by frog
Found a fantastic Wikipedia page t’other day, thought I would put it out on a lily pad for people to appreciate. It’s a list of the world’s largest corporations and how much they’re worth.
Crazy numbers until you compare them to this page which is a list of all the countries of the world and their GDPs.
you can see that the world’s largest corporation, ExxonMobil with a market capitalisation of US $430 billion is four times bigger than the New Zealand economy and larger than other countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia (which has a population of 235 million people!). Less impressive is third on the list, Microsoft (US$272 Billion) but which is still bigger than other countries like Greece, Chile and Pakistan, the latter of which has nuclear weapons.
In fact there are 53 companies larger than New Zealand, including Coca-Cola, Vodafone, IBM and Nestle.Â
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Thu, November 1st, 2007
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Comparing GDP to Market Capitalisation is not really apples and apples,
Market Capitalisation is the Value of all of the shares in the company, i.e what would be required to purchase all the *Assets* of the Company,
A Country’s GDP is the Value of Everything *produced* in a country in a single year (less imports), It does not measure the value of the infrastructure assets used to produce these Goods and Services,
A better comparison for comparing companies to countries would be to look at revenue and compare that to a countries GDP, The Oil Companies still come out with some huge figures, but the comparison is better, ie Coca-cola only has sales of 24 Billion US pesos.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
The oil companies’ revenues come to about US$2 trillion: over $300 for every man, woman and child.
More surprising is the lack of automobile manufacturers in the list.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
The oil companies’ revenues come to about US$2 trillion: over $300 for every man, woman and child.
Impressive! Makes you wonder how much better run our Governments would be if our civil servants were hired from the ranks of oil companies
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Frog!
Bless your little green wellies!
I thought everyone knew that NZ was a banana republic, GDP-wise, and could (and has…) be bought and sold by many of the major MNC’s busily globalising capitalist control of production, profit and poverty.
XYY
The profit is in resource extraction using underpaid menial labour in the country of origin, not in producing over-large steel lumps in Mainland USA, where the car manufacturers have to deal with the Steelworker’s Union.
Duncan Bayne
Oil companies pay far better, and require more loyalty and security of information from their staff, than the government offers to civil servants. NZ especially couldn’t afford to compete with corporate-sector salaries to lure these exec’s out of their gold-plated jobs!
Hence the phrase “corporate greed”, when attatched to the salaries of management levels within that industry.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Memo to Katie
In case you missed it, socialism collapsed in the late 80’s, funnily enough the people did not like it.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Hence the phrase “corporate greed�, when attatched to the salaries of management levels within that industry.
I don’t quite follow you there. You say that a higher standard is demanded of corporate management than of civil servants … and yet their commensurately higher salaries represent “corporate greed?”
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
What a bizarre post comparing corporation’s capital value to our GDP. We are a little country, get over it. I can only conclude that the poster has opinions similar to the politics of envy like katie. Actually duncan’s suggetion is a damn good one because we could replace the politicians and half the bureacracy by a smaller number of really good managers and actually save a heap of money that we could put into cleaning up our dirty act.
But keep talking yourselves below the 5% cutoff green(with envy)s…..
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
because we could replace the politicians and half the bureacracy by a smaller number of really good managers
Sadly, my post was tongue in cheek – because you could take a small number of really good managers, immerse them in the public sector ethos, and they’d either be paralyzed & unable to work their magic due to the red tape, bureaucracy & PC BS, or worse, wind up exactly like those around them.
My wife left the public sector for the private for pretty much that reason – she once told me about being taken to task by her manager for using the word ‘fail’ in a report she presented describing the – wait for it – outright failure of a new initiative.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Oh yes, this is all so bad. These companies are all pure evil because they are rich. I know the solution: Steal their wealth, the socialist solution to all known problems! Of course being successful and wealthy makes you evil and an enemy of all well-minded people, and everyone else who thinks otherwise is a facist pig!!!
If anything the relative success of these companies over governments is a good argument for more privitisation. Duncan gives a great example of the difference between the public and private run organisations. Private ones are well run and streamlined, and will always tell it like it is because denial of the truth will only lose more money. Public ones often become self serving in their red tape style way of doing things, and make poor decisions because they have no incentive to do otherwise. The left often ridicules company CEO’s for geeting too much, yet companys spend a lot less paying administration then the public sector.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Duncan Bayne: There is merit in employing good managers in government departments. However, if you’re interested in good environmental policies, I’m not sure if you’d necessarily want to employ managers from ExxonMobil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Have those 53 companies larger than New Zealand been asked to sign up to the Kyoto protocol, on the basis that they are bigger than many of the countries that have signed up and therefore can contribute just as much to combatting AGW. Or might that lead to the embarassing discovery that most of these multinationals may already have done better than many nations?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
katie, and that is why Ford and GM are on the verge of bankruptcy, along with most of the mass-market German and Italian carmakers.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
so if revenues provide the better measure of companies against countries, has someone compiled that list – biggest companies in order of revenue? if so where can we see it?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I think this issue of private managers in the public service ignores a key issue. Sure a private sector manager may be able to bring new skills and views, but the real advantage I see in the private sector is their ability to have a single focus and vision on advancing their corporate welfare. The PS on the other hand has to juggle a range of political, legal and public issues, so cannot be anywhere near as decisive in their actions.
