Please provide the key reasons for Americans to: 1. not fear for American national security when foreign businesses acquire American businesses (for example, say a foreign company tried to make an outright purchase of IBM or some other large business with strategic technological knowledge), 2. value or place importance on foreign acquisitions of American businesses (such as InBev's potential purchase of Anhauser-Busch, etc). I have a pretty good idea of the answers, but would like to ensure that I am thorough. I appreciate your answers.
teso:2. value or place importance on foreign acquisitions of American businesses (such as InBev's potential purchase of Anhauser-Busch, etc).
Be doing us a favor in that case since I detest that vile swill and even if they didn't consistently lobby to keep Mary Jane illegal wouldn't care if they were forced into making Stella Artois or at least something drinkable by the Euro swine.
Hostile takeover time anyway so we'll get to see how our national security suffers after a bit.
teso, why is security threaden? Unless you're talking about military research, for which companies already need to offer all kinds of reassurances, then companies already publish every big and little finding. This is called filling a patent: in exchange, the government doesn't let anyone else commercialize anything based on it (edit: for a few decades time). IBM technological knowledge is already pretty much in the open: investors, the press, and etc are always looking for the patents they fill to make sense of what they are coming next.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
The perceived threats that I have heard seem to be based on situations where the acquiring foreign business is controlled (or possibly controlled) by their government and therefore could act in national self-interest against the United States, giving them an advantage in a given situation. The best actual and hypothetical examples I've seen so far are the following:
1. Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) tried to acquire Unocal back in 2005 - Here is an interesting debate on Mises.org: http://blog.mises.org/archives/003838.asp
2. In addition to the CNOOC example, control over previously U.S.-owned global energy markets where restrictive decisions could be made by the foreign owner based on disagreement with U.S. policy.
3. The potential for acquisitions in U.S. telecommunications to become conduits for surveillance on behalf of foreign powers. Additionally, foreign control over domestic communications could put the U.S. at a significant disadvantage in a time of war.
4. Foreign control of U.S. nuclear energy sector businesses.
I understand that there are laws/screenings facilitated through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), but my question is, from a national security threat perspective, are laws around this necessary?