Fortune Magazine is out with the 500 biggest companies and it makes wonderful reading...if you're a top executive at any of them.
Walmart is #1 - woo-hoo with $421 billion in sales. Their earnings jumped over 14% to $16 billion. The one minor irritant, the class action sex discrimination suit against them currently before the Supreme Court. Not to worry though, I'm sure the ever reliable Supreme Court will vote their wqy 5-4.
Roaring into second place is Exxon with $35 billion in profits. Got to keep those tax rebates and 'drill baby drill' otherwise we'll be paying more at the pump. Fuck, we already are.
At #5 is Fannie Mae. Huh, Turns out their lofty position is because of a change in accounting procedures. Maybe that's all we need to fix the economy.
The rankings are by gross revenue, not profits. In all the top 500 companies had gross sales of a little over $10 trillion and the good news, at least for those companies is profits increased 81% over 2009.
While corporations are in a bubbly mood the weekly new unemployment filings came in at an eight month high of 474,000. Oh well. Obviously we need more budget cuts to services that help the newly unemployed and those other welfare bums to motivate them to go out and get jobs.
The Fortune 500 companies are obviously hiring. Yes, in China, India and elsewhere. More proof, say the Republicans on cue and in unison, "we need to lower corporate tax rates to make U.S. companies more competitive in the global market."
Update
In the wake of publication of the Fortune 500 list, House Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats to use a procedural maneuver to block an attempt to repeal an oil industry tax break worth $1,8 billion a year.
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