[legion]

BTW, I was a finance major in college and have been tracking M&As since the mid 2000's. I can say with confidence that not a single merger or acquisition made among anything larger than regional players has been a good idea more than six months out. I watched DEC destroy Compaq and Compaq destroy HP. I watched Lucent destroy Bell Labs. Don't even get me started on the banking industry. We'd be much better of as a country with thousands of small banks. News flash, those that are too big to fail will fail some day, and they will take the country with them when they do. Most industries have been allowed to consolidate too much to the point that it hurts consumers as the players have monopolistic or oligopolistic tendencies that crush the small players. Speaking of which, the primary way that big players crush small players is by getting expensive regulations passed that effectively shut out newcomers. Capitalism is strongest when there are many, small, largely indistinguishable players in an industry. Most people wrongly think the corporations and capitalism are the same thing (corporations have become a method for defeating capitalism).