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The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever

游客2023-11-09  9
问题     The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: "Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti-competitive force?"
    There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy.
    I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth increases.
    Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could re-create the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the Standard Oil Trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as WorldCom, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt.
    Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created? Won’t multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition? And should one country take upon itself the role of "defending competition" on issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S. vs. Microsoft case? [br] In the last paragraph, the author most probably agrees that
选项 A、mega banking mergers will not appear because of Greenspan’s warning.
B、multinationals always try to avoid violating fair competition.
C、the attitude towards unfair competition varies from nation to nation.
D、the U.S. shouldn’t have sued Microsoft for unfair competition.
答案 C
解析 最后一段第4句表明在现实中各国对违反公平竞争的处理力度不一，即表明各国对不合理竞争的做法态度不相同，可见，本题应选C。该段第2句提到了Greenspan的警告，银行业是不是会因为他的警告就不会合并?原文并没有就此给出答案，可见，A说得过于绝对。第4句表明有些跨国公司可能离开对不公平竞争严格监管的国家／地区，转而到别的地区去做生意，这恰恰表明这些跨国公司不愿遵守公平竞争的做法，可见，B与原文的推论相反；最后一句表明美国出于“保护公平竞争”而起诉了微软公司，而作者很可能认为别的国家也应向美国学习这种做法，可见，作者应该不会认同D的说法。
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