Yahoo! (YHOO) announced earnings yesterday. The company’s forecast for the current quarter was weak. Many investors wanted to hear what new CEO Carol Bartz would say. She did not say anything, at least not anything new.

The Yahoo! earnings were the top story at many financial sites and in business sections of newspapers. The firm’s fight for independence against Microsoft (MSFT) and it potential alliances with AOL and Google (GOOG) have kept readers fascinated.

Buried somewhere "below the fold" of most of the business media was a story that GE (GE) may face a downgrade from Moody’s of its valuable Triple-A rating. GE CEO Jeff Immelt recently said that the conglomerate would do everything it can to keep both that rating and pay it dividend. Because of weakening assets at GE Capital, one or the other will most likely have to go.

Yahoo! is a fairly small company. It had sales of about $1.5 billion in the last quarter. It has 13,000 workers and a market cap of $15 billion. GE does business in almost every country in the world and most important sectors of the economy. Even with its stock near a 52-week low, it has a market cap of $136 billion and employs more than 200,000 people. Because the reach of its businesses is so broad, it is the global economy in a bottle.

The overblown interest in Yahoo! should go away now. If the company folds, the US economy will barely notice it. Other websites will get most of its revenue and employees. It won’t matter.

GE is still one of the flagships of American business. It just doesn’t seem that way anymore.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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