In 2002, 60% of US business revenues went to less than 1/2 of 1% of firms.

[Hannah Bell]

There were 5,697,759 firms in the US that year.

These 5.6 million firms employed 112,400,654 people.

Total revenues were $22,062,528,196,000.


891 firms (.016%) took in $2.5 billion or more.
Their total income was $9.312 trillion, or about 42.2% of total revenues.
They employed 23% of the workforce.

1056 firms (.019%) took in $1.642 trillion, or 7.4% of total revenues.
They employed 6.3% of the workforce.

1544 firms (.03%) took in $1.078 trillion, about 4.8% of total revenues.
They employed 4.8% of the workforce.

2880 firms (.05%) took $1.006 trillion, about 4.5% of total revenues.
They employed 4.6% of the workforce.

Total: 5561 (.0975%) firms revenues totaled 13.038 trillion, 59% of total revenues.

These firms employed about 39% of the workforce.

The remaining 5,692,198 firms (99.9% of the total) split the remaining 41% of revenues, and employed 61% of the workforce.


Annual US payroll was 17.8% of total revenues.


http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html

Table 3.

[SDuderstadt]

1. You might want to check your...

math again.

[Hannah Bell]

2. why don't you just point out the error, duderstadt. it's late.

[SDuderstadt]

3. Why don't you check your own...

math out?

Even assuming your numbers are right, what do you think this proves?

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

13. i did. i found no error. and as you won't identify the error you imply exists,

i assume there really isn't any error.

[Rex]

19. You really should ignore that kind of stuff.

People are just trying to get your thread locked. Ignore is such a wonderful tool imo.

[SDuderstadt]

21. What a stupid...

accusation, dude.

[joshcryer]

14. I don't see the error in a cursory glance, either. Could you note it for us?

It's better to note the issue than it is to just throw a snarky response out there.

[Common Sense Party]

5. Should those revenues be redistributed equally among all businesses?

[Hannah Bell]

6. should 60% of them go to 1/10 of 1% of businesses? should < 18% go to labor?

i don't know, what do you think?

[Common Sense Party]

7. I think revenues should go to the businesses that sell the most.

Those are usually going to be the largest companies, a very small group.

My mom-and-pop dry cleaner is a good business, but I don't really think it makes sense to give some of ExxonMobil's profits to them.

Labor is probably getting the short shrift, which is not surprising now that we're competing with countries where businesses pay their labor less than $1 a day. Should labor get more? Yeah, but I don't see how government is going to mandate that businesses give 60% of revenues to labor. So, I don't know what the solution would be.

[Hannah Bell]

8. kind of circular, don't you think? you don't know how government could mandate such things?

maybe in the same way it mandates tax breaks for offshoring jobs, whaddaya think?

btw, 40% of all profits in the US go to financial firms. They don't really "sell" anything, they mostly speculate.

Goldman Sachs is #174 in the world in terms of revenues. $45 billion in revenues in 2009.

Tell me what exactly they "sell". Then tell me why it's valuable.

[Common Sense Party]

9. Nope. I don't see how they'd do it.

I can see how they can redistribute (in theory) wealth from higher income individuals to lower-income individuals through welfare or other social services.

I don't see the same need or desire to redistribute profits from large companies to small companies.

Or are you simply saying make the larger companies pay higher corporate tax rates and smaller companies pay lower?

[Hannah Bell]

10. they can redistribute profits through the tax code, same as they do now.

only now they do it generally in favor of the biggest players.

[JDPriestly]

12. If we seriously amended and than enforced out ant-trust and fair

competition laws, we could have the best of both possible worlds. Competition would make for better products at lower prices, and we would have more variety in what is offered to us, plus smaller businesses would have a better chance to compete. We might even get more start-ups that have new ideas and new products.

[snot]

11. K&R'd; at 4 recs after mine.

[joshcryer]

16. Got it to 5. ;)

[joshcryer]

15. Can you calculate how much outsourcing plays into the roles of the more profitable businesses?

[madrchsod]

17. a lot of those 5 +_million had a hard time getting bank loans

when i applied at a firm that made construction equipment the personal director told me they could not borrow money until 2003.

i`m sure the top firms had no problems with the banks and foreign governments

[Hannah Bell]

18. a relative of mine with a successful regional business couldn't get a loan

after the crash either, though he'd been getting equivalent loans all through his business career.

bank of america (a highish officer thereof) told him the government wasn't allowing them to make loans (i've forgotten the details, but it boiled down to that).

i suspect it was a big fat lie but he bought it & blamed the gov't.

[SDuderstadt]

20. Have you scolded your relative for being a...

"capitalist"?

[Hannah Bell]

22. you really don't get it, do you. still waiting for you to point out the math error.

[SDuderstadt]

23. I get it just fine n/t

[Hannah Bell]

24. where's that error, duder? you must not get it, since you can't identify it.

[SDuderstadt]

25. You seem to think that "math"...

is limited to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

[Hannah Bell]

27. dude, there's no error. you're just baiting.

[SDuderstadt]

28. Nope n/t

[SOS]

26. Oligarchy

Pure and simple.