The Big Business

For some reason I've been thinking about companies and firms and corporations recently.

Maybe its because I've time to think about this everytime I lug another box of ceramic tiles into the carpark or cut lino without cutting my fingers.

Where does the money go?
Who gets to see the profit?
Who is the owner?
Who cares?


Anyway, there I was in my pre-work stupor reading the Irish Independent when an article caught my eye.

It said that for the first time in a decade the largest company in the world was a European firm, namely Royal Dutch Shell with an annual revenue of $ 458 000 000 000.

Or 3550 Ronaldo.

So then I got to thinking
If I got a list of GDP for all the countries in the world how many countries would that be starting from the bottom up, bearing in mind that I did maths up to GCSE and never did business studies - but so what, sure what else would you do on a Saturday morning?

So Royal Dutch Shell = $ 458 000 000 000

which going by the World Bank list on Wikipedia and my amateur calculations is roughly equal to the 2008 GDP of



Bahrain,
Jamaica
Uganda
Gabon
Zambia
Honduras
Senegal
Botswana
Georgia
Nepal
Albania
Armenia
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Brunei
Republic of the Congo
Afghanistan
Mozambique
Cambodia
Republic of Macedonia
Madagascar
Mali
Mauritius
Namibia
Chad
Papua New Guinea
Burkina Faso
Malta
Haiti
The Bahamas
Benin
Nicaragua
Moldova
Bermuda
Laos
Niger
Mongolia
Tajikistan
Montenegro
Rwanda
Kyrgyzstan
Malawi
Guinea
Fiji
Zimbabwe
Barbados
Suriname
Mauritania
Togo
Swaziland
Central African Republic
Sierra Leone
Cape Verde
San Marino
Eritrea
Lesotho
Belize
Bhutan
Maldives
Antigua and Barbuda
Burundi
Guyana
Saint Lucia
Djibouti
Liberia
Seychelles
The Gambia
Solomon Islands
Grenada
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Vanuatu
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Comoros
Samoa
East Timor
Guinea-Bissau
Dominica
Tonga
Micronesia
Palau
São Tomé and Príncipe
Marshall Islands
Kiribati


There are also 7 oil companies in the Top 10 largest companies (by money).
I think that's mad, though probably very obvious when you think about it - in one way the institution with the biggest influence on our daily lives is probably the oil industry.

Maybe you could call it an Empire?