prices paid to cattle suppliers and higher beef prices for consumers. In court documents, the department deal also would eliminate a "competitively significant" packer and place more than 80 percent of domestic cattle slaughter capacity in the hands of three companies: JBS, Tyson Foods Inc. and Cargill Inc., the department said.
"The combination of JBS and National will likely lead to grocers, foodservice companies and ultimately American consumers paying higher prices for beef," Thomas O. Barnett, assistant attorney general in charge of the the DOJ's Antitrust Division," said in a statement. "It will also lessen the competition among packers in the purchase of cattle that has been critical to ensuring competitive prices to the nation's thousands of producers, ranchers and feedlots."
JBS announced in early March it had reached agreements to purchase Kansas City, Mo.-based National Beef ($465 million), Smithfield Beef Group ($565 million) and Australia's Tasman Group ($150 million).
A DOJ spokesman said the department is not challenging JBS's proposed purchase of Smithfield Beef Group, the nation's fifth-largest beef packer, or the Five Rivers cattle feeding operation.
MoGal said:graybull......... I call BS on your post. I totally disagree with you and if Americans don't wake up and put an end to monopolies and corporations being "too big to fail", we'll all be in soup lines.
There's the greatest transfer of wealth going on right now to concentrate businesses into an even larger business... when the top 10 percent own 90 percent of all the wealth such as is going on now... the bottom 90 percent of people will be paupers.
When the banks get done eating each other, and get loads of money from congressional bailouts they will be eating up all the agriculture land and products.
Oldtimer said:Greybull- in your description making the Batista's sound like saints-- you forgot to include the Millions of $ of BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT money that is invested in their operation...
You criticize having US government control- how about Brazilian Government control :???:
graybull said:Good to hear that many are so happy over the DOJ's lawsuit..........seems so many well intentioned ranchers.........love a good lawsuit. Mark my words..........it looks like all ranchers (and US citizens) will get all the government protection they would like.......in the near future......not only protecting us from packers.......but protecting us in all aspects of our lives. Enjoy your "protected" status.......as we all are being "taken care of".
As far as the JBS deal goes........what most don't seem to understand......is that the Batista Boys are serious.....they WILL.....rule the business.....not through government mandates.....but through their sheer effort. These guys are more an example of good old American Capitalism than almost any other big business I know of.
NO government handouts.......NO buying lobbiests and paying off Presidents for these guys.....only hard work........and smart work.
If you liked my government protection prediction.....you will REALLY like my next prediction...
JBS is and will be one of the best partners a rancher ever had.
Robert and the one percenter's will sell their own products.......the rest will relie on JBS to sell them......the really confused ones will side with DOJ and fight the Batistas.........only to help the chicken pluckers sell more chicken.
Still can't understand why many side with the proven shady guys at Tyson while shunning the good guys at JBS. Every effort to slow down JBS is a direct contribution to the chicken pluckers.
Just so you know.......I will be buying all the JBS stock.....my meager resources will allow........these guys no how to do business.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
If They're Too Big To Fail, They're Too Big Period
According to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the biggest Wall Street banks now getting money from the government are just "too big to fail." Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke uses a different euphemism – he calls them "systemically critical." The point is that if any of them goes down, it could take the whole financial system with it. So we taxpayers have to keep them up.
We're hearing the same argument elsewhere in Washington for saving General Motors. It's just "too big to fail." So Congress is considering a bailout that would keep GM afloat and sweeten a merger between GM and Chrysler.
Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe – just maybe – it's too big, period.
We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws? Somewhere along the line policymakers decided that antitrust would only be used where there was evidence a company had so much market power it could keep prices higher than otherwise.
We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful. Too powerful in that so many other companies depended on them, so many jobs turned on them, and so many consumers or investors or depositors needed them – that the economy as a whole would be endangered if they failed. Too powerful in that they could wield inordinate political influence – of a sort that might gain them extra favors from Washington.
Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They've prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill-Lynch and Countrywide. JP Morgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they're urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.
So we're ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers, and guaranteed never to fail because they're just ... too big.
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/10/if-theyre-too-big-to-fail-theyre-too.html
from The Buffalo News said:News Library - Search Results
CORPORATE MERGERS SET RECORD FOR QUARTER
Article 1 of 1 found.
Published on April 1, 1997
103{WORDCNT:-0} words
The U.S. corporate merger boom roared ahead in the first three months of 1997, racking up a record $183 billion worth of transactions.
The first-quarter total eclipsed the previous first-quarter record of $120.6 billion set in 1995, according to Newark, N.J.-based Securities Data Co., which tracks merger activity The quarter's largest transaction was the announced $10.6 billion merger between Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Dean Witter, Discover & Co.
RobertMac said:from The Buffalo News said:News Library - Search Results
CORPORATE MERGERS SET RECORD FOR QUARTER
Article 1 of 1 found.
Published on April 1, 1997
103{WORDCNT:-0} words
The U.S. corporate merger boom roared ahead in the first three months of 1997, racking up a record $183 billion worth of transactions.
The first-quarter total eclipsed the previous first-quarter record of $120.6 billion set in 1995, according to Newark, N.J.-based Securities Data Co., which tracks merger activity The quarter's largest transaction was the announced $10.6 billion merger between Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Dean Witter, Discover & Co.
This is a short blurb from an article I found on a quick search, but you can get the idea...
Reich was right in the middle of merger mania...in fact, he was King of Mergers at the time. Now in 2008, he is placing the blame on the Bush administration. This illustrates the blatant lie of this entire campaign by the Democrats...they are a big part of today's economic problem, if not the cause. Yet with help from the biased mainstream media, they have put all the blame on Republicans and brainwashed supposedly intelligent people into blindly believing this economy melt down was the results of the last 8 years.
How can you people be so stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does this open your eyes at all Oldtimer???????????????
You side step and ignore the point because I know you are smart enough to see it. There is a reason the law requires you to hear BOTH SIDES of a dispute in your court, but you only present one side in your politics!!!Oldtimer said:RobertMac said:from The Buffalo News said:News Library - Search Results
CORPORATE MERGERS SET RECORD FOR QUARTER
Article 1 of 1 found.
Published on April 1, 1997
103{WORDCNT:-0} words
The U.S. corporate merger boom roared ahead in the first three months of 1997, racking up a record $183 billion worth of transactions.
The first-quarter total eclipsed the previous first-quarter record of $120.6 billion set in 1995, according to Newark, N.J.-based Securities Data Co., which tracks merger activity The quarter's largest transaction was the announced $10.6 billion merger between Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Dean Witter, Discover & Co.
This is a short blurb from an article I found on a quick search, but you can get the idea...
Reich was right in the middle of merger mania...in fact, he was King of Mergers at the time. Now in 2008, he is placing the blame on the Bush administration. This illustrates the blatant lie of this entire campaign by the Democrats...they are a big part of today's economic problem, if not the cause. Yet with help from the biased mainstream media, they have put all the blame on Republicans and brainwashed supposedly intelligent people into blindly believing this economy melt down was the results of the last 8 years.
How can you people be so stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does this open your eyes at all Oldtimer???????????????
There is no doubt Bill Clinton supported the neocon philosophy...Alan Greenspan has even said that- along with saying he was actually more "fiscally conservative" than the late/current Republicans have been- which is also quite evident....And this neocon philosophy has been shown lately to be a totally disastrous failure....Its good to see folks realizing that....
But what your article does not say is how much MORE corporate mergers took off unchallenged even AFTER 2000.....
We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful. Too powerful in that so many other companies depended on them, so many jobs turned on them, and so many consumers or investors or depositors needed them – that the economy as a whole would be endangered if they failed. Too powerful in that they could wield inordinate political influence – of a sort that might gain them extra favors from Washington.
