Largest North Carolina Companies Second Half of 2019 Total Pretax Income Declines By 9% From the Second Half of 2018 And the First Half of 2019 Total Pretax Income Declines By 1% From the First Half of 2018. Three of the Four Quarters of 2019 Had Pretax Earnings Declines From 2018.

There are 13 North Carolina Companies with stock market caps above $10 bil recently.  One of these 13 has not released its December 2019 quarter earnings yet.    That leaves 12.

From a review of SEC filings, below are the Gold-Standard US GAAP Pretax Income (Loss) From Continuing Operations for the remaining 12 largest North Carolina Companies in each of the four quarters of both 2019 and 2018.

		US	US			US	US			US	US			US	US
		GAAP	GAAP			GAAP	GAAP			GAAP	GAAP			GAAP	GAAP
		Pretax	Pretax			Pretax	Pretax			Pretax	Pretax			Pretax	Pretax
		Income	Income			Income	Income			Income	Income			Income	Income
		(Loss)	(Loss)			(Loss)	(Loss)			(Loss)	(Loss)			(Loss)	(Loss)
		Dec	Dec			Sept	Sept			June	June			March	March
North Carolina Largest Companies		Quarter	Quarter			Quarter	Quarter			Quarter	Quarter			Quarter	Quarter
Market Caps Above $10 Bil		2019	2018			2019	2018			2019	2018			2019	2018
		mils $	mils $			mils $	mils $			mils $	mils $			mils $	mils $
Bank of America	Charlotte	8,169	8,698			6,859	8,994			8,959	8,498			8,767	8,394
Lowes	Mooresville	1,381	804			2,212	2,010			1,255	1,305			(725)	944
Truist Financial	Charlotte	879	1,010			1,046	1,049			1,119	1,024			975	977
Duke Energy	Charlotte	709	433			1,511	1,230			889	607			988	803
V F Corp	Greensboro	540	495			561	486			124	69			176	294
Ingersoll Rand plc	Davidson	352	377			552	530			589	587			249	167
IQVIA Holdings	Durham	96	104			69	51			78	88			109	85
Martin Marietta Materials	Raleigh	156	116			239	238			239	238			38	12
Nucor Corp	Charlotte	178	877			380	923			535	914			690	516
Laboratory Corp of America	Burlington	293	215			287	500			270	313			255	242
Old Dominion Freight Line	Thomasville	190	217			218	229			236	221			180	147
Qorvo	Greensboro	183	71			102	33			45	(62)			50	(44)
Total all 12 North Carolina Companies		13,126	13,417			14,036	16,273			14,338	13,802			11,752	12,537
….. % Change From Prior Year Quarter		-2%				-14%				4%				-6%
Pretax Income Four Quarters 2019	53,252
Pretax Income Four Quarters 2018	56,029
….. % Change From Prior Year Period		-5%
Second Half 2019	27,162
Second Half 2018	29,690
….. % Change From Prior Year Period		-9%
First Half 2019	26,090
First Half 2018	26,339
….. % Change From Prior Year Period		-1%

Such weak earnings signal unhealthy future pay raises for the many already underpaid North Carolina non-executive employees.

North Carolina Company non-executive workers really have had the deck stacked against them for decades versus what is going on with the sky-high annual percentage pay and employee benefit raises of their Companies' Top-Tier Executives.

So which 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate could best help close this massive annual percentage pay raise gap between North Carolina Company Top-Tier executives and their already massively underpaid, hardworking North Carolina non-executive employees?

More than anything needed to solve this thorny problem is to possess exceptionally strong financial and data science skills, coupled with a keen understanding of how businesses operate.  And you also must have a high degree of  economic fairness. 

Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar all have little if any financial acumen, no data science understanding and little if any understanding of how businesses operate.

Further, all four of them worked for the US Government, particularly in the past ten years, when these comparative pay raise results of Top-Tier Executives and non-executive employees were so horrendous, not just in North Carolina but also in every other US State.  

On the positive side, all four of them have a high degree of economic fairness.

Michael Bloomberg has both the financial acumen and the understanding of how businesses operate.  

But he has no data science expertise. 

Also and most important of all, Bloomberg has a low degree of economic fairness.  In the many years he was accumulating his wealth of $60+ bil, US income inequality expanded dramatically in each year by leaps and bounds.  So, like many US business tycoons with their sole fixation on maximization of Company profits, Bloomberg accumulated his massive wealth on the backs of the declining US middle class and the growing number of people dropped to the lower economic class.  And by his punitively racial "Stop and Frisk" policy, many New York City people of color were physically thrown against the wall.

And while he was accumulating his massive amount of wealth, Bloomberg was against unions.

I think there is only one Democratic Presidential candidate who has the requisite financial acumen, data science skills, understanding of how business operate and economic fairness to help turn the tide around on this massive, continuing US income inequality expansion caused mainly by the massive gap in annual percentage pay raises between executive and non-executive employees  ..... Pete Buttigieg.