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

admin2018-03-01  38

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?
What can be learned from the first paragraph?

选项 A、This wave of mergers and acquisitions has been witnessed before.
B、People in many countries are anxious about the process of acquisition.
C、This wave of business concentration will become an uncontrollable anti-competitive force.
D、The new rising nations will be free from the impact of the concentration wave.

答案B

解析 选项B对应第一段的最后一句。这一句话中的“worrying”正是选项B中“anxious”的同义改写。选项A对应第一句,但是文章中并没有说“这次的兼并浪潮曾经经历过。”文章的意思是:世界正在经历一场前所未有的最大的兼并浪潮。选项C是对最后一句后半部分的曲解,这一部分的意思是:这次的商业兼并浪潮会不会变成一股无法控制的反竞争的力量呢? 也就是说,文章中是一种发问的语气。而选项C是一种很肯定的语气。选项D对应第二句话的后半部分,文章提到:这股浪潮……影响到新兴国家,但是选项D却说:新兴国家会幸免这次兼并浪潮,与文章内容相反。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/DLX7FFFM
0

最新回复(0)