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  3. The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions never witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive Ame

The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions never witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive Ame

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问题     The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions never 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 customer’s 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 recreate 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?
Toward the new business wave, the writer’s attitude can be said to be ______.
选项 A、optimistic
B、objective
C、pessimistic
D、biased
答案B
解析 从文章第1段的内容可知，全世界正在经历一场有史以来最大的合并浪潮；从第2段的内容可知，毫无疑问，规模大的企业会愈大，实力也会愈强；从第3段的内容可知，我认为，引发这场大规模的合并的最重要的原因与导致全球化过程的原因相似；从文章第4段的内容可知，目前的这股行业集中浪潮是有利可图还是要付出代价，有关的实例不多；消费者的利益似乎并没有受到损害；从文章最后一段的内容可知，不过，存在的事实是我们必须关注这股合并浪潮；当一个国家对违反公平竞争的现象控制过于严格时，跨国公司难道不会把其生产从一个国家转到另一个国家去吗?在那些影响其他许多国家的问题上，一个国家应不应就像美国与微软公司的诉讼案那样承担起“保护竞争”的角色呢?据此可知，作者既分析了企业合并浪潮给人们带来的好处，又提出了应该注意的问题，说明作者比较客观。B项与文章的意思相符，因此B项为正确答案。
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