Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!bbn!drilex!dricejb
From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Here are five counterexamples
Message-ID: <7375@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 90 14:36:58 GMT
References: <143@daedalus.nsc.com> <34315@mips.mips.COM> <161@csinc.UUCP>
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 51

In article <161@csinc.UUCP> rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar x615) writes:
>In article <34315@mips.mips.COM>, mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes:
>
>> What about the following US semi equipment vendors?
>> 
    [ List of US semiconductor equipment manufacturers omitted.]
>> 
>> There are dozens and dozens more; these are just a handful.
>> -- 
>>  -- Mark Johnson	
>
>Mark is right, of course.  However...
>
>1)  Large asian conglomerates could buy these companies out in an instant.
>If Nikon can buy P-E,....   

As could large European conglomerates, or large American conglomerates.
The question really is, which ones want to?  Which companies are willing
to deal with the problems?

>2)  The way US business law is written (esp. Delaware law), the companies
>have little defense against a 2 or 3x share price buyout.  Big players
>can easily afford this.  

There's one sure defense: don't go public.  If you want to keep control,
keep control.

>3)  The way US Congress acts, US business law will not change soon.

The somewhat scary thing is that you seem to wish that it does.  The sure
way to make American industry weak is to protect it from the outside.
In this case, the protection would be largely from capital investment, which
is very important in the semiconductor business.

>4)  The way US Do[CDEL...] act, there will be no push to disallow certain
>technologies from foreign ownership.  Assuming foreign ownership is bad,
>of course.  Is it?

In a perfect world, nobody would care what the allegience of the owner
would be, because there would be no allegiences.  In a less-than-perfect
world, it still doesn't matter that much.

>Rob Peglar	Control Systems, Inc.	2675 Patton Rd., St. Paul MN 55113
>...uunet!csinc!rpeglar		612-631-7800

This strays quite a ways from comp.arch towards sci.econ stuff.  (Both
in content and tone.)  I'll try not to say more.
-- 
Craig Jackson
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com
{bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}