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My friend Kathy explains why Lou Dobbs is her enemy:

I am continually fascinated by Google’s incessant legal battles over its alleged attempts to form a monopoly. The most recent attack on Google comes as a result of its merge with DoubleClick.

Read what US senators Herb Kohl and Orrin Hatch wrote in a letter to the FTC:

“…by virtue of its dominance of the Internet search market and its recent acquisitions, including last year’s acquisition of YouTube and its current planned acquisition of DoubleClick, Google is becoming the world’s most important Internet enterprise. After this acquisition, Google — already the dominant Internet search company — will also hold a leading position in video content, news, advertising and a myriad of other consumer services. Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate…”

What baloney! Last time I checked, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves all offered something comparable to every service that Google provides. Is that not a sign of perfectly healthy competition?

It appears to me that Google’s only crime is being too fast, too efficient, and offering its users a quality so high that no one else can currently match it.

When the Courier-Journal believes you’re too much in the lap of labor unions, your political career might be in some trouble.

Last week Louisville congressman John Yarmuth voted against the passage of a free trade bill with Peru, largely buying into the hype that it would take away American jobs. Never mind that Peru is ready and waiting for massive numbers of American exports, likely including Kentucky agricultural and industrial products. Never mind that Peru already gets the largest share of its imports, 16.5%, from the US.

Peru is a country with a $186.6 billion GDP. Per capita that’s $6,600 for each of their 28.6 million people. The US has a $13.6 trillion GDP, $43,800 for each man woman and child in the country.

Claiming economic harm at the expense of Peru is like complaining that you were bullied by Tiny Tim.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has been getting as much of a free ride for his opinions and proposals as I’d anticipated. He’s visiting Lexington, Ky. today where he will not be asked about anything significant.

Dan Griswold at the Cato Institute recently skewered the young Senator with some trade-related logic. It seems that as President Obama would be perfectly willing to ask every American to pay a tax or tariff on foreign-made T-shirts in order to preserve ridiculously few low-paying textile jobs. Essentially, it’s a tax on the poor for the sake of the poor.

I’m sure Sen. Obama’s proposed t-shirt tariff will play well in the home of Fruit of the Loom, but its practical effects will be the opposite of his intention.

It’s a sad day when wine-makers go rogue.

That’s exactly what is happening in France’s southern Languedoc region. The CRAV, or Comité régional d’action viticole has bombed grocery stores, a winery, and two agricultural ministry offices among other targets.

Before you start thinking this is a Boston Tea Party style action for freedom and liberty, think again. These wine producers are finding it difficult to compete with lower priced imported wines from Spain and Italy, and want the French government to place high tariffs on these imports to make their own high-priced wines less sour to consumers.

The British wine magazine Decanter reported in May that:

The activist wine group CRAV has issued a one-month ultimatum to Nicolas Sarkozy threatening ‘action’, and possibly deaths, if the new premier does not help the struggling southern French wine industry.

In what may well be the precursor to the most violent period of its recent history, the Regional Committee for Viticultural Action (CRAV) told Sarkozy he had one month to honour his electoral promises of supporting the wine industry or ‘the whole industry will be targeted’.

On a pre-recorded cassette delivered to TV channel France 3 on Wednesday evening, five balaclava-clad men – ’somewhere in the Languedoc hinterland’, according to the report – read out a statement addressed to the new president.

They said that if in one month nothing has changed and that wine prices have not gone up, they will go into action.

‘If Sarkozy does not support the interests of the wine industry, he will be entirely responsible for what happens,’ said their spokesman. ‘We are at the point of no return.’

You can watch the video of winemakers gone mad at the BBC.

Whole Foods can buy Wild Oats (for now).

The first rule of antitrust is to define the relevant market. The appeals court got it right:

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman refused to step in last week and block the deal, a decision that federal regulators quickly appealed. They claimed that the merger would mean less competition and higher prices for premium and organic food.

The appeals court, in a brief ruling, agreed that the FTC “raised some questions” about the deal, but the judges said the agency had not proved that Friedman’s decision was flawed.

In his 93-page ruling, Friedman rejected the FTC’s argument. He said supermarket chains such as Safeway Inc. and Kroger Co. are selling more fresh and organic produce and redesigning many of their stores to compete with Whole Foods.

About 60 percent of natural and organic food products sold comes from conventional stores, he noted.

On a personal note, I just got back from Whole Foods about 20 minutes ago, where they sell one of my favorite beers.

So we have a weak dollar. It’s really not a big deal. In fact ….

As Detroit’s struggling auto makers slash jobs, major European auto makers are moving to expand U.S. operations, illustrating how the auto industry’s globalization isn’t just a one-way street for the U.S. economy.

German auto makers are accelerating plans to ramp up U.S. production and add jobs as a hedge against the dollar’s persistent weakness against the euro, which has battered profits on vehicles exported from Europe.

Funny how capital flows work. What do you want to bet that Lou Dobbs deftly spins this development into another grumble about immigrants?