The World’s Most Powerful People, according to Forbes

The United States President, Barack Obama, added another title to his long list of awards after the Forbes Magazine publish an inaugural list, appointing the world’s most powerful people. The list contains another 66 people, including presidents, executives, big company’s chief executive and founders. The inaugural ranking has one person for each hundred million people at the world.

Forbes justified why Obama was in 1st position using the paragraph “How powerful is he? Let's count the ways: Presides over world's largest, most innovative, most dynamic economy; commander-in-chief of planet's richest, deadliest military; finger on button of nuclear arsenal containing more than 5,000 warheads; head-of-state of world's sole superpower; his Democrats have majorities in both U.S. House and Senate; recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize, apparently for general awesomeness.”

Also, the magazine said “The goal in compiling this list is to expose power and not glorify it, and over time reveal how influence is as easily lost as it is hard to gain.”

In the second position, figured the Republic of China’s President, Hu Jintao, whose is the leader of 1.3 billion people. Also is the leader of a country which grows around 8% per year, becoming the biggest exporter and importer of many products.

The list’s top ten is composed only for mans. Above Hu Jintao, in the 3rd position we have Vladimir Putin ( Russia’s Prime Minister), #4 Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve’s Chairman), #5 Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Founder’s Google), #6 Carlos Slim (Chief Executive Telmex), #7 Rupert Murdoch (Chairman News Corp.) #8 Michael Duke (President, CEO Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ), #9 Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud ( Saudi Arabia’s King), #10 William Gates III (Co-chair Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).

A curious fact that we can see is, among 67 names on the list, only three are woman. So the world’s most powerful woman is Angela Merkel, the Germany’ Chancellor, who’s figured in the 15th position. Two positions below; Hillary Clinton, the United States’ Secretary of State, who’s appeared above her husband, the ex-President of United States, Bill Clinton. The other woman being the list is the media personality, Oprah Winfrey, who is in the 45th position.

Also on the list were financial heavyweight including Warren Buffet, the world’s second richest person, in the 14th position. The man who’s manages $3 trillion dollars assets, BlackRock’s CEO, Laurence Fink, was in the 16th position.

The list includes names as Pope Benedict XVI, in the 11th position and Osama bin Laden in the 37th. Presidents as Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Brazil), #33 and Nicolas Sarkozy (France), #56.





All the people whose were in the list have more than 40 years-old, except the Google’s founders phenomenon, that have 36. The list can show us that, the power is often directly linked to the age, but that age has been decreasing in this decade, showing a multi-opportunity world.

Katata Felipe
Sakura Times, Department of International Politics and Economics