America's Most Admired Companies

Fortune Magazine just released its list of most admired companies. It ranks nearly 600 companies using these eight ranking variables:

-Innovation
-Employee talent
-Use of corporate assets
-Social responsibility
-Quality of management
-Financial soundness
-Long-term investment value
-Quality of products/services

The top ten are:

1. Wal-Mart (Give me a break!)
2. Berkshire Hathaway
3. Southwest Airlines
4. General Electric
5. Dell
6. Microsoft
7. Johnson and Johnson
8. Starbucks
9. FedEx
10. IBM

Commentary: Obviously keeping U.S. jobs onshore was not one of the ranking criteria used, otherwise half of the top ten list would disappear.