
69 of the Richest 100 Entities on the Planet Are Corporations, Not Governments - em1305
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/10/17/69-richest-100-entities-planet-are-corporations-not-governments-figures-show
======
sytelus
Excel sheet:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Jdgaz_qGg5o0m_6NCU_...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Jdgaz_qGg5o0m_6NCU_L9otur2x1Y5NgbHL26c4rQM)

This is quite fascinating. There are only 9 countries with more revenue than
Walmart! If you think of a President/Prime Minister as equivalent to CEO
running the entity, this would mean that politicians are downright most
inefficient executives that there are and our various politic systems as well
extreme resource hogs. Consider the fact on average each individual
unquestionably commits a significant portion of their incomes to their
political system and still they can't match an efficient business.

~~~
ethiclub
It could be seen as a little disingenuous to label politicians as 'inefficient
executives' from this comparison - For many reasons, e.g.

\- Nations have more complex systems, due to more entities - e.g. 1 million -
1 billion citizens).

\- rev / profit is a goal for both states and organisations, but in vastly
different ways. The state also arguably has many more goals and
responsibilities

\- Organisations have fewer voices demanding a say. Most states are being
pulled in many different directions (military coups, lobbyists and industries,
espionage, protests, votes, multiple parties, party in-fighting is more
emotional & passionate, etc.)

\- You can't 'fire' citizens as readily as employees

This comparison is also interesting when thinking from a 'power' angle
(definitely runs into similar 'apples to oranges' comparison issues though).

------
otriv
This is fairly obvious. In order for a government to have a large income,
there must be large corporations. The larger the government income, the larger
the corporations. Not all countries will be large, therefore the largest
government (in terms of revenue) will have many, many companies larger than
smaller governments.

I suppose it's an interesting headline to read.

~~~
anotheryou
But knowing the causality doesn't make it less daunting to me

