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MOVIE BUFF: Oh I just love how Movie Gallery bought Hollywood Entertainment. There's a Hollywood store in the strip mall near where I live. Now maybe they'll expand their titles. Otherwise, I got no reason to drive to a video store when I can just order videos in the mail from Netflix. Eventually, I understand it will be simpler than that. See, television and the internet are gonna merge and by the end of the decade you'll be watching movies online. Even movie theatres will be broadcasting digital videos on giant screens from an online network. Keep in mind, I live in a fantasy world, so I could just be full of crap. |
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COOL LEE: I'm not really aware of any corporate mergers recently. The last big merger I heard about was when AOL was talking about merging with Time Warner about four years ago. But I had heard that was a fiasco and companies stopped doing mergers after that because they learned once and for all that bigger is not always better. I'd be surprised if there have been any big mergers since then. Sounds kinda stupid if it's true. |
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DJ YOYO JO-Z: When Sony merged with BMG, that's when I realized dat da major labels ain't comin' back. They just keep shrinkin' down. Pretty soon all four major labels will just merge together to form one company and after dat one last company goes full on bankrupt, dat's when my worl - da indepen'ents - will take over da music biz.
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MR. BIG BIZ: I would say the merger of Procter and Gamble and Gillette is a shining beauty. The more mergers the better. I think the economy runs best when just the biggest players buy everyone else out. The Exxon-Mobil merger last decade has yet to be topped in my book, but then again, I invest heavily in oil, so I may be biased. I will be exceptionally pleased if more oil companies merge, knowing that the industry should only be controlled by a few players anyway when gas prices skyrocket in a few years due to peak oil, ha ha. |
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JENNIFER: I just heard SBC is buying AT&T. That's like a baby adopting its parents. What in the hell is going on with this country? First they break up monopolies, then they encourage a barrage of companies to compete, then it scales down to just a few players again. But I really don't care about long distance phone companies anyway. I use the phone as little as possible, knowing that the NSA monitors every phone call in the United States. If I wanted my privacy to be invaded I would have voted for Bush. |
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BROKER BOB: Wow, my favorite merger recently. Do I get to name more than one? How about the Bank One-JP Morgan Chase merger or the Bank of America-Fleet Boston merger? KMART and Sears should be a goody. I'm also particularly impressed with Oracle's acquistion of PeopleSoft. I'll be tracking all the mergers in the weeks to come, but I'm not going to make any securities recommendations at this time, being that my firm is under investigation for lying to a grand jury about insider trading. |
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WORKER JOE: Man, I hate all these mergers. Alls it's doin' is sendin' jobs overseas. Only reason I got to keep my job was because I promised to work for a lower wage than someone in India. I wish it would go back to just one guy owned a company and you could go to that guy and ask for a raise. Now it's all about my boss can't do nothin'
without first checking with the parent corp'rate headquarters somewhere a thousand miles away. Most of the people at headquarters never worked hard to make it, they just kissed ass. I ain't about that. I'd rather be forgotten as a dumb ass than remembered as a kiss ass. |
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FATHER SULLIVAN: I pray for the merging of church and state. I am confident that President Bush will deliver this milestone in Christian history within the next four years. I want to see evolution thrown out of public schools and replaced by Bible studies. In fact, I wouldn't mind if the entire education system were upgraded to replace teachers with ministers. We must never rely on numbers and the materialism that numbers represent. Faith is all we have, so let's pursue faith as our primary mission in life and leave science for those who walk the unsteady path of the questioner. |
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COLLEGE STUDENT: I was surprised that Nextel is being bought out by Sprint. Now they say there are five big telecom companies competing with cable: SBC, Verizon, Bell South, Sprint and Qwest. I also hear Circuit City might be bought out by some investment group. I thought it was weird enough when Good Guys got bought out by CompUSA. On top of all that I heard a rumour that Sirius might merge with XM, but why would the Justice Department want to approve of a monopoly just so they can turn around and break it up? |
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SCIENTIST: It should be the merging of ideas that makes the news, not the merging of companies trying to disguise debt in their balance sheets. It has been inventors, as well as investors, who have improved and modernized the world we live in. Now saying that, let me tell you about a patent I am working on. I want to combine DNA, solar cells and satellite transmission with software technology to create what I call a digital civilization. But I haven't figured out if there's a market yet for people who want to completely replace themselves with computers. |