A closer look
Walmart generates such a staggering amount of annual revenue that if the massive retail corporation were recognized as an independent sovereign nation, it would boast a gross domestic product larger than most countries on Earth. With roughly half a trillion dollars flowing through its registers every single year, this purveyor of discounted toilet paper and off-brand electronics possesses more sheer economic power than entire continents combined. It paints a deeply dystopian picture of late-stage capitalism when a single store offering greeters in blue vests and aggressively bright fluorescent lighting is financially outperforming the economies of Sweden, Belgium, and Argentina. The fact that an empire built entirely on selling three-dollar t-shirts and enormous tubs of mayonnaise can rival the wealth of developed nations is the most violently American statistic imaginable
