If By Bigger, You Mean Smaller, Then I Agree

The New York Times should be published in crayon. Here is David Brooks:

The contrast is clearest in the energy sector. In the democratic capitalist world we have oil companies, like Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, that make money for shareholders.

In the state capitalist world there are government-run enterprises like Gazprom, Petrobras, Saudi Aramco, Petronas, Petróleos de Venezuela, China National Petroleum Corporation and the National Iranian Oil Company. These companies create wealth for the political cliques, and they, in turn, have the power of the state behind them.

With this advantage, state energy companies have been absolutely crushing the private-sector energy companies. In America, we use the phrase Big Oil to describe Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others. But that just shows how parochial we are. In fact, none of these private companies make it on a list of the world’s top 13 energy companies.

Do I even have to say it. The world's largest company is Royal Dutch Shell. ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Total, and ConocoPhillips are all bigger than the largest "state" rival, China National. Oh, and here is a ranking by market cap, in which some of the state-owned companies fare a bit better, but the big "multinationals" ExxonMobil, RDS, BP, Chevron, and Total all make the top 13. WHAT THE FUCK IS DAVID BROOKS TALKING ABOUT?

I'm not even going to climb on my hobbyhorse to lecture about how the west practices state capitalism just as much as China or Russia. You've heard it before. The only point of this post is to say that David Brooks is a columnist at the top newspaper in the United States of America and he does not know how to make The Google!