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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Thu Dec 10, 2015, 09:08 PM Dec 2015

Corporate America Is Turning its Back on Science

The rumored merger between chemical giants Dow DOW -3.62% and DuPont DD 0.08% has raised many questions about the state of Corporate America and its relationship to Wall Street, and none more pressing than what it will mean for firms that invest heavily in basic research.

As Fortune Editor Alan Murray argued it’s hard to feel good about the deal—which will reportedly split the combined company into three new units that focus on agriculture, materials science and specialty products, respectively—”unless you’re an investment banker.” He wrote:

Perhaps shareholders will make money from this massive act of corporate engineering—both stocks rose modestly after the announcement—but the end result is sure to be fewer employees and shrinking research budgets. Pardon me for sounding Trumpian, but it’s hard to believe the folks at Sinochem aren’t cheering.

Indeed, disagreements over DuPont’s spending on basic research were a point of conflict during the struggle between former DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman and activist investor Nelson Peltz to control the company, which Fortune documented in May. Peltz has criticized the firm for its bloated spending, while Kullman defended her vision of the company as one of the few in the world that was large enough to solve the world’s big problems through science.

But Kullman stepped down in October, and reports of the merger are another piece of anecdotal evidence that U.S. companies are abandoning the scientific ambitions that Kullman articulated so eloquently.

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http://fortune.com/2015/12/10/dow-dupont-merger/
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AuntPatsy

(9,904 posts)
1. Because science actually proves how insignificant we are as far as life forms....
Thu Dec 10, 2015, 11:18 PM
Dec 2015

Some fear the truth, I love science because it evolves and grows and nature because it will always find a way to exist and that is something I honestly think the human life form lacks.

Maybe one day when we realize our ego in the universe is perhaps our weakest link we might be able to to fix whatever it was that brought us our unrecognized failure...

MisterP

(23,730 posts)
2. hey, Dow and DuPont are in the LEAD on science!--just a certain, well-MASSAGED science, mind you ...
Thu Dec 10, 2015, 11:47 PM
Dec 2015

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
3. America's prosperity of the 50s and 60s were due largely to investments in science and technology...
Fri Dec 11, 2015, 01:23 PM
Dec 2015

......by both government and industry, including the Apollo project.

The first transistors AND the first photovoltaic cells came out of Bell Labs.

Edited to add: This current trend is just another horrible example of a business model that focuses on near term profits over long-term investment. That's why we have an infrastructure - built in the 1950s and 60s - that is falling apart today.

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