Several years ago, I was flipping channels and I came across this Lifetime movie about two mentally handicapped people in assisted living and their nascent romance. Neither one was particularly functional on their own, but after they fell in love and got married, they decided to pool their strengths and move out of the assisted living facility and make a go of it together. It was all very heartwarming.

I cannot believe I just admitted to you guys that I have ever watched anything on Lifetime. I swear, I really am not that kind of girl. The point of it is, I thought of this movie when I woke up this morning and saw that Pulte and Centex had merged:

Today, Centex and Pulte join forces to raise enough capital to ride out the rest of the bust. They may have it, with some $3.4 billion in the newly combined company plus expectations of annual costs savings in the $350 million range.

If the homebuilders have any hope of staying out of bankruptcy (or Uncle Tim’s Home For The Differently Abled, better known as the TARP), they need to consolidate, so I applaud this move.