samiuela
Valdez was nearly 20 years ago. Exxon’s considered to have the best environment and safety standards in the industry these days and others are attempting to emulate their approach as a result. You might be more relevant pointing the finger at more recent events by the supposedly greenest oil company BP which, curiously enough, tends to be the favoured oil company advisor to the govt – see their local CEO being on the ETS advisory group.
Kevyn
You may be right on performance but of course companies are subject to local laws, so in NZ they have to perform to local standards such as buying ETS credits, not building gas or coal plants and using biofuels.
Andrew
Try Fortune magazine, they have a range of lists. One might be on revenue.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
actually wikipedia have a revenue list too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
with exxon walmart shell bp & general motors in the top 5
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
># Kevyn Says:
>November 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 am
>katie, and that is why Ford and GM are on the verge of bankruptcy, along with most of the mass-market German and Italian carmakers.
I thought the German carmakers were doing quite well. Anyway, if unions were the problem you’d expect it to be the French carmakers that were nearly bankrupt. The fact that Renault was able to buy a 40% stake in Nissan suggests to me that they’re doing ok.
The main problems with the US carmakers are:
(1) their technology is out of date, because they pay all their profits to shareholders whereas the Japanese companies invest their profits in research and development.
(2) Japanese and some European companies have done a good job of working out what american car buyers want, but the American companies never thought to find out what would make their cars popular anywhere except at home, so they lose market share at home, and can’t recoup it abroad.
(3) they committed to providing health insurance for their retired workers, and now it’s bankrupting them (and it’s also the thing most likely to lead to a collapse of the US’s privatised healthcare system). They would have done okay if they had contracted an insurance firm to provide health insurance for their workers, but they thought they were being clever by doing it themselves.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Insider,
You are right. Often it takes an accident for organisations to improve. No doubt the Exxon Valdez accident resulted in many changes within ExxonMobil.
You raise an interesting point about BP. When I go to work, there are ads at the train station by BP claiming that they reduced their CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels in 2001. No doubt this is true, if you just consider the emissions from their refineries etc. I think this is a good example of “green washing”, and makes me extremely cynical about BP. If one considers the CO2 emissions from the use of BP’s products, I can’t believe that the CO2 emissions are now below 1990 levels.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Interesting discussion here:
“The people in power are part of the moneyed elite, the corporate sector, and they take their marching orders from major corporations,” Rees said. “Nobody in Ottawa is willing to confront Alberta or the major oil companies, to whom we’ve sold off our natural assets. The automotive companies have enormous political clout because of the huge employment associated with them. And the fact they have continued to build totally market-stupid automobiles and are getting run out of the country is already panicking the politicians.”
http://www.straight.com/article-116431/prof-says-politicians-blinkered -on-peak-oil
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Looking at business size, it’s instructive to add the place of co-ops and mutuals to this discussion: there’s a list of the world’s 300 top cooperatively run businesses online with no less than six NZ cooperatives in the list. Between them, these six co-ops are responsible for 14% of NZ GDP.
Also, these 300 cooperatives are similar in size to the economy of Canada, the world’s 9th largest country.
The list is at
http://www.global300.coop/
Makes me wonder what might be possible if there were state support for people wanting to start co-ops…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
ExxonMobil is likely to be surpassed by the PetroChina public offering and growth in the next year.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Samiuela
I haven’t seen the BP ads but I wodner if they are focusing on carbon intensity rather than absolute volume. They might be saying they emit less co2 now for every barrel of oil they produce, and not mentioning they produce many more barrels than they did.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Googles capitalisation is USD $212 Billion.With that much money they must be evil. Are the Greens going to ban Google like McDonalds now?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
>>if there were state support for people wanting to start co-ops
Curious far-left approach to business. If the demand is there, why wait for “state support” (read: taxpayer subsidy)? Simply convince investors of the business case, supply the demand, and everyone is happy.
Not confident? Ask “why”….
