How the Beer Lobby Fought Wall Street... and Won

[Zeke L Brimstone]

Even Goldman Sachs had to change its ways, once Joe Sixpack got himself some Washington handlers.

If you can make a complex disagreement over commodity pricing about beer, you probably should. That's what beer lobbyists proved this year with a successful campaign that translated a fight about obscure commodities markets into something everyone can understand: the price of a can of beer.

In the spring, the Beer Institute, a trade group that represents big brewers including Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, ramped up their lobbying in Washington, in an effort to draw attention to the vagaries of the global aluminum market, claiming that big Wall Street firms were taking advantage of obscure metals regulations to drive up the prices.

"Wall Street megabanks should not be able to levy hidden taxes on Main Street beer drinkers," as Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) put it in August.

In the months since, lawmakers have called for banks to divest their commodities holdings, regulators and law enforcement agencies have opened investigations, and the Federal Reserve floated the idea of making it more expensive for banks to own physical commodities. Now, the London exchange that runs the aluminum market is changing its policies to address concerns from beer makers and others. It's a case study in how a few American businesses with long-standing household names, and their D.C. lobbyists, can set in motion changes to a global market and cause some of the planet's biggest financial institutions to alter their operations.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/07/how_the_beer_lobby_fought_wall_street_and_won

God Bless America!!!!!

[Initech]

1. Mmmmmmmm... beer!!

[yurbud]

2. I can't figure out why this doesn't happen more often...

In a similar vein, a lot of the businesses Wall Street kills and cannibalizes probably provide products or services other businesses need, and the extortionist increases of health insurance hurts employers who provide insurance to their employees almost as much as individuals who can't afford to buy it.

You would think there would be a lot more cases of big businesses that provide real goods and services going after the financial sector that makes their jobs harder.

[Fearless]

3. People tend to act in their best interests.

If they can relate to something then they can support it.