Are Mega-Mergers Good For Consumers?

The business pages have recently been filled with stories of mega-mergers. It seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon -- entertainment giants like Time Warner and Turner, railroads, airlines, energy concerns, British and American telephone companies -- you name it. It is an accepted fact that these mergers generally result in lay-offs and streamlining, so they are probably not always good for workers. But are they good for consumers? Do such marriages result in better products at more competitive prices, or do they simply eliminate competition and guarantee fatter profits for the corporate elite?

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Despina: Mega Mergers are based on the human thought oxymoron of diversification through consolidation. In the early years, this process works well for the consumers and the stock holders, but the employees are rarely in a position of benefit. The streamlining of human capital comes from a position that the new company's employees are a liability rather than an asset. This eventually rots the organization from bottom up. The pendulum eventually swings in the opposite direction, but not before a cost has incurred. Consolidation is always authoritarian. Diversification is the creation of freedom of thought and action. These two cannot exist without a cancelling effect on each. Eventually, the conditions that lead to the merger exist again. Those who benefit, stagnate. So, it becomes a short term panacea for a longterm disease. The solution: free up human capital within the original organization, and use that capital as an asset.

PickinDaisies: I think that mergers of large corporations are definitely for PROFIT, designed as a way to become bigger (better? -- NOT ALWAYS), stronger (controlling and dominant more likely), and definitely richer (ever play MONOPOLY?).