With companies closing divisions, merging, going into bankruptcy and getting bought, etc. the landscape of American business is changing. So what does the future hold?

Some possibilities:

• If Bank of America merged with American Standard, the new company could be called Bank of American Standard, where you could flush your savings goodbye
• Exxon Mobile could buy Larry Flynt Industries and become XXXon Mobile, and while that might seem odd at first, since oil company profits are every bit as obscene as pornography, why not?
• Goldman Sachs could buy Baer Sterns from JP Morgan Chase , merge it with Bank of New York to create the aptly named Sachs of B.S., which would explain why they went from needing billions in bailout money from the government to making billions in profit so quickly
• If MGM bought GM, the name would stay the same — MGM — but if you bought two DVDs you’d get a free minivan
• Since cars have pretty much become computers on wheels, BMW could buy IBM and become BMI, and hopefully it would give a pretty good indication of the health and fitness of the auto industry as a whole
• Chrysler could merge its namesake brand with Saturn and recently-funded Tesla to become ChryST. (though the chances it would come back from the dead if it ended up in bankruptcy would be zero)
• Looking to expand its research division, Apple could buy M.I.T. and become Apple Π
• Nokia, Palm and Go Phone could all merge to become Pa-Noki-Go, and then when they lied to you about how much your cellphone bill would be their nose would grow
• If T.G.I.Friday’s., Applebees, Outback Steakhouse and Claim Jumper merged, all the restaurants would keep their names but the parent company would single-handedly be responsible for 50% of America’s obesity epidemic (with the merger of KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald’s taking care of the other 50%)
• To more accurately communicate their current lending practices, Japan’s Norinchukin Bank could merge with Credit Suisse First Boston to become NO Credit
• Or as a way of reflecting the (probably temporary) humility banks are feeling these days, JP Morgan Chase could buy up what’s left of all the other banks and then call themselves Chastened (though probably not for long)
• Given the fact that it probably has nothing better to do with its billions in cash reserves, Microsoft could buy Mr. Softee and become Mr. Microsoftee, where you would get a free cone with every copy of Windows
• If McDonald’s won the espresso wars and bought Starbucks, it’s hard to say if they would change the name of their McCafes to McStarbucks or not, but God help you if you ever used the drive-thru
• General Electric, America’s #1 company, could combine with the TaTa Group, India’s #1 company, to become General TaTa, and then also get a featured role in the next Bond movie as the ultimate global villain
• If Target merged with Kohl’s, J.C. Penny and Sears, it would still be called Target, but only because that’s how Wal-Mart would see it
• If the Federal Reserve Board, The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the FDIC merged, they would have some impossibly long name, but Republicans, Capitalists and everybody on Wall Street would just call the new government body the Big DIC.
• While it wouldn’t require a merger, Toys R Us should change its name to Toys R Uh… Let Me Ask Somebody Else to reflect its employees knowledge of the products they sell
• If Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin all combined, it wouldn’t even matter what the company would be called because everybody under 35 would start using something else and everybody over 35 would realize they have better things to do than tweet.