Again, when corporations are to be combined, various plans are possible. There may be a merger; there may be a holding corporation; there may be a lease. If the money market is easy, one of the former methods will be used,--most frequently, for legal reasons, the holding corporation, if there are any valuable franchises involved. But mergers and holding corporations commonly involve buying out the interests which are to be absorbed, and call for the use of checks. If the money market is tight, therefore, the promoter of the combination may frequently find the lease the more advantageous form of consolidation.[199] The great advantage of the lease is that, when the money market is tight, it involves no _financial plan_, no underwriting, no outlay of "cash." This is, therefore, an equivalent of barter, so far as the point at issue is concerned. Even where a holding corporation is formed, however, there may be considerable barter: the stockholders of the corporation which is absorbed may receive payment for their stocks, in whole or in part, in the securities of the holding company, rather than in checks. An era of financial consolidation, such as we have been passing through, and through which we have not by any means gone, though the movement toward _monopoly_ has been in great degree checked, presents a great deal of this sort of barter, or equivalents of barter.[200] A striking thing to notice here, moreover, is the flexible margin between use of bank-credit and barter, a margin depending primarily upon the condition of the money market, and particularly upon the money-rates.