When it comes to the second coming of the cold war, things are not looking good for the leader of the "Free World", because for the second year in a row, at least according to Forbes editors, the person whom they have chosen as the world's most powerful in the world...
... is not the lame duck on the left.
From Forbes [2]:
Our annual ranking of the World’s 72 Most Powerful People (one for every 100 million people on the planet) is based on voting by a panel of FORBES editors, who consider things like financial resources, scope and use of power, and the number of people they impact. (See full methodology here [3].)
This is not a lineup of the most influential or an anointing of the new establishment. It is an evaluation of hard power. We insist the people on our list wield the kind of power that shapes and bends the world, and moves people, markets, armies and minds. All of this, of course, is open to debate, and we welcome it. Join the conversation and leave your comments below.
This year’s list features 17 heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of some $48 trillion. The 39 CEOs and chairs here control over $3.6 trillion in annual revenues. Among them are 14 founders, including the newcomer billionaires to the list, Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent’s Ma Huateng. Speaking of, this year’s class has 29 billionaires with a cumulative personal net worth valued in excess of $790 billion.
Below is the full list of Forbes' Most Powerful People in the World 2014:
- Vladimir Putin [4]
- Barack Obama [5]
- Xi Jinping [6]
- Pope Francis [7]
- Angela Merkel [8]
- Janet Yellen [9]
- Bill Gates [10]
- Mario Draghi [11]
- Larry Page [12] and Sergey Brin [13]
- David Cameron [14]
