Stray Hawkeye

I’m not entirely sure what to do with this, but I thought it was interesting.  A while ago, I bookmarked this graphic on Wikipedia:

Source

Mainly, because I thought it was interesting that three of the top five largest (publicly traded) companies in the world are oil companies, and the fifth is a car manufacturer.

Jump forward a year (to the 2008 metrics), and the top four are exactly the same, in the exact same order.  Oh, but who’s in the five slot?  Toyota.  GM was at ninth.  And the rest of the top ten isn’t too short of oil companies either:

1. Wal-Mart
2. Exxon Mobil
3. Shell
4. BP
5. Toyota
6. Chevron
7. ING
8. Total (a European oil company)
9. GM
10. ConocoPhillips

Source: CNN Money via Wikipedia