Paul,

We can talk Clayton and E city all day. that’s all STL has, it’s the burbs. Lets talk city and with all the compnies who have left and replaced the jobs with entry level phone answering jobs. Heck E City and Mastercard, yeah 2K jobs, all that pay $10 an hour answering you guessed it phones. We will talk city and the one thing Detroit has is a county with 4 milion people and not a setup like STL. Trust me, STL is indeed the next Detroit, and this takeover will illustrate that over time. But when talking city Paul, you town is flatlining friend.

I have been to Detroit, and grew up in STL and left after college causs the boredom would have killed me there. Place sucks and most will agree with that. Burbs are nice but their nice everywhere, even Detroit, but city to city, STL is a sheety as it gets.

Dear TheMINGE, I am crying with you in my beer, my friend. But your sad news is even sadder these days: American Airlines, which as you reported cut flights “from 500+ to 200,” is now cutting way further than that. The June 25, 2008 STLtoday.com article “American cuts 43 flights at Lambert” reports that American’s flights have now fallen to only 145 per day, and as of this November American will cut it further, to only 116 daily flights. It was a little stretch when I called STL an American “hub” when they had 200 flights, but with 116, that’s barely more than a focus city. I guess I should stop calling STL a hub. I imagine Southwest almost has more flights than American here!

To TKP: I hear you, too! I agree how sad that a company from puny little Belgium bought an American icon. But unfortunately, your comments are right: there are no direct flights from STL to Belgiumm, and thanks to American Airlines we have no flights to any city in Europe, not even seasonal summer service to London. On a related note, I believe that St. Louis is the largest US city without nonstop service to London. What really annoys me about this is that the smallest metro area with nonstop flights to London: Raleigh-Durham, NC, with a population of only 1 million (versus 2.8 million for St. Louis), which has daily non-stop flights by none other than American Airlines! What the heck gives?!? Does American Airlines hate St. Louis? I guess the InBEV executives will have to fly from Belgium, transfer planes in London, fly to Chicago, change planes again, then head to St. Louis. I’d say they might be able to fly nonstop from Belgium to JFK, then change plans and fly to St. Louis, but oh, American just announced they’re cutting flights from JFK to STL, too. Jeez!

Back to this forum subject: I don’t for one second doubt that Anheuser-Busch loves St. Louis, and I hope that they wield enough influence to see that Anheuser-Busch Inbev treats us well, too.

Vince–Do you honestly believe AB’s consumers will be that different five years down the road? I don’t.

I’m sure the shareholders are happy. I feel sorry for the employees of AB, though. Brace for the inevitable stream of cost cutting maneuvers. “Finding efficiencies” is what they will call it. I wonder what they will try to out source first?

Nice post Biffy. I hope the city bounces back but I have been waiting 40 years for that to happen.

Dude, if STL is so bad, how come you are spending so much time on P-D website? Aren’t you dying of boredom?

Missouri, sorry to say, but this is what you get. You all helped elect Bush, two times. His horrible economic policies have greatly contributed to the decline of the U.S. Dollar. This is the reason A-B was bought by foreigners. The same thing is happening to several other large companies in the U.S.
Bush borrowed trillions of dollars to pay for his useless war in Iraq. He has borrowed more money than all other U.S. Presidents combined. If you borrowed a ton of money and offered no plan to pay it back, your credit rating would decline, just like the U.S. Dollar has. It’s really that simple. So basically, this European company was able to bu A-B for 60% of what it would of cost them BEFORE Bush took office and the Dollar tanked.
Thanks Missouri. By electing Bush, you brought this on yourself.

A broken neck. Bankruptcy. And now A-B is sold to Belgium. Honestly, how much worse can it get for poor old Ed McMahon! Hi-o!

Inbev to keep A-B in St. louis? Let’s all think back to a small airline named TWA that was gobbled up by AA. Oh yeah, AA promised to keep TWA a hub in St. Louis, well; whomever has flown in the past 5 years know what I am talking about. So long A-B!!

Most of us ( including me ) are unhappy about seeing our “Crown Jewel” of Saint Louis being surrendered to an outsider. Some of us may want to blame the current or past management for our perceived loss, but we all have a hand in this as well.
We have to look in the mirror of how we have managed our country and it’s resources. We have for many years lived the good life of cheap energy, and cheap goods, becoming so in debt to outsiders, that we are now waking up to the thunder inside our own head following an evening over-indulgence in our favorite local beverage.
I think the reason the A-B Management “may have been too conservative” is that the value of our dollar has become so weak, that buying too much – too quickly may have made the stock more vulnerable to a $35/share deal. Still not good. The value of the company may have been too expensive for Inbev had we all not “urinated away” the value of our own dollar by our own spending habbits.
When we as a country of people begin to live, and force our Government to live within and protect the boundary of what we can pay back in a reasonable amount of time, then our businesses will thrive, and our country will heal its financial wounds. None of us can afford to borrow $700 Billion per year in oil alone, not to mention all the other products we borrow from our kids inheritance to pay for disposable goods and services.
If you want to boycott something that makes a difference, boycott foreign -oil, TV’s, clothes, shoes, cars, Labor, etc., and start demanding the elected people do something that will resolve the many insolvent activities we all participate in by our own action or inaction.
Billy Poobah - St. Peters