What are the largest companies in the world?   Nine of the top ten are from the USA.  We have long been the greatest. Note that #5 shows Google in parentheses next to Alphabet, and #7 has Facebook as part of Meta.  What happened? Google, as you know reinvented the way the world accesses information.   Why restructure? Without much warning in 2015, Google renamed itself Alphabet. This allowed the parent, Alphabet, to expand into domains outside of internet search and advertising. Google now runs a lesser risk of antitrust violations. You might get confused by GOOG and GOOGL, stock ticker symbols of Alphabet.  I won't try to explain it, but  you can click here for details . 52-year old  Sundar Pichai ( originally, Pichai Sundararajan ) is the CEO of Alphabet,  while founders Larry Page ( 52 ) and Sergey Brin ( 53 ) no longer are involved in daily operations.  Sundar's compensation last year was $10.72 million. Note that Alphabet is the 5th...

First a few comments about the  Supreme Court yesterday giving any U.S. president immunity for any criminal act : All future Trump trials will be delayed until next year or never be held. That sentencing by Judge Juan Marchen scheduled for July 11 has been delayed until September 18.  One of many frightening quotes, and  this one from Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayer : Leading the liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor outlined hypothetical situations where the concept of immunity could apply. "Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?" she wrote. "Immune." "Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune." Combined with his disaster debate performance, President Joe Biden's hope for re-election now look downright dismal.  All  polls taken after the debate  show him falling behind Trump.  What options are left? He could step down, leading to  what the De...

I was reading the latest TIME of the 100 most influential companies and saw a note that Tesla's market cap was around $700 billion , while General Motors was under $100 billio n.  Turns out that today this figure for Tesla is $567 billion, even though General Motors sold 6.8 million cars in 2020 while Tesla only sold half a million.  Part of this market cap value is the stock value of the company, and GE sold 8.5 million vehicles in 2018.  You got to wonder if Tesla is monstrously overvalued.  If you were wondering why Reese Witherspoon was on the cover, her company has been really influential. Later, I saw that one with even fewer assets, Facebook, had a market cap of $890 billion .  What is market cap?  Simply, multiply the total number of outstanding shares by the current market price.  Has nothing to do with what they are really worth. Then, I saw that Tencent, a Chinese company, is the most valuable company in Asia with a worth of $750 billion ....