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Roman, how big do companies have to get before the opinions of governments become an irrelevance? What is the point of democracy when governments have no power? Do you object to democracy? I am personally nervous about one company controlling the flow of almost all information in the future, try searching for “search engine will take over the world”…sorry, no results.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Wrong worry Tom, Wrong worry Roman
The worry is to what degree we are vulnerable to the sudden nationalization of Google under the Homeland Security act, with all the e-mail archives being subject to search and THEN all the content censored out of the search engine.
We’d need methods of getting at websites without the backbone servers in the USA as well. DNS queries for banned sites would fail, and sites in the US would likely get permanently shut off.
The problem is not “Google” the problem is monopoly and concentration of power…
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
“Curious far-left approach to business. If the demand is there, why wait for “state supportâ€? (read: taxpayer subsidy)? Simply convince investors of the business case, supply the demand, and everyone is happy.”
Lol. Hardly restricted to the far left PEL. Like the 150 BILLION dollars that the far-right capitalists cost the US taxpayer or the billions that the European Union disperses to their corporations and agri-industrialists.
Besides without government intervention we would be able to use a personal computer, let alone the internet.
http://www.news.com/Research-money-crunch-in-the-U.S.—page-2/2100-1008 _3-5938451-2.html?tag=st.num
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
bjchip
Nope tom tom is right to worry. We have no need to worry about Google being nationalised in the current political climate, but rather worry as to what extent that core functions of government are being privitised.
I highly recommend you read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
BTW, If google are willing to censor in collaboration with the Chinese government, its not much of a stretch to believe that they’re willing to do so for the US government despite their assurances to the contrary.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
SleepyTreehugger Says:
November 6th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
>Nope tom tom is right to worry. We have no need to worry about Google being nationalised in the current political climate, but rather worry as to what extent that core functions of government are being privitised.
I think nationalisation is the wrong demon to be worried about here. The Nazis didn’t nationalise manufacturing companies, but they did sell them the services of concentration camp slave labour. One of the biggest users of slave labour by jews in concentration camps was the Ford motor company, which wasn’t even German – it was owned and managed from a country that was never allied with the Nazis, and came to be at war with them. Corrupt relationships between governments and businesses have almost nothing to do with whether or not the businesses are owned or controlled by the governments (though having the businesses privately owned by individuals who are part of the government does seem to be a recipe for corruption).
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
David Round wrote this article in The Press today:
Already our champagne tastes are supported only be a chardonnay income. Soon we will not even have that. Our present rapidly-crumbling health and education systems will be completely unaffordable. So will social welfare. Yet only social welfare, state houses, health care and the rest could pacify the growing underclass of unemployed. There will be riots, if not worse. Then there will have to be either repression or chaos. Government will be a demanding job.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4263086a22215.html
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Perhaps “nationalization” is interpreted as being some different word when it is done for “National Security Reasons” than when it is done as some sort of anti-capitalist political arrangement. Perhaps there are other ways in which the state can corrupt the relationship so as to gain the critical control. The point is that the power of that monopolistic lock on the net exists and it is not in the control of some people who appear to simply want to control everything.
The fascist streak in the current administration has not finished with us.
http://tinyurl.com/yvy7r6
Since it isn’t “Nationalization” the way that’s usually bandied about, with a left wing government pouncing on some corporation for reasons of money. It’s a fascist government co-opting a corporation for reasons of power. Might not even look like it happened if it happened. A little arm twisting at the top and they own it.
The effect is EXACTLY the same.
So if you want to rubbish my choice of words, feel free. Find me a BETTER one that describes the situation. I’m happy.
Just don’t neglect the danger posed by a government that has taken away Habeas, can’t bring itself to say that Waterboarding is torture, regards the Executive branch to be above the law and thinks little of dragging people who have broken NO laws off airlines and taking away their rights without trial.
Give me a better word.
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Just as an aside which is actually more on-topic, it looks like Citigroup has an exposure to SIV that exceeds its liquidity.. something north of 120 billion dollars. They have some real problems… mark-to-make-believe pricing has put them with a huge lump of immovable debt that could become unacceptable loss.
It’s debt too, so the way the money things work, it can vanish. That 120 billion can simply vanish, in a matter of minutes. If it does and Citi kicks it, we’re all in for a heap of pain but I think they’re going to be “too big to fail” and the fed will bail them out somehow. The bagholders will be the ordinary taxpayers, the honest people, punished once again.
respectfully
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
bjchip
From my understanding it is the corporations and capitalists that run the US government not the other way around and that has been true since the rise of J.P. Morgan, admittadely with a break due to the New Deal Reforms introduced by FDR (who was more of a fascist than the Chicago (School) cowboys of this day. I don’t mean it in derogatory terms, because he was no Hitler or even a Mussolini.
Heres a quote to back that assertion up, which was said by the American “war hero” Smedly Butler.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.”
And for a sobering critique of war read this.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
An excerpt from Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine regarding the outsourcing of core government functions.
