Disappearing Act: Is America up for sale?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the New York Stock Exchange is in talks to be sold to a German company.  Here is what  E.S. BROWNING, JACOB BUNGE and AARON LUCCHETTI wrote yesterday.

"After 219 years as the citadel of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange was near an agreement to be acquired by Deutsche Börse AG in a deal that would create the world's largest financial exchange.  If a deal is reached and regulators approve, the combined company would trade more stocks and futures than any rival in the world and more options than any U.S. exchange. The takeover would culminate a decade of tie-ups by exchanges around the world eager to find new sources of growth and catch up with smaller rivals that have been quicker to embrace new and lucrative kinds of trading.


For New York, the move is symbolic of the city's fading dominance on the world stage as other countries are drawing investors directly to their markets. The move also is a recognition that securities trading today goes on at all hours and in all time zones, making the actual bricks and mortar of Wall Street far less important than before."


Well, don't be surprise, look at a few other companies that are NOT owned by America.

Anheuser-Busch
Beer drinkers were shocked when Belgian beer juggernaut InBev put the moves on Anheuser-Busch, which initially tried to fend off the bid. However, on July 14 it was announced InBev would buy its rival for $52 billion. The deal sees control over America's largest brewer move overseas.

CITGO
Started by an American oilman, it is now owned by the government of Venezuela. Henry Doherty started Cities Service Company in 1910 as more of a wholesaler of gas and electricity than an oil company. In 1965 the company started calling itself CITGO. In 1986 Petr'leos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company of Venezuela, bought half the stock. Then in 1990 it bought the other half.

French's Mustard
It was never French. It's no longer American. It's British! Created by American brothers with the last name French, it was invented for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. French's mustard was actually first introduced as a salad topping. During the anti-France fury at the start of the Iraq War, French's made a point of telling the world: "For the record, French's would like to say there is nothing more American than French's Mustard." Except that it's now owned by Reckitt Benckiser, a British conglomerate.

Frigidaire
An Indiana inventor made the first refrigerator that didn't need ice in 1915, but his company couldn't produce it efficiently. General Motors bought the company and rechristened it Frigidaire. White Consolidated Industries snapped up Frigidaire and other floundering appliance makers in the 1970s. Then Sweden's AB Electrolux bought it in 1986.

The Plaza Hotel
This National Historic Landmark near Central Park in New York City, where fictional Eloise lived, has passed through many hands over the years, including Hilton's and Trump's. After Donald Trump's divorce from wife Ivana, who was the Plaza's president, Donald sold the hotel for $325 million in 1995 to a partnership between Saudi Prince Al-Walid and Singapore-owned Millennium & Copthorne Hotels. Now it's owned by Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva's El-Ad Group.

Caribou Coffee & Church's Chicken
A Minneapolis couple thought up Caribou Coffee on their honeymoon trip out west. They opened their first shop in 1992. Six years later they sold out to the predecessor of Arcapita, which is backed by the Bahrain-based First Islamic Investment Bank. Arcapita, which conforms to Sharia Law, also owns Church's Chicken





7-Eleven
The Southland Ice Company started selling food at off hours to customers in 1927. By 1946 -- long before the concept of 24/7 -- the company changed the store name to 7-Eleven to advertise its long hours. The founder tried to buy out the company but got caught in the market crash of 1987. His largest franchisee, Japan's Ito-Yokado, got equity and now its parent, Seven and I, own 7-Eleven.

Holiday Inn
A Memphis family driving to D.C. was appalled by local motels, so the father, Kemmons Wilson, already an entrepreneur and builder, vowed to start his own chain. He opened the first Holiday Inn -- named after the Bing Crosby movie -- in 1952. The green neon signs sprang up around the country, luring weary travelers with the promise of consistent quality. He retired 27 years later and then the firm was bought by Brits from Bass (as in the beer), a company that later morphed into InterContinental Hotels Group.

T-Mobile
The one thing consistent in T-Mobile's decade-and-a-half history has been grating TV ads starring first Jamie Lee Curtis, then Catherine Zeta-Jones. What hasn't been consistent is its name or nationality. The company started as Western Wireless, which merged then spun off as VoiceStream Wireless. In 2001 it was bought and rebranded by Deutsche Telekom, the publicly traded remnant of the former state-owned German telephone company.

Firestone
Henry Firestone started the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, in 1900. The company expanded rapidly across the country and into all kinds of other businesses. In the 1970s the company had to pay the then-largest corporate fine ever after its radial tires were blamed in 34 deaths. The company cut back radically and sold itself to Japan's Bridgestone in 1988.

The Indiana Toll Road
Indiana calls itself the "Crossroads of America." The Indiana Toll Road -- otherwise known as part of the cross-continental Route 80 -- links the Midwest to the East Coast. The state of Indiana built the road in 1965, then leased it to a joint venture of Spain's Cintra and Australia's Macquarie for $3.8 billion in 2006 for 75 years. Truckers boycotted for a while and now drivers are complaining about long toll lines. In 2008 the cash toll was raised from $4.65 to $8 to ride the whole 157 miles.

Toll House Cookies

Nestl', a Swiss company, is the owner of the Toll House brand of chocolate morsels, baking supplies and cookie dough. But ... the cookies are an American invention. Ruth Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn outside Whitman, Mass., and baked colonial-inspired desserts. Her big hit was a butter cookie that she flavored with bits of a Nestl' chocolate bar. In the mid-1900s, she and Nestl' struck a bargain. They could use the Toll House name and in return she got a lifetime supply of chocolate. In 1939, Nestl' started selling chocolate "chips."

Let me know your thoughts... Is America for sale?

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