JolieSimons.com

First, the story was hostile. Belgian brewer InBev set its sites on the St. Louis-based brewing giant Anheuser-Busch and was not going to let go until AB was in its growing portfolio of beer brands. InBev already owns Anheuser-Busch Canada. It wanted AB so bad that they threatened a hostile takeover. First, they were going to pull an FDR and pack the board with InBev-friendly board members. Then they were going to take the case directly to shareholders in hopes that they could gain control of AB for a cut-rate price, but that wasn’t necessary and AB was sold to InBev for $52 billion dollars, making St. Louisans sad. Even Obama is sad about the sale.

Of course, InBev realizes that this is the best time to buy possible. The dollar is weak against the Euro, and AB is a $50 billion dolllar-plus bargain.

InBev claims that things in St. Louis won’t change much. Anheuser-Busch headquarters will still be housed in St. Louis, they say, and they will continue substantial charitable donations. Of course, millions of dollars float around St. Louis not-for-profits today, and there is no certainty that these charities will receive any money once the takeover is complete. My friend who works at a local art museum can’t count on having job next year if InBev does indeed pull their funding of local arts and charitable organizations.

AB has already had plans in place to cut costs. They’ve recently renegotiated benefits for employees to cut costs. They are no longer filling open positions and more people could be losing their jobs in the future.

So is this another nail in the coffin of the St. Louis economy? The automotive business has moved out, slowly but surely, as the local Chrysler plants have announced that they will be cutting thousands of good blue collar jobs. Now the monument of St. Louis corporations, Anheuser-Busch is no longer a St. Louis company and there’s no guarantees that AB will stay in this city, state, or even country.

I’m reminded of the eighties documentary Roger & Me, directed by Michael Moore. While St. Louis is no Flint, Michigan, we are certainly facing an uncertain economic future. On the plus side, with the weakening dollar, we become more attractive to foreign business. We have a large, qualified work force, ready and willing to take on the challanges of running a successful corporation or assembling complicated, high-tech products.

So is the InBev takeover really a nail in the coffin of the St. Louis economy? Well, that remains to be seen.

This intrepid (if I do say so myself) reporter was sitting at her desk, minding her own business, getting some work writing done when another quake rocked the Midwest. No reports yet on if this quake was an aftershock of the previous quake or an entirely new quake.

As you may know, an earthquake powered through the Midwest at about 4:30 this morning, central time. I was in bed and was awoken by the slight shaking which felt a lot like a large truck passing by. Of course, no such truck rolled by and eventually the panes in our windows stopped rattling. The main quake was centered near Bellmont, Illinois, near the border of Indiana. A New York Times report claims that the quake could be felt as far away as Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

There is no word yet on the quake that just occurred at roughly 10:15 this morning. We don’t yet know the magnitude or reason for the shaking.

Our quake measured 5.2 on the Richter scale. As you may remember from school, the Richter scale is a scale that measures the amount of energy released in an earthquake. Even a tenth of a point on the scale is a significant difference in the amount of energy released. A quake of this magnitude is enough to cause damage to poorly designed buildings or rattle pictures off of walls. Those of us who live in well-constructed buildings have little to worry about.

St. Louis, where I live, sits in a silt-covered valley where two major rivers converge, the Mississippi and Missouri. This silty material provides a great way to transmit the waves created by an earthquake. Other areas of the midwest that sit close to bedrock probably won’t feel the quake as well, if at all.

For more information on the Richter magnitude scale, see the Wikipedia article.

Last night at a council meeting in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, a lone gunman started firing at a city council meeting, killing five before turning the gun on himself. He killed two police officers and three city officials.

The city’s mayor, Mike Swoboda, is in critical condition at St. John’s mercy hospital.

Charles Lee Thornton, the alleged gunman, is said to have a long history of animosity toward the Kirkwood city council. He was repeatedly thrown out of city council meetings because of his antics.

Thornton had, in January of this year, lost a lawsuit against the city of Kirkwood, alleging a first amendment violation for preventing him from speaking during two city council meetings which resulted in him being dragged out in handcuffs.

Mr. Thornton, nicknamed “Cookie,” was a 1974 graduate of Kirkwood high school.