A．the increasing concentration is certain to hurt consu……
TEXT A
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 MBA 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 customer’s demands. All these are beneficial, net 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 ()il 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--hut 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 megs-mergers 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
(413)
From paragraph 4 we can infer that ______.
A．the increasing concentration is certain to hurt consumers
B．WorldCom serves as a good example of both benefits and costs
C．the costs of the globalization process are enormous
D．the Standard Oil Trust might have threatened competition
