KEY POINTS:
Forbes magazine's list of the global top 2000 public companies and the associated articles make for very interesting reading - it's all free to read on the web here.
What becomes fairly plain when you scan the top of the list is that oil and gas and
banking are generating the big revenue and profit numbers around the world - ExxonMobil listed at number 7 had revenue of US$359 billion and profit of US$39.50 billion in the last financial year. At number 8, Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell had revenue of US$319 billion and profit of $25.4 billion.
Those are staggering numbers, likely to raise the ire of anyone who has to fill their car up on a regular basis. Consider this for instance - Exxon's sales in one year exceed those of Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Google, Cisco, Ebay, Yahoo, Symantec, EDS, Computer Sciences, CA, Expedia, Network Appliances and Electronic Arts combined.
Outside of oil and gas, it is banking and insurance that makes up the bulk of the wealth generated by the top listed companies in the world. The first tech company appears on the list at number 55 - Hewlett Packard, with $94 billion in revenue and US$6.5 billion in profit. You just can't beat pumping oil and loaning money when it comes to generating big returns.
The two things that threaten to strangle consumers at the moment - the high price of oil and the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, are also the domain of the most profitable public companies in the world.
We'll always need lenders to be able to buy houses and cars, but the Forbes list highlights our need to reduce our dependence on the other big wealth accumulators - the oil giants. Shareholders in BP, Shell or Exxon may see it differently of course.
Telecoms operators do well on the list - many would see them as the oil barons of communications - they keep squeezing money out of us on a regular basis, count most of us as customers and there are only a handful of them in any one market.
According to Forbes, AT&T is the 29th biggest company in the world with revenue of US$63 billion and profit of US$7.4 billion, while Verizon ranks number 38th with revenue of US$88 billion and profit of US$6.2 billion.
New Zealand's sole representative in the top 2000 is Telecom New Zealand, coming in at 1965th place. Australia in contrast has 43 companies on the list two in the top 100 - BHP Billiton and National Australia Bank.
Ireland, a country more comparable in size to ours, has 11 listed companies in the top 2000 in sectors as diverse as banking, construction, drugs and biotech and airlines.
Among the Forbes articles is a spirited defence of globalisation.
"The protesters and do-gooders are just plain wrong," write Forbes' reporters.
"It turns out globalisation is good-and not just for the rich, but especially for the poor. The booming economies of India and China-the Elephant and the Dragon-have lifted 200 million people out of abject poverty in the 1990s as globalisation took off, the International Monetary Fund says. Tens of millions more have catapulted themselves far ahead into the middle class."
