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The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive Amer

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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 US, when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World Com, 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?
Which of the following is not true according to Paragraph 4?
选项 A、The merger of World Com will not harm the consumers.
B、The communication cost is lower.
C、Concentration in cars will be sure to harm the consumers.
D、The merger of the oil firms might threaten competition.
答案C
解析 选项A对应第四段的第三句，这一句话提到，兼并没有给消费者带来更高的价格，因此消费者没有被伤害是正确的。选项B对应倒数第二句，是同义改写。选项C对应最后一句话，这里提到，看起来没有伤害消费者，但是选项C却说一定会伤害消费者，因此，选项C是正确答案。选项D对应第二句，这句话说：很难想象当今几个石油公司的合并是否会重新造成与约100年前美国标准石油公司对竞争造成的同样的威胁，由此可以知，石油公司的兼并可能会威胁竞争，因此选项D是正确的。综上所述，此题目的正确答案是选项C。
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