What should be happening in the shell-shocked dot-com world? Why, mergers of course. Right now is when the powerful new brands could be set up that could give Yahoo! and AOL a run for their money and create bargaining levers. Right now is when a consolidator could come in and create a brand-new portal of great names with traction. Right now, companies could combine and make something big and lasting happen.
But they won't. Too much pride. Too much hubris. Too much memory. Too much, "I'll be the last man standing." Wall Street would welcome consolidation with a higher stock price for whoever does it and takes out costs and becomes profitable even in this gawdawful environment, because there is something there. People do stare at and read the Web. It is every bit as good of an advertising medium as the side of a bus or a phone booth, maybe better because it is quantified and qualified. But everyone is determined to wipe each other out. So what will happen -- as surely as if it were etched in stone -- is that everyone will get wiped out.
Stupid people running these companies. Stupid and stubborn and prideful. As bad as those who ran
Bethlehem Steel or
Armco into the ground. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Pass the Pepto. It ain't going away any time soon.
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Jim Cramer
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