RobertMac said:What makes a true capitalistic system not need much regulation is that if you don't like the product or service from a provider, there are more providers to provide competition. Our system has moved toward more corporate capitalism which hurts small business capitalism and limits competition. Unfettered capitalism in this age of mergers will lead to monopolies. Mergers eliminate competition which lead to a break down in capitalism.
Government has already mergered with big business by allowing all the mergers that eliminate competition...when two companies merger, one competitor is eliminated every time!!!!Cinch said:RobertMac said:What makes a true capitalistic system not need much regulation is that if you don't like the product or service from a provider, there are more providers to provide competition. Our system has moved toward more corporate capitalism which hurts small business capitalism and limits competition. Unfettered capitalism in this age of mergers will lead to monopolies. Mergers eliminate competition which lead to a break down in capitalism.
The real enemy is the merger of business and government. That is coming from both the left and the right.
The government MUST be the referee in the market. It must not decide who wins, but it MUST require competition. The founders set up the federal government with divisions of power with the deliberate purpose of having them compete. They wanted power limited. Antitrust laws do the same thing with businesses. If businesses get too big, they run the government(by strong arm lobbying and other means).
All this is required by the ambitious nature of human beings. Madison said so (Federalist 51). To think that the "market" will regulate (referee) itself is to ignore the realities of human nature. To think that government should do more than referee is also to ignore human nature (of government officials).
People are not automatically evil if they work for the government, and good if they work for corporations. (the typical conservative view)
People are not automatically evil if they work for corporations, and good if they work for the government. (the typical liberal view)
R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America
"Fighting for the U.S. Cattle Producer"
and the
Organization for Competitive Markets
Honesty. Prosperity. Economic Liberty.
For Immediate Release Contact: Shae Dodson, Communications Coordinator
February 20, 2009 Phone: 406-672-8969; e-mail: [email protected]
Groups Welcome JBS' Withdrawal from Proposed Merger
Billings, Mont. / Lincoln, Neb. – R-CALF USA and the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) are pleased with today's announcement reported by Reuters, Sao Paulo, that Brazilian-owned meatpacker JBS has abandoned its bid to take over National Beef Packing Co. (National Beef), the fourth largest U.S. meatpacker. According to th e Reuters article, JBS abandoned the takeover due to a "lack of satisfactory conditions."
R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard said this takeover bid was defeated by a combination of aggressive opposition from R-CALF USA and OCM, which led first to a hearing by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights last May and then to an unprecedented enforcement action by the U.S. Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general against the merger.
"R-CALF USA and OCM members should be proud that they have achieved their goal of blocking this monumental, anticompetitive merger," Bullard said.
OCM Executive Director Fred Stokes said this news is extremely welcome and represents a very positive start on what will be a long, hard fight to restore competition to the U.S. cattle market that has already been lost due to previous mergers which resulted in the U.S. cattle market being one of the most concentrated markets in the U.S. economy.
"Now that we've stopped this ongoing merger, we must focus our collective efforts on reversing the anticompetitive mergers of the past, including JBS' 2008 acquisition of the nation's largest feedlot company when it acquired Smithfield Beef Group," said Stokes.
Since March 2008, R-CALF USA and OCM aggressively opposed the JBS/National Beef merger on the grounds that it would exacerbate the distortions already evidenced in the U.S. cattle market and would strengthen JBS' ability to use packer-owned cattle and other forms of captive supplies to manipulate prices paid to hundreds of thousands of independent cattle producers.
"Given the unbridled concentration and consolidation that has occurred in our markets over the past two decades, this is a David versus Goliath type of victory," said Bullard. "JBS and National Beef are among the most powerful and influential food manufacturing corporations in the world and their attempt to lock up our cattle market has now been defeated by U.S. family farmers and ranchers."
"U.S. cattle producers should express their appreciation to the Department of Justice and the 17 state attorneys general that stepped up to help our industry preserve the competitiveness of our markets," concluded Stokes.