The biggest corporate acquisition of all time ...

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Dec 1 15:05:57 PST 1998


Carl Remick wrote:


>Exxon-Mobil, is set to take place and not a word of comment on this
>list so far. Surely this has some significance worth discussing. I see
>it, for instance, as another major indicator of the ever intensifying
>deflationary forces at work worldwide.

Concentrate, concentrate - this is also Moses & the Prophets. These mergers are on a mindbogglingly vast scale, aren't they? 100s of billions on 100s of billions. So much for Kevin Kelley & the decentering of capital in a nodal networked world. This is how capital reduces overcapacity and tries to stabilize profits.

There was a Wall Street analyst on CNBC yesterday describing ARCO (the social investors' favorite oil co) and Texaco as too small now to compete; he thinks the industry will be reconstitute around 3 dominant companies worldwide, XON-MOB, BP/Amoco, and Shell.

I've prodded Greg Nowell for a comment, let's see what he comes up with. If the Wall Street guy is right and these 3 majors dominate global oil, there's a large non-American presence there. Clinton can't get the oil guys to build his preferred pipeline out of the Caspian either. What's going on, is the U.S. losing its oil preeminence?

Doug



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