Read it ... and weep.
2008 was the worst year in the history of the Fortune 500 for America's largest companies.
From $645 billion in profits in 2007, profits dropped this year to just $98.9 billion - an 84.7 percent decline!
Records were broken: Eleven of the top 25 largest corporate losses in list history took place last year.
The biggest loser of them all: Insurance giant AIG. The company posted a $99.3 billion loss. But it's still on the list ("too big to fail" indeed!). It's ranked at number 245, down from number 13 just one year earlier.
Thirty-eight companies disappeared from the list altogether. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers may be no surprise, but it was also "last call" for brewer Anheuser Busch.
And the bubble burst for gum maker William Wrigley Jr.
… Making room for fashionable newcomers like Polo Ralph Lauren. And (perhaps a sign of our need for retail therapy) Visa and Mastercard are also Fortune first-timers.
Of course, they rank far behind ExxonMobil which, boosted by higher gas prices, motored past Wal-Mart to arrive at the coveted number one spot.
Speaking of life at the top, 15 women ran Fortune 500 companies in 2008m an all-time high.
They're among the ranks of 25.6 million Americans working (or, who used to work!) for the nation's largest companies.
That's one out of every six of us.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/19/sunday/main4954725.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4954725
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