This is a story about missed opportunity: how most of Australia's big companies saw the Australian dollar lift their international purchasing power to unprecedented highs, and didn't do anything about it.
The Australian dollar averaged US75.4Â¢ in 2006. It has averaged US77.6Â¢ so far this year, and is currently around US73Â¢. It is headed lower as Australia's terms of trade - the relative strength of export and import prices - continues to deteriorate under the weight of falling commodity prices. The terms of trade are down 32 per cent since they peaked in 2011 and that is "a pronounced fall in the purchasing power of Australian households and businesses", CBA economist Gareth Aird says.
Not good, but what did Australia's companies do when the terms of trade and the Australian dollar that tracks it were booming? Not much. Their overseas acquisition activity is if anything counter-intuitive, rising when the $A is weak and falling when it is strong. 
In 2006 and 2007 companies were confident. Australia and New Zealand merger and acquisition deals were worth $US158 billion in both of those years, and outbound M&A - money spent by Australian and New Zealand companies on overseas acquisitions - was $44 billion and $43 billion, 28 per cent and 27 per cent of the takeover pie.
The international spending power of Australian companies was pretty good in those boom years.The $A averaged US75.4Â¢ in 2006, and averaged almost US84Â¢ in 2007 as rising commodity prices drove Australia's terms of trade higher.
Then the global crisis hit. The $A fell as low as US61.2Â¢ in   October 2008, and did not get above US65Â¢ and stay there until the second quarter of 2009.
Total M&A activity in Australia and New Zealand slumped to $US93 billion in 2008 and $US50 billion in 2009. Outbound M&A also plunged, to $US13 billion or 14 per cent of the total in 2008, and $US5 billion or 10 per cent of M&A in 2009.
Let's assign outlier status to those two years. Strange, grave and unpredictable things were happening. It was a time to build balance sheet strength, not set off on acquisition adventures.
The years that followed were a huge miss for most Australian companies, however. Asset values had been crushed in the northern hemisphere, our economy was still growing and the Australian dollar was powerful, but companies sat on their hands rather than risk a negative shareholder reaction to expansion.
There was a promising bounce in 2010. M&A activity jumped back up to $US149 billion. The commodity boom powered the $A up from less than US82Â¢ to parity with the greenback by   November and an average of US92Â¢, and outward M&A recovered to $US29 billion, 18 per cent of the total.
That was as good as it got, however.
In 2011, the $A was even stronger, averaging almost US95Â¢, but total M&A activity fell to $US116 billion, and outbound M&A fell to $US16 billion, 13 per cent of the total. In 2012, the $A averaged more than $US1.03 and went as high as $US1.08. M&A activity slumped to $US62 billion - and outbound M&A was just $US3 billion, 5 per cent of the total spend in the year the dollar hit its peak.
International M&A by Australian companies since the $A began to slide has also been counter-intuitive.
Total M&A in Australia and New Zealand stayed weak at $US73 billion in 2013. The $A fell back below parity with the $US in   May and averaged US96.8Â¢ for the year. That was still high compared with earlier decades, but outbound M&A was only $US5 billion, a measly 7 per cent of a shrunken total.
M&A deals valued at $97 billion were done last year. Outbound M&A rose to $US13 billion and 13 per cent of the total even though the $A weakened further, to an average of US90.2Â¢ and a year-end quote of US81.7Â¢.
The $A is now about US73Â¢. Its seven-month average is US77.6Â¢, 25 per cent below its 2012 peak. There are predictions that it will go to US60Â¢ before the correction in commodity prices is over. Outbound M&A activity of $15 billion already exceeds the $US13 billion total for all of last year, however, and accounts for 23 per cent of total M&A activity, which at $US64 billion is setting a $US100 billion-plus annual pace for the first time in four years.
Not everybody missed the Australian dollar M&A angle. Inbound M&A here - bids by foreigners - has risen from 25 per cent of total M&A in 2011 to 42 per cent now. That's what you would expect: the $A is down, and almost every other bid is coming from overseas.
Local institutions have been steady buyers of overseas infrastructure, and local investor interest in overseas shares jumped when the $A was strong, benefiting groups like Magellan Financial, which manages unhedged blue-chip overseas share portfolios for retail and institutional investors. Magellan has built funds under management up from nothing to more than $36 billion in the space of eight years. Its shares have risen 814 per cent since the beginning of 2012.
Chief executives and non-executive directors were timid when they needed to brave, however. Like parents who meant to organise a trip to Disneyland for their kids when the dollar was strong but somehow didn't get around it, they can ponder at length about how things might have been.