Inside the kerfuffle over GM CEO's pay package

GM is hamstrung by its relationship with the U.S. government - but not for long.

By Doron Levin

FORTUNE -- Pity poor Dan Akerson, chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors Co.

Not only does he earn a third of what his peers in Detroit are paid to run global automobile companies, he gets beaten up by the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives that issued the (seemingly false) report MORE

Vitol tops $300 billion in revenue

Oil giant Vitol would rank higher than Chevron on the Fortune Global 500 list if it were public.

By Brian O'Keefe, assistant managing editor

FORTUNE -- The world's largest independent oil trader, the Vitol Group, has surpassed $300 billion in revenues for the first time.

According to results released on Thursday by Vitol, which is privately held, the trading giant's gross sales reached $303 billion in 2012. That figure was up modestly MORE

Dozens of big U.S. companies to back gay marriage

Scores of corporations will file a Supreme Court brief favoring gay marriage later this week. Signatories will include Apple, Facebook, Intel, and Morgan Stanley.

By Roger Parloff

FORTUNE -- On Thursday, dozens of American corporations, including Apple, Alcoa, Facebook, eBay, Intel, and Morgan Stanley will submit an amicus brief in the landmark Hollingsworth v. Perry case broadly arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that laws banning same-sex marriages, like California's ballot MORE

What Allen Edmonds learned selling high-end shoes in China

What do Chinese consumers want? American fashion, says the CEO of shoemaker Allen Edmonds.

By Anne VanderMey and Brian Dumaine

FORTUNE -- For almost a century, Allen Edmonds has been making high-end men's dress shoes. Every President from Reagan to Obama has worn the brand. Now the $122 million-a-year company, which is headquartered in Port Washington, Wis., is turning East in search of new markets. The company, whose dress shoes (think MORE

U.S. Liqour Industry (Fortune 1931)

Its paradox is its normalcy ... With diversified outlets, its production and consumption are nicely balanced ... If legalized, it would employ few more men unless it could enlarge its markets. Below, an unprejudiced survey. Editors note: Every Sunday Fortune publishes a relevant story from our magazine archives. This week, as Anheuser-Bush InBev began talks the U.S. Justice Department to resolve antitrust concerns over the beer maker's planned  deal with Grupo Modelo, MORE

Meet Cass Sunstein - Obama's superego

In Simpler: The Future of Government, former White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein argues that government rules can encourage healthier behavior.

By Tory Newmyer, writer

FORTUNE -- It's an article of faith among conservatives that President Obama scratches his itch for bigger government by imposing job-killing rules on businesses as fast as his administration can dream them up. Mitt Romney invoked it frequently on the campaign trial, asserting that regulations had MORE

Paris tempts Hollywood

Recession-deep France is trying to lure the filmmakers of Tinseltown with big tax breaks.

By Vivienne Walt

FORTUNE -- Parisians cherish le cinéma and, come Oscar season, relish watching their city play backdrop to award winners. It's a pity that many of the scenes are not, in fact, filmed in Paris. In Martin Scorsese's Hugo (five Oscars in 2012), the 12-year-old hero lives in Montparnasse station, but the set was erected MORE

The U.S.'s $4.4 billion surplus with China

Tourists from China are the new big spenders. Are U.S. companies ready for them?

By Mina Kimes, writer

FORTUNE -- Halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the Tanger outlet mall appeared in the distance, its towering sign beckoning like an oasis. The people on our bus started to titter with excitement. I was sitting with 52 Chinese tourists, mostly elderly retirees from Shanghai, and very few of them spoke English. MORE

The Vatican's finances (Fortune 1987)

This venerable institution, its bureaucracy swollen and its image hurt by scandal, is strapped for cash. Pope John Paul II is pressing his cardinals to find a solution.

Editors note: Every Sunday Fortune publishes a relevant story from our magazine archives. This week, as Pope Benedict XVI prepares to hand the reins to a new leader of the Catholic Church, we turn to a 1987 investigation into the Vatican's finances. 

By Shawn Tully

FORTUNE MORE

The daily grind that brings order to work

In The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office, Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan take a look at what works at work and why.

By Erika Fry, reporter

FORTUNE -- Ray Fisman, Columbia Business School professor, and Tim Sullivan, editorial director of the Harvard Business Review close their book The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office with a serenity prayer attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

God grant me MORE