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2007/10/outsourcing-government
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Sleepy
Different corporations own different parties. Google isn’t one of the owners of the Neo-con run Republican party. That privileged position is occupied by big oil and defense. Others contribute and get some benefits of it but the privileged positions are taken.
Dems are owned by lawyers, doctors, the union movement still has a miniscule amount of influence, others… the situation has broken down further than one might have imagined it could, and the fiefdoms and corruptions are far past anything covered by generic considerations of how capitalism breaks down and I would have to examine things sector by sector to make it understandable at this level of detail. “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard” would be an appropriate observation.
The question is whether the movement towards a fascist state can and will be stopped in a country where the bulk of the ruling party doesn’t understand evolution and the bulk of the population can’t be bothered, or is simply too broke to pay attention.
My fellow-countrymen have become bulk-ignorant zombies, incapable of governing themselves in the way the country was envisioned and the doom that Jefferson and Franklin foresaw is falling on them from a great height.
The best thing would be a complete shutdown of the television. At least 3 nights or more a week with NO “glass-teat” to feed their infantile thought processes.
Hmmm… the idea has much to recommend it for this country as well
The question is not whether it is going to get seriously ugly, the question is what the collateral damage bill is going to be.
respectfully
BJ
respectfully
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
bjchip Says:
November 6th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
>Perhaps “nationalization� is interpreted as being some different word when it is done for “National Security Reasons� than when it is done as some sort of anti-capitalist political arrangement. Perhaps there are other ways in which the state can corrupt the relationship so as to gain the critical control. The point is that the power of that monopolistic lock on the net exists and it is not in the control of some people who appear to simply want to control everything.
>The fascist streak in the current administration has not finished with us.
>http://tinyurl.com/yvy7r6
>Since it isn’t “Nationalization� the way that’s usually bandied about, with a left wing government pouncing on some corporation for reasons of money. It’s a fascist government co-opting a corporation for reasons of power. Might not even look like it happened if it happened. A little arm twisting at the top and they own it.
>The effect is EXACTLY the same.
No it’s not. It’s quite different. When a corporation is nationalised the government is the shareholder, and directs the company to do what it wants. It is also seen by voters to be in control of the company, so it is held responsible by voters for what it tells the company to do. This may be good (gives the company a social conscience) or it may be bad (leads to the company being run inefficiently for political gain) but it is not corrupt.
The sort of melding of power I was describing just as commonly leads to the government being manipulated into doing what is in the interests of the company or the company’s shareholders. It can also lead to collusion between the politicians and business leaders to do things that benefit both at the expense of everyone else. Because the government is not a shareholder in these corporations (though individual members of the government may be), the government doesn’t have to accept responsibility for what the corporations do, even if it did go out of its way to let them do it.
There was a word for this sort of cosy relationship between business and government. Mussolini coined a word in the 1920s – he called it Fascisme (anglicised to fascism). Funnily enough, the word seems to have developed pejorative connotations since then.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
This is silly to argue about. It’s partly the level at which one wishes to do the analysis.
The end result is the government controlling access to information by taking control of the pre-eminent web search engine on the planet. This is the case no matter whether it becomes a shareholder or simply uses an iron fist.
I do not care if the government employs alien telepaths from an alternate dimension to mind control the owners of the corporation, the end result is government control of that corporation and a government stranglehold on the flow of information.
That result is the result I am describing as “the same”. Of course there are differences outside that sameness, but I called it nationalization for want of a better word. I am still looking for the better word, because the ACT of taking control is not fascism… it is in this case an act of some fascist wannabees but the word isn’t correct.
I really think we’ve been talking at cross purposes.
IS there a word for this? Really, or is it indeed something new in the wide world?
Effectively it would be a direct and involuntary takeover of Google the Department of Homeland Security who are controlled by the Neocon lunatics running the administration who in turn are wholly owned subsidiaries of the oil industry and the defense industry… but the motivation here isn’t monetary. It is related to power itself.
The end point is that the existence of a concentration of power over information flow like Google is, and must be recognized as, an enormous temptation to people who have already shredded the Constitution and sentenced over a hundred thousand people to death for daring to live on top of an oil reserve. Google is vulnerable to that sort of government takeover. The WEB is vulnerable in several other respects as well.
I actually don’t think there’s a word for it. Nor would it work that well with Google because word would get out… I hope.. and as soon as most of us knew, the mind share that Google gets would go towards zero… but it would take years to create a viable replacement that performed as well without access to the US market and US servers.
respectfully
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Talk about privitising core government functions. Check this news story out. From the neo-cons propoganda organ Washington Post!
PRIVATE SPIES
Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007 070601993.html
Feckin scary eh?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)