Takeovers often good for Wall St., not workers

“Stocks surge on takeover news,” (Dec. 5) on the stock market’s rise of nearly 90 points, gives credit to recent reports of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Although this makes the realm of the investor class giddy on the catnip of increasing momentum toward a monopoly economy, it is, once again, at the cost of American jobs.

The takeover of Mellon Financial Corp. by Bank of New York Co. not only will create the world’s largest securities services company, but also will start by firing at least 3,900 employees while the executives who engineered this merger will probably pocket hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves.

That is the purpose of these mergers. With little or no advantage to consumers, wealthy executives grow richer while thousands of families worry about their future.

David Ohman

Irvine