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USSR:
1989 GDP: $2.7 trillion in 1989 dollars. By this calculator that would be $5.4 trillion today, and that's not touching nominal/PPP issues (or fake Soviet statistics issues).
1990 population: 291 million, with 152 million workers.
Economic activity: everything from farming to space probes.
Wal-Mart:
2018 sales: $500 billion in 2018 dollars. Or $514 billion, for the fiscal year ending in Jan 2019.
2019 employees: 2.2 million.
Economic activity: a whole lot of super-sized grocery stores and distribution trucks.
Why am I posting this? Because people are praising some book that one reviewer says claims "we are now surrounded by companies and organisations that are as large or larger than the USSR at its apex", and I want to inoculate people against bad ideas. Given that 10% of my USSR GDP is still bigger than Wal-Mart...
1989 GDP: $2.7 trillion in 1989 dollars. By this calculator that would be $5.4 trillion today, and that's not touching nominal/PPP issues (or fake Soviet statistics issues).
1990 population: 291 million, with 152 million workers.
Economic activity: everything from farming to space probes.
Wal-Mart:
2018 sales: $500 billion in 2018 dollars. Or $514 billion, for the fiscal year ending in Jan 2019.
2019 employees: 2.2 million.
Economic activity: a whole lot of super-sized grocery stores and distribution trucks.
Why am I posting this? Because people are praising some book that one reviewer says claims "we are now surrounded by companies and organisations that are as large or larger than the USSR at its apex", and I want to inoculate people against bad ideas. Given that 10% of my USSR GDP is still bigger than Wal-Mart...