Considering everything, the timing seemed about right.
From their planet, some 27,000 light years from Earth, a team of merger & acquisition (M&A) analysts was tracking current events on Planet Earth, paying particular attention to economic developments, especially all the news and commentary about inflation, interest rate hikes, housing costs, and potential recessions.
The M&A analysts were also looking at supply chain issues, a looming, potential sewer system disaster in the town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and other matters, like wars and such, impacting their very distant, neighboring planet.
Very distant, as folks on Planet Earth currently perceive distance, but a hop, skip, and a jump for the analysts. With their highly advanced technology, they could travel, lickety-split, almost anywhere, and closely monitor anything and everything. They could even see inside humans’ souls, if they wanted.
The timing seemed right for a merger of ‘equals’ (with single-quote marks, around ‘equals’), since the analysts felt their planet clearly had quite an advantage over Earth.
Why not describe a potential merger as ‘a merger of equals’, the analysts were thinking, since that’s such a nice, quaint, Earthly-sounding way of describing a major merger?
“Joining forces,” said one of the analysts. Don’t they say that all the time, on Earth, that some business, or other, is ‘joining forces with another business’?
Chiming in, another analyst said, “Okay then. Should we brief everyone, and get our PR people rolling on an announcement? Emphasizing, of course, that if the merger gets approved, the leaders of all the nations on Earth, and our leaders, will be sharing responsibilities… working as a team. Isn’t that how major business mergers are also described on Earth?”
Nodding that portion of their bodies that Earthlings might perceive as heads, others on the M&A team weighed in.
“Business leaders, on Earth, always mention reducing costs and maximizing efficiency, in their business merger announcements,” said an analyst. “We can say the same about our proposed merger of two planets. Along with – what is it, they’re always mentioning? – about mergers being a win-win for both sides? Isn’t that another quaint way of describing mergers of equals?”
After weighing all that, the M&A analysts began discussing potential downsides.
“There are some awfully headstrong leaders on Earth,” cautioned one of the analysts. “Not only in national governments, but in those giant businesses, as well. How will they mesh with our leaders? What do they call it? Chemistry? We’ll have to wrestle with that, won’t we?”
But even with such concerns being expressed, the analysts still agreed, chiefly, that announcing the first ever merger of two planets would overshadow just about everything else.
Even Earth’s economic situations, the strife and wars, the pandemic, Pagosa’s looming sewage matter, and such, would be small potatoes compared to a marriage of two planets.
And not only that, but after a while, perhaps Earth’s government and business leaders, would, for various reasons, wind up stepping down from their senior positions in combined planet management, to assume other responsibilities, elsewhere?
Isn’t that the way things often wind up working out on Earth, the M&A analysts were thinking.