Obama Blocks Mega-Beer Merger to Keep Your Beer Cheap

The Department of Justice is suing Budweiser’s parent company to prevent it from buying the Modelo Group, which makes Corona, in order to control more of the Latino market, based primarily in Texas and California. (Modelo also owns the Modelo triumverate of beers.) If a sale were completed, the Belgian conglomerate InBev would control 46% of all beer sales in the United States, which the DOJ thinks is too much.

What’s more, InBev would control both Budweiser and Corona, which stay cheap in lare part because they compete against each other. Think of it this way: It’d be like if the Jets simply tried to buy the Sharks, and the president said ‘No, because if you did that, West Side Story will never get made.’ More or less. [LA Times]