Corporate Interests outweighing Citizen’s Rights

There are so many things going on. Collusion between business and government is so pervasive that it is overwhelming deciding what to talk about first. Pharmaceutical companies pimp their designer drugs, creating demand for products that not only are not necessary but are harmful to individuals, under the auspices of First Amendment rights to Free Speech. Since when did a company become a citizen, I was taught they are legal entities created to structure ownership and management but not that they were citizens.

Jim Belshaw, at Personal Reflections, talks about sensationalist and misleading talking points used by politicians and corporations with the intent to deceive the public. Anthony Lemons, at Wake-up America, is distraught over the amnesty movement by newly elected Democratic majority even though most Americans want existing laws to be enforced and legislation regarding secure borders funded. Lexcen, at Gripes of Wrath, looks at the misleading information financed by IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund intended to create fear among its readers in order to support unlimited access by cheap slave labor into the US economy. Paraphrasing, the study says that if the US enforces laws against illegal immigrants the US economy will fail and crumble. Sounds to me like the corporate pimps at Investors Business Daily have taken a page from the fear monger’s book on international relations written by China’s communist party.

With all of these heavy topics floating around I have decided to talk about wine. Seems like something frivolous, right? Wine surely is not as important as North Korea’s extortion, China’s threats to tank the US economy or the flood of illegal immigrants ravaging the US economy turning Joe Citizen into this generation’s slave labor.

While reading one of my favorite wine blogs, Fermentation, an article caught my eye. Tom Wark wrote, “Wine Wholesalers Keep To Losing Strategy with New CEO.” Tom, as many of us, is fighting the battle of quality. He goes on to write:

The Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association (WSWA), the arch enemies of wine consumers, small wineries and emerging wine regions across the country, has appointed a new CEO and President to replace Juanita Duggan. Craig Wolf, the interim CEO and former General Counsel, will take over this position.

Wolf has been instrumental in shaping WSWA policy that opposed direct shipping of wine to consumers at every turn and has helped shape WSWA strategy of squashing emerging wine industries in states across the country by convincing legislators to mandate that wineries use wholesalers to get their wine to restaurants and retailers, rather than simply sell it to restaurants themselves.

In other words the organization of Wine & Spirit Wholesalers is trying to maintain monopolistic centralized distribution of Wine and Spirits at the expense of the consumer. The Wholesalers have hired a big time lobbyist to make sure that government does not do what is in the best interest of the American people instead it caters to a very small special interest group. This is also an easy sell for the Government. They will say that they can limit the evils of alcohol through distributors but the real reason is the a few, very large companies, are easier to control and by giving them monopoly status the companies will make sure that the government gets all those sweet excise taxes.

Collusion between corporate America and government is always bad but in this case evidences that Free Trade and Free Market policies have nothing to do with holding down prices for the US consumer. Regulating the protection of monopolistic structures with no public benefit is the greatest of Hypocrisy from a political class that continues to favor business by encouraging illegal immigration and spending US taxpayer dollars to secure corporate America’s business interests offshore.

So Mr. Politician what is it? Is it necessary to completely crush Joe Citizen? How can you, Mr. Politician, representative of Joe Citizen, justify subsidizing offshore

Tags: Politics Corporate America Corrupt Politicians War on the Middle Class Wine Wholesalers Governmental Regulation Wine Industry