Top 500 U.S. Manufacturing Firms Had Sales in 2010 of $4.5 Trillion, Greater Than Germany's GDP

IndustryWeek recently released its 2010 annual report for the 500 largest publicly held U.S. manufacturing companies based on revenue.  Here are some factoids:

1. The combined sales revenue (including global sales) of the top 500 U.S.-based manufacturing for 2010 was $4.55 trillion.  To put that in perspective, that amount of revenue would put that group of U.S. manufacturing companies between the entire $5.4 trillion GDP of Japan in 2010 (world's third largest economy) and the $3.3 trillion GDP of Germany in 2010 (world's fourth largest economy).  

2. The top ten largest U.S. manufacturing companies (Exxon, Chevron, GE, Conoco, Ford, H-P, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, ADM and Boeing) had combined revenues of $1.3 trillion, almost as much as Spain's GDP in 2010 of $1.374 trillion.  

3. By manufacturing industry, "Computers and Other Electronic Products" (HP, IBM, etc.) was the second largest sector with almost $600 billion of sales behind #1 ranked Petroleum and Coal Products (Exxon, etc.), chemicals (Proctor & Gamble, Dow) was #3 with $387 billion in sales, pharmaceuticals was #5 (Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, etc.), aerospace and defense was #6 (Boeing, etc.). 

4. The company ranked #500 for 2010 was Polymer Group with $883 million in sales, so there are probably thousands of additional medium- and small-sized manufacturers in U.S. that employ thousands of employees and with annual revenues below $883 million, but that generate billions of additional dollars in sales for American manufacturers. 

And yet don't we hear all the time about the decline of U.S. manufacturing, and how "nothing is made here any more?"