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>
> On page 112 of _World Orders Old And New_ , Chomsky devotes a paragraph to
> mention of frivolous economic activity. There is one sentence about mergers
> which is not preceded or followed by another on the same topic. "A National
> Science Foundation study at the peak of the [merger] mania estimated that
> R&D expenditures declined by 5 percent for companies involved in mergers
> and acquisitions compared to a 5 percent rise for others." What is he
> saying here? Whatever it is, he's got it wrong. How much R&D should it take
> to figure out how to build more and cheaper widgets? Is he a sudden tech
> booster looking for an invite to Silicon Valley?
> The usual cover story in favor of mergers is that the surviving company
> will experience greater economies of scale and that redundancies can be
> eliminated. If two similar companies merge, they should be able to
> completely eliminate one R&D effort resulting in a fifty percent reduction
> of R&D not five percent. In real life, the buying company is often paying
> in inflated stock rather than in cash and the bought out company's managers
> will bail with bonuses and severance packages in real money.
> The section reads as though it were written by a committee with
> fear-mongering in mind. I'm most unclear about what it is to be afraid of:
> black helicopters, Jewish bankers, the eye at the top of the pyramid?

Good point. I have had similar problems with other of Chomsky's stats. While
they are almost invariably factually correct, he seems to take the logical
inference from them to be so self-evident as to need no extended argument.
As a reader not automatically given to accepting his conclusions I find
myself thinking, "And the problem with this is....what?" If this thread
continues in a useful direction I'll cite specific cases.
>
> Interestingly, this ties in with additional list messages re:
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/326578.asp
> It's done with mirrors. None of it is real. The DoD remains a very big
> piece of the U.S. economy. After the forced de-industrialization and
> colonization of competing economies, the U.S. is busily de-industrializing
> itself. This has not gone unnoticed by economists who work in public policy.
I'm not sure I follow you here. Please elaborate.