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Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M＆A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period, readers might recall, was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history, many of which later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M＆A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M＆A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is perhaps most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion ( $6.5 billion) hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think thin these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M＆A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies that showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For example, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M＆A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated. The case of Daimler-Chrysler is employed in the text as______.
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When you think of the tremendous technological progress we have made, it’s amazing how little we have developed in other respects. We may speak contemptuously of the poor old Romans because they relished the orgies of slaughter that went on in their arenas. We may despise them because they mistook these goings on for entertainment. We may forgive them condescendingly because they lived 2000 years ago and obviously knew no better. But are our feelings of superiority really justified Are we any less bloodthirsty Why do boxing matches, for instance, attract such universal interest Don’t the spectators who attend them hope they will see some violence Human beings remain as bloodthirsty as ever they were. The only difference between ourselves and the Romans is that while they were honest enough to admit that they enjoyed watching hungry lions tearing people apart and eating them alive, we find all sorts of sophisticated arguments to defend sports which should have been banned long ago; sports which are quite as barbarous as, say, public hangings or bearbaiting. It really is incredible that in this day and age we should still allow hunting or bull fighting, that we should be prepared to sit back and watch two men batter each other to pulp in a boxing ring, that we should be relatively unmoved by the sight of one or a number of racing cars crashing and bursting into flames. Let us not deceive ourselves. Any talk of “the sporting spirit” is sheer hypocrisy. People take part in violent sports because of the high rewards they bring. Spectators are willing to pay vast sums of money to see violence. A world heavyweight championship match, for instance, is front page news. Millions of people are disappointed if a big fight is over in two rounds instead of fifteen. They feel disappointment because they have been deprived of the exquisite pleasure of witnessing prolonged torture and violence. Why should we ban violent sports if people enjoy them so much You may well ask. The answer is simple: they are uncivilized. For centuries man has been trying to improve himself spiritually and emotionally―admittedly with little success. But at least we no longer tolerate the sight of madmen being cooped up in cages, or public floggings of any of the countless other barbaric practices which were common in the past. Prisons are no longer the grim forbidding places they used to be. Social welfare systems are in operation in many parts of the world. Big efforts are being made to distribute wealth fairly. These changes have come about not because human beings have suddenly and unaccountably improved, but because positive steps were taken to change the law. The law is the biggest instrument of social change that we have and it may exert great civilizing influence. If we banned dangerous and violent sports, we would be moving one step further to improving mankind. We would recognize that violence is degrading and unworthy of human beings. It can be inferred from the passage that the author’s opinion of nowadays’ human beings is.
Sometimes we have specific problems with our mother; sometimes, life with her can just be hard work. If there are difficulties in your (1) , it’s best to deal with them, (2) remember that any (3) should be done (4) person or by letter. The telephone is not a good (5) because it is too easy (6) either side to (7) the conversation.Explain to her (8) you find difficult in your relationship and then (9) some new arrangements that you think would establish a (10) balance between you. Sometimes we hold (11) from establishing such boundaries because we are afraid that doing (12) implies we are (13) her. We need to remember that being (14) from our mother does not (15) mean that We no longer love her. If the conflict is (16) and you cannot find a way to (17) it, you might decide to give up your relationship with your mother for a while. Some of my patients had (18) "trial separations". The (19) allowed things to simmer down, enabling (20) . 5（）
Where is Love How can we find Love The past ages of man have all been carefully labeled by anthropologists. Descriptions like “Paleolithic Man”, “Neolithic Man”, etc., neatly sum up the whole periods. When the time comes for anthropologists to turn their attention to the twentieth century, they will surely choose the label “Legless Man”. Histories of the time will go something like this: “in the twentieth century, people forgot how to use their legs. Men and women moved about in cars, buses and trains from a very early age. There were lifts and escalators in all large buildings to prevent people from walking. This situation was forced upon earth dwellers of that time because of miles each day. But the surprising thing is that they didn’t use their legs even when they went on holiday. They built cable railways, skilifts and roads to the top of every huge mountain. All the beauty spots on earth were marred by the presence of large car parks.” The future history books might also record that we were deprived of the use of our eyes. In our hurry to get from one place to another, we failed to see anything on the way. Air travel gives you a bird’seye view of the world―or even less if the wing of the aircraft happens to get in your way. When you travel by car or train a blurred image of the countryside constantly smears the windows. Car drivers, in particular, are forever obsessed with the urge to go on and on: they never want to stop. Is it the lure of the great motorways, or what And as for sea travel, it hardly deserves mention. It is perfectly summed up in the words of the old song: “I joined the navy to see the world, and what did I see I saw the sea.”The typical twentiethcentury traveler is the man who always says, “I’ve been there.”You mention the remotest, most evocative placenames in the world like El Dorado, Kabul, Irkutsk and someone is bound to say，“I’ve been there”―meaning,“I drove through it at 100 miles an hour on the way to somewhere else.” When you travel at high speed, the present means nothing: you live mainly in the future because you spend most of your time looking forward to arriving at some other place. But actual arrival, when it is achieved, is meaningless. You want to move on again. By traveling like this, you suspend all experience; the present ceases to be a reality: you might just as well be dead. The traveler on foot, on the other hand, lives constantly in the present. For him traveling and arriving are one and the same thing: he arrives somewhere with every step he makes. He experiences the present moment with his eyes, his ears and the whole of his body. At the end of his journey he feels a delicious physical weariness. He knows that sound. Satisfying sleep will be his: the just reward of all true travelers. Anthropologists label nowadays’men “Legless” because _______.
Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused—and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the Constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen... shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California’s recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a goat the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress: one allows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983.) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he has done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada: the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running military superpowers. Compared with Jennifer Granholm, Mr. Schwarzenegger is at disadvantage due to______.
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