From DaimlerChrysler and British Petroleum to Unilever, European companies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying American corporations the last few years.

Wall Street people no longer buy and dismantle large public corporations, because the prices of these corporations - as reflected by high stock prices - have risen exorbitantly.

But now, with the dollar nearing 120 yen, Japan is far stronger, as shown by these developments: * Japanese companies can easily outbid rivals to buy American real estate and corporations.

You can also sell them for tax losses, buy other corporations with them.

Customers don't buy corporations, they buy products.

With their surplus dollars, however, they buy our real estate and corporations and build new factories in the United States.

American companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars in recent years buying other corporations and buying their own stock.

When corporations buy other corporations at prices well above the stock market price, one explanation is that the two companies will fit well together and bring economies of scale.

Mr. Boesky stated publicly several years ago that he wanted not only to speculate in takeover stocks but to buy corporations outright.

Much of the pressure for spinoffs today is coming from institutional investors, who prefer to diversify their own portfolios rather than buy diversified corporations.