To be able to have THAT kind of money!

So as I sit at my desk this morning, having the usual morning yogurt, (mmm....mixed berries!) I was scrolling through cnn.com when I came across a headline that caught my eye: Two consumer product giants to merge. I think to myself, "What a wonderful world." Well....not really, but I am listening to that song. Duke Ellington was the man! Ok, back to the headline. I thought to myself, "Who could possibly be merging now?" I mean, I was intrigued when AOL and Time Warner announced their merger and I was recently astonished to hear that Sears and KMart would be merging (do you KNOW how awesome those prices are gonna be?!?!??!) When I clicked on the link, I realized that Proctor & Gamble, who is already the world's largest consumer products company, plans to buy Gillette for an estimated $57 billion. Now, Gillette is already a VERY successful consumer products company, but to merge the two....could you even begin to imagine the profits?!?!?! In case your wondering, here are what each company manufacters:

P&G:

Gillette:

But definitely the down side to this is the fact that there will be about a 4% job cut, meaning 140,000 employees will be laid off in order to eliminate management overlaps and what not. Now, is it really worth it? I mean, sure the jobs cut could be much higher and the profit that P&G will make would be of extrenuous proportions, but is it really worth it? In a time when our economy is STILL trying to pick up after 9/11/01, is it really fair to tell those 140,000, "Well, we apologize, but we are just trying to increase our profit and don't really care what happens to you or your family"? I will tell you this much, P&G/Gillette could expect to loose 140,000 customers pretty quickly. But then again, I'm sure they don't really care about that. After all, they already ARE the world's largest consumer products company. But why is it that morals are ALWAYS overlooked just to make an extra buck? At the beginning of this entry, I thought that to be able to have that kind of money would truly be a blessing. Now, I just think it would be a blessing if you could help rather than cause havoc. Just my thoughts.