Forbes: World's Most Powerful People

[jimmy olsen]

While all the men on the list are quite powerful or influential, their order is bizarre and several of them don't deserve to be in the top 67 world wide. My answer to the bolded question toward the bottom is a definite no.


The list
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/20/power-09_The-Worlds-Most-Powerful-People_Rank.html?partner=msnbc

Rank   Name   Title   Organization   Age
1    Barack Obama   President    United States of America    48
2    Hu Jintao   President    People's Republic of China    66
3    Vladimir Putin   Prime Minister    Russia    57
4    Ben S. Bernanke   Chairman    Federal Reserve    55
5    Sergey Brin and Larry Page   Founders    Google    36
6    Carlos Slim Helu   Chief executive    Telmex    69
7    Rupert Murdoch   Chairman    News Corp.    78
8    Michael T. Duke   President, CEO and Director    Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.    59
9    Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud   King    Saudi Arabia    85
10    William Gates III   Co-Chair    Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation    54
11    Pope Benedict XVI   Pope    Roman Catholic Church    82
12    Silvio Berlusconi   Prime Minister    Italy    73
13    Jeffery R. Immelt   Chairman    General Electric Company    53
14    Warren Buffett   Chief executive    Berkshire Hathaway    79
15    Angela Merkel   Chancellor    Germany    55
16    Laurence D. Fink   Chairman    BlackRock, Inc.    57
17    Hillary Clinton   Secretary of State    United States of America    62
18    Lloyd C. Blankfein   Chairman    Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.    55
19    Li Changchun   Propaganda Chief    Communist Party of China    65
20    Michael Bloomberg   Mayor & Founder    New York City & Bloomberg LP.    67
21    Timothy Geithner   Secretary    United States Treasury    48
22    Rex W. Tillerson   Chairman    ExxonMo Corp.    57
23    Li Ka-shing   Chairman    Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited and Hutchison Whampoa Limited    81
24    Kim Jong Il   Chairman of National Defense Commission    North Korea    68
25    Jean-Claude Trichet   President    European Central Bank    66
26    Masaaki Shirakawa    Governor     Bank of Japan     60
27    Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan   Managing Director    Abu Dhabi Investment Authority    41
28    Akio Toyoda   Chief executive    Toyota Motor Corporation ADS    53
29    Gordon Brown   Prime Minister    United Kingdom    58
30    James S. Dimon   Chairman    JPMorgan Chase & Company    53
31    Bill Clinton   Former President    United States of America    63
32    William H. Gross   Chief Investment Officer    Pacific Investment Management Company    65
33    Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva   President    Brazil    64
34    Lou Jiwei   Chairman    China Investment Corporation    59
35    Yukio Hatoyama   Prime Minister    Japan    62
36    Manmohan Singh   Prime Minister    India    77
37    Osama bin Laden   Founder    al-Qaeda    52
38    Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani   Prime Minister    Pakistan    57
39    Tenzin Gyatso   Dalai Lama    Tibet    74
40    Ali Hoseini-Khamenei   Grand Ayatollah    Shi'a    70
41    Joaquin Guzman   Drug Trafficker    Sinaloa Cartel    52
42    Igor Sechin   Deputy Prime Minister    Russia    49
43    Dmitry Medvedev   President    Russia    44
44    Mukesh Ambani   Chairman    Reliance Industries Limited    52
45    Oprah Winfrey   Media Personality    The Oprah Winfrey Show    55
46    Benjamin Netanyahu   Prime Minister    Israel    60
47    Dominique Strauss-Kahn   Managing Director    International Monetary Fund    60
48    Zhou Xiaochuan   Governor    People's Bank of China    61
49    John Roberts Jr.   Chief Justice    United States Supreme Court    54
50    Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar   Head    D-Company    53
51    William Keller    Executive Editor     The New York Times     60
52    Bernard Arnault   Chairman    Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy    60
53    Joseph S. Blatter   President    The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)    73
54    Wadah Khanfar   Director-General    Al Jazeera    41
55    Lakshmi Mittal   Chairman    ArcelorMittal ADS    59
56    Nicolas Sarkozy   President    France    54
57    Steve Jobs   Chief executive    Apple, Inc.    54
58    Fujio Mitarai   Chairman    Canon, Inc. ADR    74
59    Ratan Tata   Chairman    Tata Group    71
60    Jacques Rogge   President    International Olympic Committee    67
61    Li Rongrong   Chairman    State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council    65
62    Blairo Maggi   Governor    Mato Grasso    53
63    Robert B. Zoellick   President    World Bank    56
64    Antonio Guterres   High Commissioner for Refugees    United Nations    60
65    Mark John Thompson   Director-General    British Broadcasting Corporation    52
66    Klaus Schwab   Founder    World Economic Forum    71
67    Hugo Chavez   President    Venezuela    55

An explanation of the list.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33859565/ns/business-forbescom/

Obama tops Forbes world's most powerful list
The 67 statesmen, criminals, financiers and others who really run things
By Michael Noer and Nicole Perlroth
updated 7:42 p.m. ET Nov. 11, 2009

"I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies." — Napoleon Bonaparte

Power has been called many things. The ultimate aphrodisiac. An absolute corrupter. A mistress. A violin. But its true nature remains elusive. After all, a head of state wields a very different sort of power than a religious figure. Can one really compare the influence of a journalist to that of a terrorist? And is power unexercised power at all?

