There Must Be a Joke About Market Share Around Here Somewhere
January 22nd, 2012 - 2:08 pm
Apple, Inc. is worth more than Greece, the country. Really:
Only Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) has a higher valuation, at about $420 billion. PetroChina (PTR) is Apple’s closest competitor, at $270 billion, and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) follows at $235 billion.
Apple’s market cap is higher than the gross domestic product of Greece, Austria, Argentina, or South Africa.
I don’t have a mortgage, so I’m pretty sure I’m worth more than Greece.
I’ve got a mortgage, student loans and (thanks to truck troubles) credit card debt. I’m worth more than Greece.
How to make Greece solvent (by treating Greece as a Company)
Step 1. Register the words “Greece” and “Greek” as international copyright protected product names.
Step 2. Sue the living crap out of every fraternity on earth.
Step 3. Patent the process of “Democracy” as “Intellectual Property”.
Step 4. Sue every nation in Europe and the Western Hemisphere for copyright infringement. Nations using Democracy will have to either devolve to monarchical rule, or pay 10 cents per vote on every election for anything( including anything requiring a “show of hands’).
Step 5. Sue England, Germany and France in International Court for return of actual “Property” to Greece. Elgin Marbles, several hundred items in the Louvre, and the Pergammon museum in Berlin all require some form of compensation to Greece 2.0 for the illegal use of their property to make their own country better tourist attractions.
Step 6. Create a new “Greek” End User Legal Agreement. Ensure that it is no less than 14 pages long and only written in the Greek language. All Greek Citizens must have EULA to do anything in Greece 2.0. All vistors of Greece must also sign the EULA when they arrive in Greece.
Step 7. Issue a proxy bid to merge with Albania.
Step 8. Once merger with Albania is complete, reorganize Peloponnese under new “greater Albania” expansion plans. One year later, spin off Albania as a separate “operating entity”.
Step 9. Announce Greece 3.0, excluding all of “Greater Albania” because Greece 3.0 is focusing on its “core functions”.
Step 10. Once all unproductive cities, pension plans and prisoners, political and otherwise are moved to “Greater Albania” as part of the Greece 2.0 National Re-org, have Albania declare bankruptcy. Charge exorbitant rates for former members of Greece 2.0 to repatriate to Greece 3.0. Refer to this as “license fees”, ask those who complain to check their EULA.
Step 11. Work on merger with Club Med Resorts. Offer Dodecanese islands as collateral.
Step 12. Work with Trump on 99 year lease of Parthenon. New “Trump Parthenon” super resort will be slated to go condo in 4 years. Offer to rename Athens “Trump”, and replace the long missing Athena Promachos statue at Parthenon with a Statue of Mr. Trump to sweeten the deal.
See There! Nothing to it. Hire any ex-CEO in Silicon Valley to be the CEO of Greece and you can get this done in 18-24 months, tops.
I love how people think GDP and net worth are the same thing.
My handful of gold and silver mining shares are worth more than Greece. By Easter I expect them to be worth more than Italy. Bankrupt Kodak’s bonds are trading 27% higher than Greece’s. I expect China will buy the Acrpolis soon, unless Trump can get enough backers for it first. Buy and hold, Donald.
Though, on the other hand, Market Cap is basically bullshit, except for noting the price of a notional hostile takeover (and in Apple’s case, telling us that nobody can afford it).
Stock price is a useful indicator of market beliefs, and tells us what kind of money Apple might make if it did a stock issue (which it has no reason at all to do).
Anything else? Meh.