When I was in high school, I used to work summers at a camp… It was more of a glorified day care, but I was a teenager, and it was easy work, and by the end of summer I’d saved up $1,500.

Enough, as it turned out, to pay for a ten-day trip to Italy.

I spent three days in glorious Rome, two jam-packed days in sunny Florence, and a day at the infamous site of Pompeii… But my favorite city on the whole trip was Venice. I was taken with the pride of the gondoliers, the beauty of the winding streets, and the sudden, unexpected artesian shop.

One day I found myself standing outside a hot furnace in a glass-blower’s workshop, watching him pinch-form a beautiful green-crested horse figurine. I was enthralled, the maliablity of the hot glass, the sure hands of the artist. I thought that I’d be more than happy to stay there for the rest of my life.

Again, I was a teenager, and it was Italy… the canal-ridden beauty of Venice began to haunt me then.

I haven’t had a chance to go back yet, but judging by an International Herald Tribune article, I might find things a little changed. That glass-blower’s workshop might not be there anymore.

Turns out, some of the older traditions are being force out of the city to make way for touristy cafes and hotels.

I ask you, who would rather spend the afternoon in a Starbuck’s (SBUX:Nasdaq) than in a beautiful workshop? The plaza-side cafes have a long-established legacy, and I don’t have a beef with them. But I can’t even think of Venice without thinking of glass.

It would be a travesty if the next generation of high schoolers can’t lose themselves in the white glow of a small furnace and the hot breath of the glassblower…

In today’s posting, Sarah Nunnally, Editor of Taipan Trader, takes on your faithful editor Irwin Greenstein for his rant in the July 2nd issue about InBev’s move on Anheuser Bush. Feel free to ad your comments about the acquisition of a great American brand by a Belgian company.

Done is done, Irwin… No use crying over spilled beer.

Anheuser-Busch (BUD:NYSE) has agreed to the takeover terms by InBev SA (INBVF:PINK)

The deal is worth $52 billion. That’s a steal, if you ask me. Thanks to the dollar’s fresh demise (new lows against the euro), InBev is spending only 32.5 billion euros. A year ago that price tag would have been 37.7 billion euros, and that’s the main reason why InBev can afford to buy BUD now.

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When Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) announced on July 1 it was closing 600 U.S stores, Big Media played it up with an apocalyptic gusto. The Starbucks meltdown was portrayed as divine retribution for our yuppie excess — the Angel of Doom descending on every street corner in America where BMW owners doubled parked for their $5 White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccinos.

Take a look at the chart, and you’ll see that SBUX looks like a massive cardiac arrest…

But there’s a much bigger part of the story that, in fact, Starbucks played down. Like a good corporate lap dog, Big Media ignored this important piece of news — depriving investors of a key piece of market intelligence that could make Starbucks a good long-term play.

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Budweiser and Busch are as American as camo seat covers in a F-150.

Yet a hostile offer by InBev SA (Brussels:INB.BR) on Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) is about to show us that the star-spangled King of Beers is up for play because it ignored emerging markets.

When you look at the dynamics behind the InBev bid, it’s important to see America as a diminished player. The headlines tell you that the economy is dismal. What Big Media rarely tells you is that smaller, developing economies are kicking our butt. American companies that count strictly on the U.S. for revenues are destined for the rustbelt of the future — or a foreign buyout.

Analysts have been badgering A-B for years that it relies too heavily on the U.S. — one of the slowest growing beer markets in the world. A-B has buried its head in the sand as InBev and other competitors have pushed into high-growth emerging markets.

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