In compiling our first ranking of the World's Most Powerful People we wrestled with these questions — and many more — before deciding to define power in four dimensions. First, we asked, does the person have influence over lots of other people? Pope Benedict XVI, ranked 11th on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, or about one-sixth of the world's population, while Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke (No. 8) is the largest private-sector employer in the United States.

Then we assessed the financial resources controlled by these individuals. Are they relatively large compared with their peers'? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at a composite ranking of market capitalization, profits, assets and revenues as reflected on our annual ranking of the World's 2000 Largest Companies. In certain instances, like New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (No. 51), we judged the resources at his disposal compared with others in the industry. For billionaires, like Bill Gates (No. 10), net worth was also a factor.

Next we determined if they are powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 67 slots on our list — one for every 100 million people on the planet — so being powerful in just one area is not enough to guarantee a spot. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways. Take Italy's colorful prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi (No. 12) who is a politician, a media monopolist and owner of soccer powerhouse A.C. Milan, or Oprah Winfrey (No. 45) who can manufacture a best-seller and an American President.

Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.

To calculate the final rankings, five Forbes senior editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power. Those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score, which determined who placed above (or below) whom.

U.S. President Barack Obama emerged, unanimously, as the world's most powerful person, and by a wide margin. But there were a number of surprises. Former President George W. Bush didn't come close to making the final cut, while his predecessor in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, ranks 31st, ahead of a number of sitting heads of government. Apple's Steve Jobs easily made the list, while Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star governor of California (alone, the world's fifth largest economy) did not.

This ranking is intended to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. Is the Dalai Lama (No. 39) really more powerful than the president of France (No. 56)? Do despicable criminals like billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán (No. 41) belong on this list at all? Who did we overlook? What did we get wrong?

© 2009 Forbes.com

[The Larch]

It seems that Forbes doesn't like Europeans, Putin aside. Is Berlusconi the most powerful man in the EU for them? Very tough on Sarkozy, as well.

[Monoriu]

The richest man in Hong Kong is no. 23

[DisturbedPervert]

President of Brazil is more powerful than the leaders of Japan, India, and France?

[Eddie Teach]

They gave money too much weight imo. Berkshire Hathaway and Telmex don't have Security Council vetoes.

[Monoriu]

They gave money too much weight imo. Berkshire Hathaway and Telmex don't have Security Council vetoes.

Li Ka Shing is the richest man in Hong Kong and owner of one of the largest port operating companies in the world, but he is also well-known for his political shyness.  He seldom speaks publicly and almost never gives his personal political views.  He also doesn't support any particular cause financially.  His main ambition is a successful transition of ownership of his vast empire to his son. 

[The Larch]

They gave money too much weight imo. Berkshire Hathaway and Telmex don't have Security Council vetoes.

Li Ka Shing is the richest man in Hong Kong and owner of one of the largest port operating companies in the world, but he is also well-known for his political shyness.  He seldom speaks publicly and almost never gives his personal political views.  He also doesn't support any particular cause financially.  His main ambition is a successful transition of ownership of his vast empire to his son.

That really doesn't fit with their explanation:

Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.

[DisturbedPervert]

That really doesn't fit with their explanation:

Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.

Wiki states he's a noted philanthropist who has pledged to donate over $10 billion

[Warspite]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

[Valdemar]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

They can change reality?

Merkel and Sakorzy lower than Berlusconi is a joke 

No one in their right mind gives Silvio ANY credit.

V

[Grey Fox]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

They own Data on all of us. A fuck ton of data.

[jimmy olsen]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

They can change reality?

Merkel and Sakorzy lower than Berlusconi is a joke 

No one in their right mind gives Silvio ANY credit.

V

He does rule one of the G8 and own major media companies inside it.

[Ed Anger]

37    Osama bin Laden   Founder    al-Qaeda    52

*snort*

[Valdemar]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

They can change reality?

Merkel and Sakorzy lower than Berlusconi is a joke 

No one in their right mind gives Silvio ANY credit.

V

He does rule one of the G8 and own major media companies inside it.

He owns Italian media, he doesn't hold any important seats.. I refer you to the other Euro replies.. NOONE here gives him any credit outside Italy

V

[The Larch]

What are the founders of Google doing so high up? What "power" do they really have?

They can change reality?

Merkel and Sakorzy lower than Berlusconi is a joke 

No one in their right mind gives Silvio ANY credit.

V

He does rule one of the G8 and own major media companies inside it.

Sure, he's a powerful man, but no way in hell he's the most powerful person in the EU, ahead of Merkel, Brown, Sarkozy or Barroso, who isn't even on the list and definitely should.